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?

@Walkaround - of course it could be done and gear could be provided to schools directly etc. However, head teachers and other involved parties, MPs need to get involved to get it off the ground. All these companies will be trying to find things to show they are making a difference and that potential needs to be tapped.

As regards the tutoring, of course it appears to be ridiculous. However, it is also a great business opportunity - just wait for the Next Door Tutoring App to be launched…

In addition, online tutoring is a great way for students who need to work to make some money (pays much better than working in a bar etc and they can use their actual skills).

@JustanothermagicMonday1 The gear was promised during covid. It mostly didn’t arrive, and numbers needing it have increased exponentially since then, due to the increase in the cost of living. Properly funded, well co-ordinated schemes would be very useful. More funding for schools to deal with an explosion in mental health issues and poor, anti-social or downright dysfunctional behaviour would also be useful. Instead, schools are pressed by the DfE to clamp down on persistent absences, which can be dealt with cheaply by alienating families with stern letters, fixed penalty fines and prosecutions, but not dealt with properly on a shoestring by treating schools like they are unpaid social workers and police, not educational establishments. Years of austerity, followed by Brexit which magnified the problems caused by austerity, followed by covid, followed by wars and inflation, have created a dreadful mess. All of which was exacerbated by an intensely relaxed attitude to how wealth was being created and where the money was ending up.

“@JustanothermagicMonday1 The gear was promised during covid. It mostly didn’t arrive, and numbers needing it have increased exponentially since then, due to the increase in the cost of living. Properly funded, well co-ordinated schemes would be very useful. More funding for schools to deal with an explosion in mental health issues and poor, anti-social or downright dysfunctional behaviour would also be useful. Instead, schools are pressed by the DfE to clamp down on persistent absences, which can be dealt with cheaply by alienating families with stern letters, fixed penalty fines and prosecutions, but not dealt with properly on a shoestring by treating schools like they are unpaid social workers and police, not educational establishments. Years of austerity, followed by Brexit which magnified the problems caused by austerity, followed by covid, followed by wars and inflation, have created a dreadful mess. All of which was exacerbated by an intensely relaxed attitude to how wealth was being created and where the money was ending up.”

I agree with the above. I am hopeful there will be more funding for certain types of schools (and all state schools as well) from Central Government.
https://www2.deloitte.com/ce/en/pages/global-business-services/articles/esg-explained-1-what-is-esg.html

My point however, was primarily that the private sector also has a role to play in outreach and that ESG requirements, in particular, could end up translating to something concrete, if tapped properly, in terms of help in certain communities. Let’s say a bank may have to show things like educating certain customers on how not to go into a debt spiral or teach school kids about finance. Metro Bank already does this in London and Outer London. We need things like this in other parts of the country to level the playing field and that was my point. That communities need to be aware and try and get help of the private sector in things like this. https://www.metrobankonline.co.uk/about-us/press-releases/news/metro-bank-puts-kids-in-the-money-zone/
Or here you go, Pizza Express https://www.pizzaexpress.com/kids/school-visits - they specifically state “And it’s all thanks to one inquisitive teacher who, back in 1999, asked if her pupils could cook with us for the day.”

I am not saying teachers should now add to do their to do lists and go out and tap the private sector. I am just saying be aware it is there and head teachers, MPs, PTAs etc should be aware that ESG requirements could translate to some help if tapped properly and cleverly.

We have so many things along those lines Metro Bank/Pizza Express in state primary in London enriching children’s experiences and lots of primaries do offer a range of clubs etc as well.

You know what, I think state schools in traditionally more well off areas also need to start learning from state schools in traditionally less well off areas which have found ways to deal both effectively and humanely with poor behaviour so that learning can still take place, because the effects of financial stress and malfunctioning home lives, on top of large numbers of refugees from Syria, Afghanistan, etc, have flooded into schools that were totally unprepared for it, as they are not set up to deal with it on that scale, so do not have the behaviour management strategies, staff and support systems in place to cope with that level of need. All communities have had their equilibrium disturbed. The Government just point blank refuses to engage with the reality of the level of need and quite how urgent the need is, because the spiral down is rapid, but the recovery will take forever if they keep letting good people quit the teaching profession due to low morale, disrespect from Government and a lack of proper support.

@Walkaround - I agree that learning has to go both ways.

DCs went to a church primary school. The school just tapped the parents and the church community for volunteers to read with children who needed the extra help and support and free uniform etc and even food. If there are only 3-5 children per class with extra needs and everyone else reads daily with their children at home etc then the school can easily put on daily small intervention groups with TAs and volunteers for those few kids. It is a question of numbers. There are no behaviour issues in this school to deal with because only a few kids encountering difficulties is manageable. The school regularly takes children in care, refugees and adoptees etc and has success with their outcomes.

I know I am limited to my own area but each primary school locally is its own community with differing needs and its own microcosm. The Council know exactly which schools are struggling the most.

@goodbyestranger

I only skim your posts so perhaps I am wrong, but I had the impression that you briefly dipped your children into the independent sector to get them through the eleven plus, and now you say that you were involved in admissions policy/widening participation for a grammar school? Wouldn't that be like putting a fox in charge of a hen house? In fact it would be more comparable to putting a fox in charge of chicken recruitment, after it had killed all the hens, burned down their house, and put the farmer out of business.

Regarding your question, to help Cambridge University fulfil its commitment specified in 2020- 21 to 2024-25 Access and Participation Plan (APP) it set out to complete an investigation of the reasons behind gaps in attainment "before determining appropriate reduction targets". I attached in my original post, which is therefore repeated at the top of every subsequent page, a link to a summary of the results of the quantitative analysis of their attainment outcomes and the links between various student characteristics and such outcomes. Their univariate and multivariate modelling demonstrated significant attainment gaps for three metrics: Good honours, firsts and marks. When all other factors were controlled for, the probability of achieving a first was lower for grammar school students than for any other school type, as was the percent mark. Grammar schools and "state other" even did significantly worse in the broadest category of good honours, although here their relative positions were reversed, i.e. state other did worse than grammar.

So yes, there is a statistical significance between educational background and subsequent performance, and grammar schools do not come out of it well. However, the university is evidently happy to gloss over this fact, even though they highlight equivalent attainment gaps when they are associated with ethnicity.

Hence my use of the term 'social engineering'.

@JustanothermagicMonday1 - well, the Council/Local Authorities might know if the Government were not quite so intent on academisation of all schools! Councils might be more effective at providing more support if they were better funded, too (and hadn’t made stupid investment choices - naming no Kent County Councils). I agree some schools are much better set up than others due to help from engaged parents with the time, contacts and resources. Size of school also makes a difference - small works if parents are all well off and engaged; bigger works better otherwise, due to economies of scale, so wider range of employees affordable, ability to move children away from each other if there are issues, increased likelihood of a wider socio-demographic spectrum of pupils rather than one extreme or the other. Whatever people like to argue, it is not my experience with my children that children from different socioeconomic backgrounds keep themselves apart anyway - not if they have mixed since primary school and their parents have not interfered to prevent this (eg ensuring no invitations home, etc). Problems arise when people become tribal about their groups, and that starts with the parents, or with being in an area where one group massively predominates.

That is one reason grammar schools were stopped in most areas (in about 1970s in Newcastle where I am from) and the Sutton Trust I believe a few year ago found that there was no improvement for those in area with grammars once other factors were taken out; presumably because supposedly less children are weeded out before 11+ and never fufil their potential the secondary modern from which not many go on for A levels.
I certainly think all the nations of the UK should have an identical system however as it is not fair that areas differ in what is supposed to be one nation with one set of state schools to which all tax payers contribute.

Well Marchesman I've no idea how you get the idea that I dipped my DC into any particular sector. If you can show me a post where I may have created the impression, then do please copy and paste. Besides, I would suggest that since my DC have managed to get to Oxford, any idea that they needed help to pass the 11+ would have been way over the top. For absolute clarity, they needed no tutoring support during their education either, in case you level that one too, indeed they cleaned up at GCSE and A level with top grades. I let them get on with it: if it ain't broken, don't fix it.

On clarity, I think I prefer that of Cambridge, which found no significant difference Your own posts are so convoluted as to be almost unintelligible.

@goodbyestranger Your dog is lovely. I wrote out a whole post, but find I can't be bothered to engage with most of this. More stranger dog, please.

Fair enough Goodbyestranger, put it down to skimming. I evidently confused you with someone else who had eight(?) children and used the private sector in that way, after all it is an obvious strategy for an outlay that amounts to peanuts compared with a traditional private education. But as you say, Oxford entry is clearly a great deal more selective than grammar school entry.

However, the fact remains that the data that I have described belongs to Cambridge University. You will find no contemporary evidence to support your contention that there is no difference in performance according to school type. You may be referring to older data (Parks 2012), predating the university's push for more students from state schools, which is still egregiously cited by the university in its publicity material.
https://www.cao.cam.ac.uk/admissions-research/school-background

In the light of this your position is perfectly understandable - but you have been misled.

Well I put it down to rather crude fishing rather than skimming Marchesman, it's all extremely odd. You seem very bitter but I'm not clear why the Cambridge policy should prompt this level of unhappiness in an individual.

Ah thank you so much Dahlia! Well I was on my way out of this thread too, having reached serious levels of enervation. The younger dog has a not quite so photogenic uncle as well, who is also lovely but in a different way. They're both exhausted in the Scottish heat and sleeping atm but I shall try to oblige later, in the cool of the evening. I've never posted a photo before, it was purely in response to a snippy post casting doubt on the fact of the dog. And since distant mountains had been mentioned by OP simply in order to be scoffed at, I thought I'd throw in the range across the water as a bonus :) I might possibly post any other pic in the current Oxbridge thread, so as to get away from this one!

Well, @Marchesman, it may be possible they need to refine the way they select from the state sector, so as to catch out those who are even more tutored and groomed than those from the private sector (there is no other easy way of explaining any possible consistent and significant underperformance of students from grammar schools that I can think of), but in no way can it be argued that they have drained the state sector of talent. It is an entirely defensible conclusion that there is still a far larger number of appropriately talented students in the state sector than the private sector whose potential they still have not tapped and who should therefore be focused on, rather than taking the lazy option of sticking with private schools, grammar schools and a select handful of comprehensive schools, sixth form colleges and further education providers. So many still just don’t choose to apply in the first place, and if Cambridge wishes to woo them, then so be it. I can see that setting the target before they have successfully persuaded more to apply could cause problems (cart before horse), but as Cambridge does not want to lower the quality of its offer, I am sure it will concentrate minds in terms of outreach. How successful it will be at picking up people of lower SES through this means, heaven only knows at this point in time. I don’t doubt it will succeed with some, or will sneakily start fulfilling that aspect of its remit in the manner you suggest, but I don’t think Cambridge desires anything other than to remain genuinely competitive and to attract the students with the greatest potential.

Somehow I seem to have missed a cute dog picture. 🐶

😂

@goodbyestranger

Bitter? Not in the least. No skin off my nose.

But I am both fascinated and amused that someone who can presumably walk and chew gum at the same time could have "no issue with it whatsoever" and think it is an "excellent policy".

Marchesman I am looking at the tables in the link on your original post. Please could you point me to the bit where it says that grammar school kids regularly underperform. I simply can't see it. I can see tables in pretty colours but nothing specific which slates grammars. Not doubting it particularly - indeed I can think of a few reasons why it might be so - but I can't find the section or sections which show it.

How can anyone seriously get wound up about this stuff? We are talking about individuals. These Dc are not all the same. They have all sorts of reasons why they perform well or are not so great. How they are selected doesn’t bother me either. So many other options are available and they can do just as well elsewhere. So does it really matter to anyone? Walking dogs is infinitely better.

@Xenia In Bucks secondary moderns, the majority have 6th forms. One or two since the 1970s. They do have many taking A levels. Granted, not FM so much but DC go to many universities despite not getting to the grammar at 11 or moving at post gcse.

Here you go from tonight's walk Dahlia. I felt bound to include a pic of much more loyal but less photogenic Uncle Johnny, in the interests of equity.

Here he is

Uncle Johnny

These photos win the thread!

Thank you so much!