Is Trinity Hall Cambridge right about elite schools?

[mids2019]

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2026/jan/07/cambridge-college-elite-private-schools-student-recruitment

Interesting position but maybe there are those at Cambridge that think encouraging students from the state sector has gone too far? Wonder if other colleges will follow suit.

I personally think Labour should finally finish the job they started in the 70s. It's completely ridiculous that state grammar schools still exist. I'm in my 60s and grammars where I grew up were abolished in the mid 70s. The inequality of the concept or grammars is dreadful.

Interestingly, I now live in Cambridge and work for the uni (not in admissions) and I understand that the celebrated Hills Rd Sixth Form College has been around for 50 years and was one of the city's four grammar schools before that.

Of course there is potential everywhere, but requiring Oxbridge to find it is a bit needles in haystack territory for them (sorry not quite right analogy but). The state schools should identify them and subsequently put them forward for Oxbridge.

I’d like to see you say that to Mary Beard, face to face ….

😂😂

@Newgirls I think that’s because you don’t understand classics!

Regarding grammar schools way back in the days of yore. My DH is a senior person in Cambridge. He was at a grammar school in the 70s. He was one of a handful of students from the school over the years who tried for Oxbridge, the only one in his cohort. They did teach Latin at the school, only a very few took the subject to O Level standard. O Level Latin was then a requirement for Cambridge. His college had a reputation for being Conservative down to some prominent political figures over time. However, the fellowship in the 80s - as now - has plenty of state school educated fellows. Yes, there are students who went to Eton etc. but it hasn't been difficult to get a good balance of students from across the board.

lol i studied some classics - it’s a lovely thing but right now in the world? The applications are falling - people need to think why. And it’s not a lack of clever people from state schools

Why is there no equivalent of the Kings Maths School (more and more of that ilk being opened) for Classics/languages and humanities at Sixth Form level? Why do these not feature in large cities for talented kids like they do for kids who are good at Maths/Physics?

At the top of education all earlier deficiencies show. I don't think targeting selective schools is correct but it is much easier to teach children who have had a rigiourous education. There are obviously some great state schools, I have sent DD to one and tutor also. If I didn't see how badly educated some young people are I would think this was completely wrong but as a policy it has some validity. I teach at undergrad and post grad levels and have come across students with very little study skills, limited accessment practice. I have come across students at degree level who do not start a sentance with a capital letter. This is hard to address as I have only a few hours with the students and that time is needed to teach the subject. I cannot do that and cover basic grammar. As a society I think we need to be more honest about what University can do and is for. It won't mature your kids for you and cannot totally keep them safe. It can't deliver 3rd level education and mop up primary school and secondary school deficiencies. I went to Oxbridge and it is the most academically competitive environment I was ever in. Being bright is not enough you need to be trained, its like entering a marathon mentally.

https://reports.ofsted.gov.uk/provider/40/130615

Page 3 of the Ofsted Report, all going on about Science and Tech and skills shortages.
The state education system in England is political.

Anyway, it is now an Academy.

And above all of this the thing that is rarely mentioned is family support and background. Those with a supportive family (and yes 2 parents), have better life chances than those who don’t.

St Paul's entrance exam for maths used to be most difficult one(not just difficult as QE or Wilson). Can't agree that "Maths is not some innate ability". It depends on the assessment method. You might be able to prepare the test of QE or Wilson, but not St Paul's exam.

@NewgirlsI suggest you go back and read some of the posts on this thread that explain what Cambridge academics (and, indeed, Universities) do, and how teaching undergraduates is only a small part of their jobs. It took me a while when I was young to get my head round the misconception that they were just the next level of school, teaching and examining harder stuff, in fact I didn’t catch on until after I started at Cambridge!

If Classics were cancelled how does anyone think it would help other students?
The 3 classicists I know all had A A level in ancient Greek and Latin, as well as A for every other A level and gcse. They are all seriously bright and could have done maths A level or any other A level that interested them. If they hadn't studied Classics they
wouldn't simply have disappeared, they would still have been at Oxford, but perhaps being competition in PPE or some other course that the offspring of previous posters might like to apply for.
Perhaps the answer is just to ban clever people from applying.

A star in Greek and Latin and all other exams. Sorry for bold text.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singapore-Cambridge_GCE_Normal_Level#:~:text=The%20Singapore%2DCambridge%20General%20Certificate,or%20Normal%20(Technical)%20stream.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secondary_education_in_Singapore

I don't know where you got that information.

Maybe they would have done well in maths, maybe not. But the fairest way is to offer a number of spots proportional to the demand for them.

Why?

Grammars did a great job of identifying kids with academic potential - Labour got rid of most of them, limiting social mobility in one fell swoop.

And wrote off a load of children at age 11. No social mobility happening there.

Social mobility was much better in the grammar school system. In it, children from the top socioeconomic quintile were three times more likely than children from the bottom to attend what are now called Russell Group universities. Now they are about ten times more likely.

This is understandable and entirely unrelated to the private sector. As Coe concluded for the Sutton Trust in 2008 - "if the choice is between ‘social selection, with academic selection as a by-product’, as appears to be occurring within the comprehensive system, and ‘academic selection, with social selection as a by-product’ as seems to be the case within grammar schools, then the latter could certainly be seen as more meritocratic".

@Marchesman I assume you do realise that in 1950 we only had around 20 universities and that many poor dc who passed for a grammar, never got to go because parents could not afford the uniform or the “extras” like transport.

My aunt passed but her sister didn’t. Her dad worked in a factory and no one else had a DD at a grammar and she didn’t go. Likewise my DHs dad was ostracized at his factory. There was very much a them and us issue around education with people saying you were abandoning your roots. It’s no different now in terms of not applying to the best universities.

The other is that very very few grammar school pupils went to university in the early 50s. There were hardly any universities! By the 60s, loads more had opened (plate glass universitues). I remember around 2 going to Oxford in the 7 years I spent at my grammar. It was rare. Over half my year group didn’t go to university and it was the same at DHs grammar too. Looking at where boys went from his grammar in the early 70s, (he has his school magazines!): it was local accountants, teacher training, engineering companies, family firms, police, civil service, local authority, surveying, retail management, banks etc. Of course many went on to be professionals but didn’t need a degree. However attending a grammar did depend on background and, to a great extent, ambition mattered in terms of university. This was Bucks and not far from London. The idea that the universities took all grammar dc even 50 years ago is not correct.

Responding to demand from students (and politicians) is the last thing that universities should be doing, that way disaster lies.

Medical schools were about ten years ahead of Cambridge in trying to achieve an intake that more closely resembled the general population. This also required a deprioritisation of prior academic attainment in their admissions processes. But the new students complained that the traditional science-heavy preclinical years were too difficult. The invention of student satisfaction scores, and a desire to open new medical schools which had no possibility of contact with academic science departments, meant that to varying degrees the basic medical sciences ceased to be taught - with predictable consequences.

@OhDear111

I think you should read my 12.56 post more carefully.

So you want a return to the good old days where if you went to a comprehensive and you wanted to do medicine or similar you simply were told that you'd be better off aiming for something easier ?

Hence the med, dentistry, law schools were stacked with the well off and a very small percentage of non-well off.. 🙄

Also, this argument that students at super-selective independents are 'Tim but dim' types is only trotted out by people who have literally no idea.

@esperanza5 saying that privately educated children are thick, entitled, spoon fed or whatever is just another opportunity to have a go at the enemy - people they perceive as rich and posh.