Oxbridge: Blatant social engineering - not admission according to potential.

[Marchesman]

Despite resistance from some tutors, Cambridge University’s Access and Participation Plan 2020-21 to 2024-25 includes a target to increase the proportion of UK state sector students that is entirely separate and independent of aims for POLAR4 quintiles 1 and 2. Formulating admissions targets for the University of Cambridge’s Access and Participation Plan (2020-21 to 2024-25) | Cambridge Admissions Office

The university's own research in 2011 had "found no statistically significant differences in performance by school type, and there was no evidence of the phenomenon observed at other UK universities of state sector students outperforming their privately educated peers" https://www.cao.cam.ac.uk/sites/www.cao.cam.ac.uk/files/ar_gp_school_performance.pdf Subsequent data shows that students from independent schools performed better in examinations than students from state schools by 2015/16, at a level that is highly statistically significant: https://www.informationhub.admin.cam.ac.uk/university-profile/ug-examination-results/archive

Therefore, APP 2020-21 to 2024-25 makes no attempt to justify the state school target on the basis of student performance. In fact the only justification given is: "We recognise that school type is not a characteristic used by the OfS or contained within its Access and Participation dataset; we recognise too that the state versus independent binary masks a range of educational experiences…[however] each of the under-represented groups identified within this Plan appear in far greater numbers in state maintained schools, as do students from low income households who are not identified by any of the measures currently available to us."

The result of this can be seen in https://www.cao.cam.ac.uk/files/attainment_outcomes.pdf

In final degree examinations: "The per cent mark remained lower for the three secondary school types: • Comprehensive (estimate = -0.70, SE = 0.19, t = -3.63, p< 0.001); • State grammar (estimate = -0.98, SE = 0.19, t = -5.22, p< 0.001); • State other (estimate = -0.87, SE = 0.20, t = -4.32, p< 0.001)" To put this into context, these are the figures for students with "cognitive or learning difficulties (estimate = -0.88, SE = 0.33, t = -2.67, p< 0.01)"

Regarding the acquisition of a First: "The probability of the outcome remained lower for the three secondary school types: • Comprehensive (coefficient = -0.20, SE = 0.06, z = -3.13, p< 0.01); • State grammar (coefficient = -0.30, SE = 0.06, z = -4.81, p< 0.001); • State other (coefficient = -0.24, SE = 0.07, z = -3.57, p< 0.001)"

Selection according to potential? Really?

@JustanothermagicMonday1
It is an observable phenomenon in London, for sure.

You don't have to look very far to find it on Mumsnet either.

@ProggyMat - I mean what people disparagingly refer to as a “bog standard comprehensive” - one that rarely sends children to Oxford or Cambridge, one that achieves respectably average or above average results for its cohorts, one that parents are generally happy with and which fairly represents the demographic of the community around it, because it is neither too bad nor pushy, nor too near bad or pushy schools to be particularly threatened by them (with the exception of the parents who can pay to avoid it). The results of the unusually able and self-motivated children in these schools really stand out, because the pushiest parents who are supplying the majority of the motivation for their children’s Oxbridge applications have all moved to specific tiny areas of the country to cram their children into the same tiny pool of schools, somewhat unnecessarily, imvho, as their kids then get lost in the crowd (because they are scared their children will be corrupted by the insufficiently competitive otherwise).

And @ProggyMat - I do not actually mean these schools will enable the poorest to get into Oxford or Cambridge without outreach, just that the already privileged need to recognise their privilege a bit more and not think they need to keep grabbing bigger slices in order to achieve.

I have not doubt that DD will have to work very hard as an F1. However friends are describing their London experience as chaotic and overwhelming. The person she knows who opted for the same (unpopular) deanery as her said it was good. As an F1 you are not thrown in at the deep end, but by F2 you are being given more responsibility as people have the time to recognise you are capable.

I suspect medicine, at least in the early years is going to be tough. The stage after F1/F2 involves working full time and sitting exams. Given so many dropout, there can be advantage in pacing yourself. Our young people will have long working lives and they may as well set out to enjoy each stage.

The bulk of parents even int he SE are not in the "in and out club". There are some parents who are not particularly well off who have always gone for state primary and then 11+ to academic private schools and state grammars in areas with grammars and pay if the child fails to get into the grammar. Some will move to private for sixth form too. However the chopping and changing between sectors later tends to be if you just cannot really afford the fees. I certainly would never have considered a state school not having been to one nor wanting one for my children if that might have meant a slightly higher chance of oxbridge if they moved to a state school at 14 or 16. It would be unfair on the children and not even particularly fair on the schools.

There is some "in and out club" going on but not very much. A very very few boys from my sons' class did go to state sixth form and one out of about 40 boys at 11 went to state grammar from their fee paying school but just about everyone else continued on to the private sector right through to age 18.

Btw, I also agree with the poster(s) who said that austerity then covid have had a devastating effect on all state schools and increased the inequalities that cause problems in the education sector and society as a whole. Post-covid behaviour of children is dramatically worse, all schools are spending far more time dealing with mental health issues, and teachers are indeed leaving some schools in droves due to low morale, resulting in classes of children teaching themselves their A-level subjects from textbooks. So for parents with the money to keep their children in private schools who hope to garner an advantage by briefly using state provision, now is not a canny time to dip your toe in the state sector - better to stay put, rather than assume the grass is greener anywhere else. State schools have been run into the ground, short-sightedly, as the private sector cannot fill in the cracks that have opened up.

@Walkaround
"The poorest who don’t know or care what they are missing out on will not be dragged kicking and screaming into Oxbridge by anybody - the whole structure of society would have to change before they can be motivated to believe that anything they ever do will make a difference to their condition."

I can scarcely believe I just read that.

If you can afford it and your child is happy and thriving you would be utterly mental to move your child from private to a state school to garner some minor perceived advantage on a ucas form. And I say that as a state educated person whose children are in the state sector. Maybe pre 2019 now no way. You would lose far more than you would gain (if anything)

Like I could scarcely believe it when I read that it is sport and men with a military background who are the secret behind the success of public schools.

Although pleased to provoke a response from someone who has said they think it’s too late to reach out at university level, because they think it’s too late by then, but who now can scarcely believe it.

It’s naive to think otherwise. Most people are a product of their background - staff and teachers at state schools have to work very hard to urge pupils from some backgrounds into universities/ the professions even though they are just as able as the middle class kids who see that path as “normal”Family members have devoted their lives to doing this - but you can only push so hard people do self limit and stick to what they know.

Rummikub if you let Liverpool know about those extenuating factors then they will admit those students under different criteria. The WP team are v good.

@mumsneedwine

already asked and whilst I hear shocked tones and sympathetic noises im not getting anything concrete back unfortunately.

@Walkaround

I don't think it is too late, that is what the evidence shows, for example:
"Focusing policy interventions on encouraging disadvantaged pupils at age 18 years to apply to university is unlikely to have a major impact on reducing the raw socio-economic difference in university participation and in particular is not likely to increase participation by the lowest SES pupils markedly. Our results controlling for age 16 years achievement suggest that there may be some gain from targeting lower SES pupils with good GCSE results but, again, this relatively late intervention is unlikely to result in a large increase in the HE participation rates of low SES pupils as compared with interventions to improve achievement at, say, age 11 years or earlier in primary school." Chowdry 2013.

Where is your evidence that poor people don't give a flying f**k about the education of their children?

@Marchesman - Where is your evidence I said any such thing? You have effectively agreed with me twice now - you’re not going to get someone from the most disadvantaged background into Cambridge by pretending to them they’ll get on fine there after 18 years of neglect - you would have to drag them there, kicking and screaming, because it’s not a world they know anything about, or care about, because it has no relevance to their lives by then, after an entire childhood of being left behind. And don’t pretend this is fixed by a few token bursaries from public schools at the age of 14, because you know that is bollocks. This is only fixed by creating a society that does not tolerate these great divides opening up in the first place. Enough lecturing about gaming the system from the hugely wealthy who pompously inform the middle classes that they are taking more than their fair share of resources and not mixing properly with the poor, as though those paying full fees for an English public school spend their time hanging out on council estates.

@Walkaround

Here:

Walkaround · Today 19:03
The poorest who don’t know or care what they are missing out on will not be dragged kicking and screaming into Oxbridge by anybody - the whole structure of society would have to change before they can be motivated to believe that anything they ever do will make a difference to their condition.

@Walkaround

Private schools are a complete irrelevance to anyone but the pushy middle class who can't afford them. They make effectively no difference to very low SES pupils (apart from those who actually make up the 2% or so who get a free ride through private schools).

Private schools have not become more socially selective in the last forty years they have become less, while the state sector has become more. Low SES schools during this time have not been progressively excluded from private schools they have been progressively excluded from good state schools.

If this had not happened it would not be necessary to mess about making the cosmetic changes under discussion. The fact is that only 5% of FSM eligible pupils who get as far as taking A levels achieve 3A grades or better and they are more likely to be the wrong ones. That is the result of wholesale hoarding of privilege within the state sector by the chattering middle classes.

To attempt to pass responsibilty for this onto others is disgusting.

Low SES pupils during this time

@Marchesman - “To attempt to pass responsibilty for this onto others is disgusting.” 🤣And who is it who is blaming the “chattering middle classes”? You think the global elite make no difference to anyone? What sort of schools do they send their children to, then?

It’s hilarious that the hoarding of money by a tiny minority is considered by some to make no difference to anybody.

Oh dear me. The 'chattering middle classes'😂

@Walkaround

The lack of self awareness in your comments is astonishing. First you blame poor people for lacking motivation, and then you non-specifically blame rich people - for existing presumably.

On reflection that probably summarises the middle class consensus. It is hardly surprising that state education is a disaster. I am agog to see if people agree with you on this thread.

I agree with Walkaround on this thread.

Walkaround dix points. Marchesman nil points.

Also, I am not middle class, so does my assessment count for more?

I knew I could rely on you goodbyestranger.