Classics at Oxbridge

[twistyizzy]

DD is only 13 but has loved Classics since Yr 3/4. She is pretty set on doing it at GCSE, A-Level + uni. She already does Latin + classics at school, top of each class plus reads for her leisure and has just finished the Pat Barket + Natalie Haynes series. She is about to start The Odyssey. Zero pressure from us, this is all driven by her.
My dad went to Cambridge to study Classics and she is obsessed with doing the same. Again, zero pressure from us as DH and I went to RG but not Oxbridge.
So my question is, bearing in mind she could change her mind but is unlikely to, what can we do to support her in terms of supra curricular? I know Oxbridge do outreach, taster days etc but they seem to be aimed at Yr 12 + 13 only.
I'm not thinking of now but maybe Yr 10 + 11 to help her make decisions about A level options etc.

I’ve said this before on Oxbridge admissions threads but there is no incentive for tutors to want to do anything but offer places to the strongest candidates regardless of school type. The difference having motivated and able students with the desire and potential to thrive on the course, makes to your quality of work life as a tutor is huge, because you are seeing them so intensively and in such small groups. It really is the difference between your working week being a joy and it being a grind. That is going to strongly motivate tutors against admitting on the grounds of political bias in either direction, because they are the ones who have to live with the fall out if they make decisions on grounds other than academic merit and potential. There are not rules about balance and statistics, even secret ones - it’s just a myth made up by both wings of the media.

What is true in Classics is that a very successful outreach programme (nationally, not just at Oxbridge) combined with a growth in Class Civ at state schools has led to an increase in state school applications, which obviously means an increase in the proportion of state school students being offered a place.

I was referring to Eton, Winchester etc. Those are schools where Classics will be extremely well taught and tbh I can completely see why some tutors might well prefer to teach a student with that background, over one who's starting from scratch. I gather from DD4 that the breakdown of which category of Classics student bags the most firsts is very interesting. The gender balance in particular is striking (very male heavy) and that may well be because the students from the big name schools on Course I have a significant advantage due to the quality and length of their classical education. That's not to say they aren't extremely talented - obviously they are if they get a first.

In the state school world funding is too stretched to offer Classics for the most part. Our HT would have loved to offer classical languages but it just couldn't happen.

That's absolutely how it should be foxglovetree but the undergrads certainly see certain tutors at certain colleges as being a bit retro in their preferences. It must be at least arguable that a motivated applicant who has seven years of Latin behind him is going to make the working week less of a grind than an identically motivated student who has no background learning at all.

Also the state school numbers (and I don't know - I haven't looked) doing CAAH may well be healthy and increasing but I was really talking about the Classics course with the requirement to learn Latin and or Greek from scratch. That course requires additional skills and is a tough ask unless a student has exceptional language ability. Are the numbers increasing there too? I assume from what you say they are. I know that DD4's senior tutor was very keen that they should.

Is it political anyway? Or just a desire to open up a subject a tutor loves to students who it's not been an option for? There's an argument that with Classics this isn't political in the way it might be with mainstream school subjects.

Where I live in London, if you want to do Classics or MML (let’s say German) then you absolutely know that some of the top grammar schools do it and have tiny class sizes and 1:1 in language tuition that I challenge any top private school to compete with. The kids are clever with strings of 9s and they get loads of attention. Same applies in eg Music.
Everything is entirely political now. Including the exam boards with ahem charitable status. The Labour Government is covering up, just as the Tories did.

Kids in state schools doing music, classics, MML and kids in private schools doing it too - it is a good thing and should be championed and encouraged!

What I would love is funding for online courses in Latin/Greek across all Sixth Forms or possibly even remote teaching out of hubs, so that MML/Classics can keep running and as many children have access to it as would enjoy it and benefit from it. MML is a little harder because you need the live speaking ideally. Our grammars all have a German language student from Germany, for example.

Interestingly, doing the Sixth Form round right now a lot of grammars are saying please make yourself stand out by choosing something different from the usual. Let’s say a Medic doing Biology, Chemistry plus Latin and Greek. Whether the grammars are just desperate to have pupils in the Classic department rather than too many in Maths and Economics or whether it actually then helps with uni admissions and shows how broad you are, I do not know.

Latin in all schools was the only thing I ever agreed with Boris Johnson on. It's so helpful for other European languages as well as being interesting in itself.

Araminta1003 London is an educational bubble with its own microclimate. One of the main issues of diversity at Oxbridge now which is a focus is the disproportion of students from London and the SE. the rest of the country is woefully underrepresented. You can't extrapolate fairly from the London experience.

My DC were at a super selective with an outstandingly good SLT. There was no money for Classics. Often no money for a second MFL at A level either.

Yes numbers for the ab initio courses have increased significantly over the last decade, along with a huge increase in CAAH. You are right that it requires real motivation and linguistic aptitude on the part of the students, but if they have that, then they can do very well and end up as good at if not better than those who have the language from school (as they get much more intensive language tuition.)

The reason I say 'political' is because of the Oxbridge bashing from both wings of the political spectrum, where regularly the right wing papers will run stories about how Oxbridge is biased towards state schools because the dons are woke Marxists, and the left wing papers will run stories about how Oxbridge is biased against state schools because the dons are tweed-wearing toffs who only want to associate with people who know how to use a fish knife correctly. There is a supposition in those stories that admissions decisions are based on political leanings, which they really aren't.

Araminta I'm sure - having been a governor at a super selective for many years - that the schools will want to reduce class sizes in some subjects and increase take up in others, for economic and logistical reasons. But they're also making a virtue of necessity with the stand out from the crowd approach.

@ThatllBeTheDay - there is no money in our grammars either. It is a choice the head teacher makes out of principle. That they will keep running Classics and MML, even at a loss.

This country has no joined up thinking, they cannot organise shit.

The uni sector, for example, is going to end up being fine. Not because of anything our Government is doing, but despite it. Because the Chinese are pumping trillions and trillions right now to get their economy going. That is the control they have.

One thing the Labour Government absolutely must do as well as sort out SEND is to provide centralised funding for Arts subjects, MML and Classics.

Look long term it is important we have British children who speak German and that we invest in it. That is a long term diplomatic and political decision that has to be made if you think long term.

Araminta1003 there was no shortage of principle on the part of our HT. There was however a lack of money. It was far worse a few years ago but London still isn't comparable to many or most of the regions.

And frankly instead of fighting eg Eton and the private school sector, getting charitable input from them into Classics into state schools is exactly the kind of thing I would have championed if I were in charge, but the numpties at the top have no clue, as usual.

foxglovetree wasn't the ab initio course only introduced around a decade ago? So that in the nature of things you'd expect numbers to increase significantly?

I understand why you use the term 'political' and I've read the stories over and over again across the years. But I do think there's an argument that certain tutors and colleges and people in the faculty may actually want to spread the love rather than being motivated by the general drive to increase state school numbers. Perhaps I'm wrong. DD4's tutors were hugely enthusiastic, so perhaps I'm generalising from the particular too much.

“One of the main issues of diversity at Oxbridge now which is a focus is the disproportion of students from London and the SE. the rest of the country is woefully underrepresented. You can't extrapolate fairly from the London experience.“

And is Eton College not trying to set up some great Selective Sixth Form Schools precisely to address that yet the strongholds there are resisting it, because they worry that all top kids will congregate in those schools?

Labour have just scrapped the Eton programme in Middlesbrough

@twistyizzy - such a shame. How dare the charitable Eton College endowment fund set up to benefit poorer students to access education be used precisely for its original purpose!
I bet Labour do understand it but are just too cowardly that the DailyFail will spin it the other way and they Labour care more about that than the poorer students who would benefit.

This is a tangent but one of our London grammars has this for Mandarin

https://www.britishcouncil.org/school-resources/languages/mandarin-excellence-programme

We need lots of programmes like this. Maybe Labour will resist because it’s hard work and selective?

While private schools may be charitable in status; but effectively the government is taking it away, by removing the tax relief - first VAT on school fees; and iirc, they will be losing the rates relief too? We are not sure about Gift Aid.

However, if schools don’t get the benefits of being a charity, why do things like bursaries, allowing state schools the use of their sports facilities or outreach programs? Or rather, fee paying parents may complain why are they paying increased fees to fund all this?

(Eton may be really wealthy, but I doubt all private schools are?)

No it’s been around since the early 90s. When I was an undergraduate at Oxford it had already been running for a decade or so but made up a small minority of Classics students - now I don’t know the exact proportions but it makes up a substantial group.

O was ahead of C then, I went in 95 and you had to have Latin but not Greek. I reckon about a third had Greek A level, so heavily private school in that respect.

And yes Classics tutors certainly want to spread the love - hence such a flourishing outreach programme. People spend a huge amount of time doing schools events etc just out of enthusiasm. But I don’t believe anyone would let someone in on the course just to spread the love if they weren’t also a very strong applicant - as others have said it is a linguistically demanding course and it is not fair to admit a student who won’t cope.

I was just trying to suggest that perhaps a tutor having a preference for the state school novice over the long time classical language student from a highly privileged educational background, where both are equally strong (factoring in the contextual stuff) and equally motivated, might be about spreading the love rather than political as such. I don't for a moment think that a relatively weak applicant for the ab initio course would be given preference, if only because, as you say, it could end in tears and effectively waste a place if they rusticated.