Why would anyone consider going to Rugby school better than the mixed local comp?

[Charis2]

I read this article in the standard earleir, and just thought what is this headmaster on? Why is this scholarship presented as such a huge honour for the boy, when in fact it is a way of the school paying to improve its results by taking in some of the best sixth form students without fees.

What "lifechanging" opportunities does he expect he can offer, which Hassenbrook acadamy can't?

www.standard.co.uk/news/london/needs-pic-teenage-footballer-wins-70000-scholarship-to-boarding-school-that-invented-rugby-a2953791.html

Headmaster Peter Green said he hoped Michael and other Arnold Foundation scholars would have a “ripple effect” on their communities when they return home.

He said: “We might be able to be transformative and transform their lives. Then when they go to university, and after, they can start to transform their own local communities. It’s not about parachuting someone out of that. We want to keep their association with where they are from.”

What a snob. Does he think the staff at Hassenbrook only teach poor peoples maths and physics, and the maths at Rugby is somehow a better class of maths? perhaps he thinks the laws of physics perform better there too?

I hope this lad has fun, but I don't think for a moment his life is going to be in any way better because he spent two years mixing with rich snobs rather than normal people.

I am still waiting for Charis to come back and tell us where all of these London comprehensives are, that do the IB.

I have a very able child and was also a very able child myself (A did not exist in my day but I breezed through 12 O Levels and 5 A Levels and honestly, only a very few of the A Level topics were things I needed to actually put in any work for). My grades were pretty good. I went to a school where, these days, nearly 100% of them get A and A at GCSE (in my day it was more like everyone got A or B and anyone who got a C in anything was not happy). I'd say fully half of those children (80ish per year) walked their exams - I'm guessing they take around the top two or three per cent in terms of ability. My daughter won't be going there even though it's not far away, as firstly I can't afford it and secondly I think she will do perfectly OK at one of our perfectly good local comprehensives, even though I do feel a bit sad that she won't have the opportunities I had. And I will be very surprised if she has any trouble with GCSE or A Level or whatever form they exist in by the time she gets there. She has recently started Y4 and is currently working at the level of children leaving primary school with good attainment without any noticeable effort on her part or pushing on my part. She is a sponge for information and also has great ability to put information together and draw conclusions. Over the summer, with no particular input from me apart from talking to her and buying her the odd book and no actual teaching, she has moved from expected level at the end of Y5 to exceeding expected level at the end of Y6. I don't know how much better. I don't really care as she has lots of time in front of her to learn things. I'm sure she will do well whatever.

However, we have recently been looking into moving out of London and the schools I've looked at for her in the future in those areas, also comprehensives, have been noticeably worse in how well they seem to deal with children who are clever academically. It is looking like this will be a deal breaker and we won't move after all. I suppose if I was already living in the areas I have looked at, I might well be wondering about private schools and thinking maybe we should scrimp and save for it. I certainly wouldn't be able to move to where we are now - the moving out of London thing was motivated by the idea of being mortgage free. Moving from there to here would require a mortgage hike of hundreds of thousands of pounds. It's also about the cultural capital thing - where we are, DD has access to things like cheap music lessons, insanely good opportunities for orchestral playing and choirs and drama and art and reading groups and just loads of stuff - much of it free. The areas we've looked at moving to don't seem to have anything at all like that. I realise we are very fortunate in our local provision.

I suppose my point is that not all schools are equal. And not all areas are equal in what they provide, and if you are in an area with poor provision your choices may be different and the world may look different to you. I am not, currently, btw, keeping her away from children of differing ability as she is at a school where the overall attainment is lower than most in our borough and she mixes happily with children of all abilities and differing backgrounds which is IMO a very good thing. I do wonder what is going to happen in future as she continues to develop, but our local schools seem to do pretty well by all children so I am sure she will be fine. I am not sure I would be so sanguine if I was in an area, like the ones I have looked at, where there seemed to be far fewer high attainers at comprehensives (so smaller peer group) and where the high attainers did not seem to necessarily achieve as well as they might elsewhere.

The super rare won't ever have a peer group bertrand I agree. But kids like mine, who aren't the rare genius ability level and can breeze the small number of academic subjects on offer at some schools can and do have their needs met in a high achieving group/ school.
One because there are more academic subjects, Secondly because it's a lot easier to differentiate over a small range than a larger range. Thirdly the smaller the range of ability in a class, the more likely to find similar peers, so even then group work is easier to manage. And most of all being able isn't viewed as a disruption to lesson planning.

I don't actually think separate schooling is the only solution, but it's probably the cheapest and easiest.

Should have also added it's not just about covering the curriculum, it's about providing challenge and stretch. And by that I mean actual stretch, not the bullshit about answering that year groups curriculum based problems to give 'depth' and 'enrichment' or whatever the popular line is for 'doing fuck all'. Dd is quite happy doing ukmt past papers and similar type suitable for her ability activities, giving her some dodgy excuse of maths enrichment on l6 based learning wouldn't exactly cut it.

Lurked- "breezing" 8 or 9 GCSEs without working is not your common or garden G&T. It's really unhelpful to suggest that "any" school has a class full of them!

Actually my school had lots of girls who could have walked their GCSEs if allowed. Instead they sat them at 14 or 15 and moved them on to do A'Levels at 16 or 17. They normally did at least one gap year after graduating but some went straight to Oxbridge. Low offers of EE or unconditional offers were not uncommon.

I think it was great that my school had experience of educating girls who were so able and were more aware of potential issues because of this experience. The girls also had a peer group they could relate to. That in itself was very valuable as I know a couple of them joined from other schools where they felt they didn't fit in.

To give you an idea of the scale. In a year of 80 about 10-15 were in that category. About 2-3 were British with the rest being foreign students (mainly European/ Middle East mix). The Chinese girls were getting good grades but they worked really hard. It wasn't a gift.

I'm up early because I am taking DS to university today. I think I will shield him from ideas of those who breezed 9 gcse with no work, he's nervous enough. His school is considered quite good. He "only" did 9 gcses . I don't think any of his peers who did well did "no work". If I have to mention The Book of the Courtier on Mumsnet again I fear it will will be twice too many.

On a different note - given that I will have an empty nest and am interested - could anyone give me a recommendation for a book on Cultural capital (in English) - I have googled - probably ineptly.

The seminal authors on cultural capital are Veblen and Bourdieu.

Offers of EE at Oxbridge...... I call Bullshit on that one. Hasn't happened since the days of entrance exams.

I do hope the DC of posters are brighter than their mothers.

bertrand I completely disagree with teaching humanities in mixed ability groups.

The idea that STEM must be differentiated because of its innate magic, whereas English etc doesn't is misplaced.

The difference between the skill to get say a B at GCSE and an A* is large. The most able students will or should be studying different things at different rates ( just like in STEM). They should be reading and discussing texts off the curiculum routinely, whereas this is simply not appropriate for middle ability students.

You need a good number in a set for this to happen as a matter of course.

Indole, who probably went to St Paul's, hits the nail on the head about the SE powerhouse as it were. The gap is widening. There are some good schools in places like Cheshire and the bigger Northern Cities but Osborne is right to push for trying to get money out of the SE and to the regions as it seems to be money, the prosperity of parents and the like which determines what local comprehensives are like in England. Hull is two grades below inner London comps for GCSE grades for example.

As for GCSEs being easy they are for the brightest children and one of my son's said he should have got all Cs this summer if the results were based on effort but A levels are harder.

More interesting is why Indole who probably got exam results as good as mine chose work which means she cannot afford school fees and I did. What causes that difference in women?

longtime why are you so aggressive and rude to posters?

That poster did not say it happened recently ( though I do know of some unconditional offers recently for Oxbridge, Imperial and UCL).

How do you expect anyone to take you seriously when you post like a hungover mansplainer ?

Shegot... In my entire career I've never heard of an unconditional to oxbridge, ever. They want academic excellence and offers will uniformly be high. The others, well its very rare.

I was just noting that EE offers haven't happened since the 70s at least.

Nah, the EE for Arch and Anth definitely happened in the 90s.

longtime I work there.

I know one of my new students received an unconditional. I offered it to him!

EE offers were still common in the late 80s, longtime. I appreciate that's also a long time ago!

And I can't afford school fees because I and my husband work in a creative field - I hope not even you, Grazia, are suggesting that nobody should do so. The world would be a very dull place.

Well, can't afford is relative. We could afford them with some economising in other areas, but I do not think it would actually be worth it given the high quality of the comprehensive schools on offer to me. As I said, if those schools were not available I might think differently.

If you're going to be rude then get your facts right lurker. Entrance exams were scrapped by Oxford in 1995, well after the introduction of GCSEs - there will be many many MNers who remember the days of the routine EE offer.

EE offers were definitely still around in the 1980s, and I think they continued right up to the point entrance exams were scrapped.

I've found three state schools in London who do the IB! But the subjects they offer are extremely limited compared to the private sector - eg maths at standard level, but not maths studies, English Lit but not Land & Lit. One only offered history for the humanities or whatever it is called. So there isn't a wide choice of subjects, you essentially take what is on offer.

admit I was wrong on the entrance exam..

But how many unconditional a year? Oh and you best look at what your outreach say cause when they present to our students they say unconditional don't happen.

I thought you couldn't get any outreach visits.

The EE Oxbridge offers were very very common the old days. They then virtually went but we've or most of us read of a few more returning. One reason they are back for some is because of the new way universities are funded: www.theguardian.com/education/mortarboard/2014/jun/02/unconditional-offers-a-levels-pointless
My siblings went to Oxbridge just as the 7th term entry had ended/ was ending.
The EE offers of the very old days and those unconditional offers some universities are now offering do not exactly encourage teenagers to get their fingers out and get high grades and plenty of the employers they will apply look as much to A level grades as to universities certainly in most of the professions so I am not a great fan of unconditional offers.

Indole, I was just curious. Yes everyone now and even inm y day knows if you go into the arts you don't make money and that's a valid choice for plenty of men and women. Although I am not happy that the state now says your university education is entirely free if you pick a subject where you will never earn much money or give up work at 22 to stay home for life minding the children which is what it now does, whereas if you because a high paid hard working tax payer you have a massive student loan to pay back. Perverse preference for arts in a sense now endemic in the system.

I said we got one per year, despite lots of invites, which was different to many public schools, do you actually read the posts?

"bertrand I completely disagree with teaching humanities in mixed ability groups."

So do I. Although there is plenty of research that suggests that we are both wrong.

What I said was that I don't think sets need to be as narrow as some people suggest. I don't think that it's necessary or even desirable to be in a set in any subject where everyone is predicted an A*. I do think that you're
better off in a set with other potential high attainers. Which is what happens in most comprehensive schools.

But we do seem to be back with the suggestion that education should revolve around the "breezing 8 A*s without trying" contingent. Which is a ridiculous as a system revolving around the children who'll be lucky to get 2 Es.

"But how many unconditional a year? Oh and you best look at what your outreach say cause when they present to our students they say unconditional don't happen."

I don't think you can predict. Unconditional offers are made to those who apply having already taken their A levels. So it varies enormously year-to-year depending on how strong they are compared to those who have yet to take theirs and are applying on the strength of predicted grades.