Private schools 'handicapped by university targets'

[Sonatensatz]

Just read an article in the times commenting that new government targets for universities to take more pupils from state schools is putting those in private schools at a disadvantage, essentially because if their are two equal students the universities should prioritise the state schooled child with an addition that they should lower the grade boundaries for state schooled children. (sorry can't link it's behind the pay barrier)

The article got me thinking that surely the fairest way to select students for university would be to remove the requirement for them to put their school on the application form. Each student could be provided with a reference from their school or college on a standard form which didn't reveal the school on it. That way each pupil would be assessed on their merits and not on the type of school they went to.

Also if, as it seems part of the issue is the level of extra coaching private schooled children get to get them through the exams perhaps a scheme (supported by businesses or private schools as part of the requirement for them to benefit the wider community in order to gain charitable status) could be set up to identify the most talented disadvantaged youngsters from across the country and provide them with bursaries to access extra tuition.

What do others think?

A tutor is peanuts compared to private fees.I often wonder how advantageous tutoring actually is as what really matters is the quality of teaching all day and every day not an hour of add on tutoring per week by somebody with dubious qualifications.

If parents want to spend their money on tutoring it's something open to far more kids and if it raises standards would only be a plus to a class as a whole.

prairie students applying to Oxbridge are usually already predicited or have achieved the top grades. What more can they realistically do?

Are we really saying that tutors at Oxbridge should turn down an applicant with top grades, good PAT scores, and a good interview in favour of someone with lesser grades?

Are we really saying that will improve Oxbridge?

Because except in extremely unusual situations, a student with lesser grades is not going to succeed there. And the unusual situations are already being flagged up and concessions made.

Excellent state school applicants are not ebing turned down at present. State school applicants are currently being turned down for having the wrong grades, the wrong subjects, not reading around the subjects, poor PAT test resulst etc etc.

If we insist that Oxbridge have a quota then they will be forced to take some applicants who are not right. And won't be ready.

I think this is a ridiculous argument tbh - trying to ascertain by just how much a state school pupil's grades should be topped up, or a private school pupil's should be discounted is (obviously, to me at least) going to be unfair unless you look at every child at every school and every background. Which clearly isn't feasible.

So what you do is: abolish the private sector altogether. Improve state provision. And work at eradicating poverty altogether. Try as hard as we can to give every child the same (good) start in life.

Now I am going to run away!! :)

It is absolutely true that you buy advantage if you pay for school. My son was pretty spoon-fed as regards the admissions process for medicine and given mock interviews by medical school admissions staff etc. Contrast this with one of his fellow unviersity medics, who was told by his state school that the UKCAT was an enhanced CRB check.

It is as much about navigating the system as getting the A level results. Oxford and Cambridge (esp Cambridge with their supplementarty form) and medical schools make this very complicated for students for whom this is uncharted waters.

I mean, is there any evidence that the LNAT or HPAT etc levels the playing field at all, or is it just another hurdle at which many state school students will falter?

Obviously some state schools are good at this stuff. Most are not.

Yes, wordfactory; that's my point too. Applicants from ALL sectors who aren't ready won't like it once they get here.

What we need is for the state sector to devote more resources to its top achievers than it does at present. At the moment it often fails them.

My own DS is at an FE college - his choice since he had a scholarship at a private school - in a mentoring role. Yesterday he told me one of his mentees had been prepped badly for statistics by the teacher, who hadn't told him how to use tables. He was amazed, as his teachers there are very good, but it's this kind of minor problem which lets down the very hard-working and able kids and tutors.

I absolutely don't believe that Oxford gives a monkey's nut about the 'other things' that private schools add, supposedly and whatever they are, but we do care about the academic preparation, so that could be replicated EASILY in the state sector if there was the political will to do it. The many very good 6th form colleges are exemplary in this respect.

It's economic lunacy to throw away so many of our most talented young people...

The son of a friend of mine applied to Oxford to read PPE. He is, by anyone's standards, highly accomplished - fluently quadrilingual (including one unusual language), very widely/deeply travelled (not in the holidaying sense of the word), had relevant work experience with MPs in two countries, national prize for mathematics, climbed Mont Blanc as a teen etc etc. Went to a top school in France and was among the top 1/1000 in his bac. Also very pleasant company, not at all arrogant.

He didn't get in (he was interviewed). That's the level competition.

of competition

How do you know that.If they have achieved amazing results and gone to a shite school I'm sorry they have every right to be at Oxbridge as somebody with slightly better results that have had huge advantages in getting those results.It's an unfair playing field not to acknowledge this.

Oxbridge are going to take anybody with shite grades but the best from a less advantageous system.

By not right or not ready I'm guessing you mean not born with a plum in their mouth and not having had the best education that money can buy.I find it a bit patronising that the little people might not be right or ready just because they're a few points behind somebody that has had years of a superior education and quite possibly life experiences. A superior education and life experience shouldn't give any child more of a right than another.

I find it bloody sad that my super bright son won't have a hope in hell of getting into Oxbridge simply because less or equally bright kids will have had years of a superior education and life experience.It's not fair and not right.

And I totally agree with Sticky but clearly that isn't ever going to happen,sadly.

Nope, prarieflower. Not a plum in sight round our way. I don't sound cut-glass myself.

Not right or not ready doesn't mean anything to accent-related, and we don't care if they eat peas off the knife etc. I mean, really - this is the bloody 21st century. Nobody cares.

Not ready means they haven't done the academic work they need to have done to cope with the course.

I'd love to see your super-bright son apply. How old is he? He sounds great. He's got the support he needs in YOU, and that's fabulous. Don't give up hope for him, not yet.

Hardly 'getting the support from you' when Prairie flower is so defeatist about her son's chances .

Oh, and LittleFrieda - v. short answer on the ATs. Yes, and yes. 1. They predict first-year exam outcomes very well 2. Private school kids do better in them. Very grim and we know it is. Still working on ways to improve the tests and to improve state sector outreach on them so horror blunders like the one that affected your son's friend don't happen.

Mrs S, she and other mums need encouragement from within the ancient universities, and that's why I hang out here. Some private school parents need encouragement too. Our image is a real handicap to us, and we work on it and throw money at it and it's still the biggest problem we face.

Not a plum in sight from this yorkshire lass either.

Being not right or ready is someone who doesn't have the right Alevels. Yes, they might not have been well advised. Yes that's not fair. But what are tutors supposed to do? Pretend that an A level in Business is as useful as an A level in Maths for someone wanting to study, say, economics?

Being not right or ready is someone who has not read around their subject. Yes, they might not realise they have to (tho lord knows it says so on every bloody college website), yes they might not have had advice from a teacher/mentor. Yes that's not fair. But how are tutors to gauge the supposed brilliance of a student if they haven't done it? Are they to pretend it doesn't matter?

Being not right or not ready is someone who flunks their PAT test. Yes, they may have been ill advised about it. Yes, they may have failed to look it up on the t'internet. Yes, that's not fair. But what are tutors meant to do? Pretend it doesn't matter?

It is all wrong that too many state schools badly advise their students. But blame them, don't expect Oxbridge to fix the problem.

Said son isn't gifted but he's bright pretty much like David Cameron I guess.That's the difference.If you're not gifted and are state educated you're stuffed.

Ds is only 9 but in a "satisfactory" school with fires to fight that quite frankly has better things to worry about than ds(and the other bright kids in his class)achieving even more than "above expectations".In a Satisfactory school "above expectations" are enough and they get bored,used to low expectations and years are wasted.Getting your child pushed to compete nationally is an intimidating battle.

It's a spiral effect.They don't get pushed in primary so they start secondary in lower sets or lower levels than they could,year on year they drop.

I was a teacher myself and feel totally intimidated and quite frankly dis advantaged.You are looked on as strange,pushy and that parent if you ask for info and kids to achieve more.It's horrible,stressful,time consuming and exhausting.You can nag,moan,ask for info all you like but at the end of the day you aren't there all day and it's down to the school.Parents with no knowledge or expectations and a whole lot of educational insecurity are even more handicapped.

Now I could research and tutor him myself(lucky me that I have the qualities necessary to do that at the moment,I won't when he's older)but I have to balance that with the possibility of my child hating me and still not getting where he wants to be anyhow.They are also utterly knackered after school however little they are pushed so tutoring I feel is kind of pointless.Many parents also have to work.Parents of kids in private school that push,compete with the best don't have to deal with this.

I will obviously do everything in my power to get him where he wants to be when the day comes but quite frankly I don't think it will be enough.

How many state school kids read classics, does anyone know?

Bonsoir - perhaps he did badly in the TSA?

prarie I think it was like that in the past ie kids from good indies could get in with mediocre results. But not any more.

The competition is fierce. The majority of DC applying from independent schools don't get a place. They are competeig with Dc from all over the world!

But you are right, it is absolutely not fair that the die is cast way before sixth form and that some DC will not have had a suitable preparation for Oxbridge and the like, despite being talented. But I can't see that it is Oxbridge's duty to fix that. If you think about it, how can they?

Wordfactory is spot on - there is so much information out there about what colleges need, if these kids really are so bright, and capable of independent learning, they really ought to be able to find that information, rather than expecting their teachers and parents to do it for them!
Many years ago I read languages. Before I went to college there were no exchange trips, travel was more expensive, and there was no way in a provincial town to get foreign reading matter, radio, tv, films,etc, whcih are all available at the click of a mouse online now - yet a friend who is an Oxbridge tutor despairs at the lack of preparation candidates demonstrate .

You're right but I think doing nothing isn't an option either.I think the targets will be the best of a bad job to be frank.Do you think there could be a better way to solve the problem?

Will be back later,got to prepare for meeting re other ds at school.Have to hunt out my hard hat,settle my stomach in order not to be fobbed off(yet again).

LittleFrieda - he did marginally less well in the TSA than other candidates, according to his college. He was also a year young (by English standards - he was in-year by French standards). He was advised to reapply the following year.

He has gone elsewhere and is very happy!

that should read: the college he interviewed with

MrsS - on the Oxford languages thing - there are Oxford-specific tests for languages these days that you can look up on line. We got (bilingual) DD aged 7 to do the Oxford French test, orally - she did pretty well, and was 100% correct for some parts of the test.

Mrsalvo

1. said child may not be aware they're uni quality let alone Oxbridge

2)said child may not even know where to begin looking,get lost and disheartened once they look.

3. said child may have had a mediocre or shite education from the age of 5

Private kids have it handed on a plate.They're made to think from rec that they're uni quality and they're pushed from rec and then encouraged,informed,encouraged right the way up until they start their Freshers Week at uni.

I'm having enough trouble getting the info re my 9 year old's spelling let Oxbridge applications and I was a teacher.If you're a child with parents that don't have plenty of time and aren't determined,confident and educated quite frankly you're stuffed.

I've just spent the last hour reading and considering this thread, and the debate largely (bar a couple of posts) seems to assume that all private schools are the same and all state schools are the same. They are not.

Private school pupils may be disadvantaged by the fact that their parents work too many hours to be able to give them regular support with homework, while state school pupils have the advantage that their parents have the time to help and spare cash to pay for tutoring, private admissions advice, extra curricular activities. Children at state schools often attend school closer to home so don't have to spend a lot of time commuting each day and more time and energy to study.

Not every private school is great with careers/admissions advice and some comps are excellent at it.

Universities need to look at the student that is presented to them and see how motivated they are, how much knowledge they have, not which school they went to. It is not the job of universities to mop up where state schools (or private schools for that matter) may have failed. It is their job to take the best students who have the most chance of success so that they can go forward to benefit the whole country.

It simply isn't true that private school pupils have everything handed to them on a plate. I went private from 5-15, and the school I went to wasn't like that. Yet had I applied for university it would be assumed that it was. And it would be assumed that any state pupil didn't.

People really need to find out more about what being educated in some private schools and some state schools is like before they make incorrect assuming judgements.