A level results day 2024

[Happyface246]

How’s everyone else feeling about results day? I’ve got one at uni already and 2nd dd hoping to go to Kent in September. She seems ok about it at the moment although think that will change as it gets closer. Me I’m so keeping my fingers crossed she gets what she wants, I know there will always be other options but she loved the open day. Going to struggle with this one going though as it has been a real journey to get to where she is.

Its a fair point, but personally I object to the outrage about what you like to call sharp elbowed middle class parents. So it's ok to punch up not down. Maybe they are just supportive parents who try to give their kids the best chance they can. Mine did that by taking us to interesting places, but via a caravan towed across Europe, we couldn't afford to fly with 5 of us in the 80s and 90s, but they focused on us. Taking me to pompeii at 10 helped get me into Cambridge 8 years later for classics. Some parents care, some don't, but its not the kid's fault. Sharp elbowed always seems like a get out for those that couldn't be bothered.

And my mum sat down with me every day, after getting home from work in pre A level time to hold the translation of my text and i worked from the original.Greek or Latin as did my dad. They really supported me. I guess they were holding the books open with their sharp middle class elbows.

On this thread it is definitely crass, and to be honest just stinks of sour grapes. Privilege is something to be acknowledged, understood and challenged, but when you can only build yourself/your DC up by bringing others down then that’s super unhealthy.

There are many types of privilege too - not just private school. I’m in NI where private schools aren’t really a thing, but we do have a very successful grammar school system across the country, and voluntary grammars in particular are better equipped than some other schools in the country. (Not private - just slightly differently funded - my fees for my DC to attend a voluntary grammar are approx £400 per year per child so not even close to private school) The class sizes tend to be smaller though and there isn’t the same range of ability for the teachers to cover as in a fully comprehensive system.

On the other hand, we’ve had some shit teachers over the years, and there is a real shortage of subject specialists in some subjects and that has affected my DC as much as pupils in non-selective schools. My eldest had 4 different teachers for GCSE Spanish for instance over the 2 years and a 2month period with cover teachers who were not subject specialists.

I do acknowledge that they are privileged to attend/have attended the schools they have however.

My DD achieved 2 Astar and 1 A at A level, as well as an additional B at AS level. You could look at her and think she only achieved those grades because she’s at a grammar school with smaller class sizes and other privileges, so her grades aren’t as valuable as the same grades from someone from a non-selective school. (which is effectively what’s been said upthread)

But what you would miss is that she also skipped a year group because of when we moved back to the UK, so skipped 2nd form altogether, had a mental breakdown during U6th, was diagnosed with ADHD in her first year of uni (with all the evidence of that really playing out during her A-levels), has continuing trauma from my cancer diagnosis when she was just starting secondary school and dealt with watching her beloved granda change to a completely different person over the last few years as Alzheimer’s has taken him away from us repeatedly.

It’s lazy and frankly disgusting to diminish the achievements of any of our young people - you have no clue what they’ve been through, and to suggest that an Astar from a comprehensive pupil is somehow worth more than one from a private/grammar/middle class/privileged (delete as appropriate) pupil is a disgrace.

if you look back it wasn’t me who raised it on this thread and I have certainly not done anyone down, I’ve just responded to the discussion that others are having. All of the young people who have recently got their results should be celebrated and celebrated.

😊

Quite. I, pre a stars, got 4 A grade a levels , ok, one was general studies, and an A AS level music as it couldn't be timetabled to do the whole thing. In that time, I had a lot of mental health stuff that would be recognised now but wasn't in the nineties, and my parents were my rocks.

Also, sometimes the private school is the right thing, my sisters and I went to the to the same one mum went to, my niece is there now. It worked or us, one of my teachers is teaching my niece . She's very much like me, nerdy, etc , but she passed the exam and is happy. It is so not the right school for niece 2, but she will have the right school for her, and sister is aware of that. But dismissing private school pupils as being handed a grades is silly, discriminatory, and bullshit.

I’m not sure anyone has said that private school children are handed their grades.

Nor that a child who achieves A*s at private school isn’t incredibly intelligent. Of course they are otherwise every child who attends such a school would achieve those grades.

As I said upthread the fact that some universities make contextual offers and the fact that some employers now blind recruit, is an acknowledgment of the fact that not every educational journey is equal. It never can be.

An acknowledgment of that diminishes nothing at all, it simply looks at context.

And yes some families make enormous sacrifices to secure the best fit education for their children which is very commendable. But some children don’t have that luxury. Some of those children are self motivated enough to want to change their own lot, I find that incredible. But again that takes nothing away from anyone’s attainment from any setting.

But blind recruitment is ridiculous if you think that a first from Southbank is the same as from Oxford. I totally don't agree with blind recruitment, and I say that as someone who nearly chucked someone's coming the bin as I'd seen where he went to secondary and his grades. I then looked more closely at the work experience, hired him, he did a degree while working for me and is flying. We're still friends.

What you really.need is good parents, and sadly a lot of kids don't have that

Bloody hell. I’ve recruited hundreds of people at all levels in my career and I’ve never considered where they went to school providing a) it existed and b) their education met the standard all candidates were required to meet.

Perfectly put.

There is nuance in life but not in seems in hot topics online. It’s possible for one thing to be true but another opposing thing also to be true.

No one is saying that a private school pupil with an A* doesn’t deserve it, or is not bright.

No one is saying that all private or comprehensive school pupils are the same.

I am celebrating my DCs success as I am celebrating the people we know’s successes - regardless of what school they attended, or whether they were top of the class in primary school. That’s what my pressure button is - gloating at children’s supposed misfortune.

Exactly life.

In our small city one of the state schools is more challenged - people move house to avoid it to get them into the other states or send their kids private. I admit I would be more impressed by a teen getting top grades from that school than from the other states and private - I just would.

It’s like the film Billy Elliott - has me in tears everytime there’s something about a young person achieving against the odds on their own that is amazing - there just is.

Dh is like this none of his family had even been to university his parents left school at 16 and were baffled by him. He got to Cambridge by his own merits no one from his school had gone before. When I look at the support we give our dds he had none of that and did it all himself with the help of some amazing state school teachers. Sorry to me that is more impressive.

I agree it's more impressive to get top grades with less support. But it's not necessarily as simple as stats vs private, which is why Oxbridge at least look at how people do compared to their peers, regardless of sector. Some state schools do better than some private schools, for various reasons.

Anecdata alert but I have two family members who recently left teaching in the state sector and became tutors. They were both surprised at how many private school students they have. One (humanities) said "it's amazing how shit some of the teaching is". He was tutoring a boy 3-4 times per week over the 3 weeks of Easter because unlike every school he had worked in, the boy's private school was not offering any revision support in the holidays. The other is a maths teacher and has a GCSE student who got 6 in his mock and needs a 7 to get on to the A level course. But his private school only teach 7+ content to top set and he is in set 2. When he asked for help at school he was told no. She thinks he can get 8 or 9 and he would have been helped to get there in the state schools she has taught in. Will find out tomorrow 🤞

In short, if you're comparing a state school and a private school and you assume that the private school gets better results, you're probably more likely to be right than wrong, mostly because the private school is much more likely to be selective. But state vs private tells so little of the story that it's not worth the argy bargy that it often seems to start imo.

In terms of class size, my DC is in a large state school and has classes of 6, 6, 12, 12, 15, 20 along with a few larger. That is GCSE level. Just how the classes worked out.

A level classes are always selective in state schools - you have to achieve a minimum in GCSE before being allowed to progress. The class sizes are also often smaller - definitely comparable to private in many cases.

The real difference is not resources - not all private schools are any better for this - it is parental involvement/attitude to education. A recent study found the best indicator of success was where parents had made an active decision regarding education. What that decision was was not significant.

My kids went private senior (state primary) and the teaching was definitely not better than state, it was pretty average at times according to my kids and the maths particularly had a high turnover of teachers. I’m still happy they went though as the overall experience of the school was far better than their friends at the local state.

I don't disagree with contextualisation (although my kids are in private) but it's worth bearing in mind there are lots of examples, as schools locally, e.g. a comp where there are about 10-12 sets for maths so a huge variation in ability. Those in the top sets are top selective school (grammar or indie) material but they get contextualisation as their grades are so much higher than those in set 12.

These kids in the top sets are from families with medics, PhDs, could have afforded private. And it's a very good school in a nice area.

In these examples, contextualisation seems to be stretched beyond what is reasonable.

But that doesn’t happen though.

Most people in state school don’t qualify for contextualisation. The criteria for contextualisation is much much more limited than that.

Contextualisation is more likely based on home postcode being in a deprived area or the child coming from a care setting or having refugee status.

When it comes to Oxford GCSE grades are based on cohort so in your example the child of the surgeon in the leafy comp might be treated less favourably than a child attending a poor performing fee paying school.

No system is perfect though & I know one family who claimed a child lived with the non resident parent to get reduced contextualised uni offers based on postcode.

DC's school gets below average GCSE results.
Still no contextualisation.
Most state schools aren't eligible.

(And in most genuinely comprehensive schools with 12 sets, the top set will be full of very academically able students. That's why it's called "comprehensive".)

That;s interesting. Our local comp gets higher than average GCSE results as the top 3 sets do well.

The top set is actually almost a separate school within a school and not a large group and gets great support. As I say, in these instances it seems weird that these kids should get contextualised offers. In a very affluent and leafy suburb too. And certainly seems bonkers if compared with your school.

The top sets at our comp are the biggest classes as they are easier to teach the lower the set the smaller it is

Our top set for maths has quite a range of students in it, it’s only in year 11 that those predicted 9s are siphoned off to a separate group. My daughter was left in the original top set and got 6s in maths and stats. Maths isn’t her thing though.

Anecdotally only 1 of the 4 state get contextual offers in our city often private school parents get very exercised about this but actually the better comps have the worst of all worlds - all the issues of state education teacher shortage difficult to expel pupils and no contextual offers.

The top 2 sets at our comp are combined in one if there are shortages of teachers, for the same reason. Class of 60, anyone?

You end up being grateful there is even a teacher!