School and Scottish Universities

[Hectorsmother]

I am rather new to all of this and from a few snatches of conversation I have heard is it true that Scottish universities penalise private school children in some unknown matrix and to circumvent this parents move their kids out of Private school to public school in the last 3 years?

Sorry if I have gotten the whole thing jumbled, I am just curious about this and wonder about the reasoning.

It can literally be a postcode for half a street, There are 4 houses in a street in Glasgow that are level 3 whilst the rest are 4. There are new estates in deprived areas that are treated differently than the housing association homes. If you then factor in school, young carer, single parent etc it should highlight levels of deprivation. However, as someone with working in education I really do not agree with the system for so many reasons.

It’s difficult,most people would agree young people from deprived backgrounds should get some help to get to University to counteract the massive advantages middle class children have
But it should not be a post code lottery,and I don’t agree with situations like only students from deprived backgrounds getting into Edinburgh for law

There are measures in place to stop private school kids getting preferential treatment as used to be the case, and to support kids from under
privileged backgrounds to access higher education. But as usual, there are some people who are so used to advantage that equality looks like disadvantage……

name change for this as it’s a bit outing as I work in post graduate dentistry in Scotland. This is completely true. Huge huge numbers of foreign students in the dental schools in Scotland. A lot of them go home after uni. Some stay around for another year to complete vocational training. Then go home. I don’t blame them.
there’s a massive recruitment crisis in Scottish Dentistry. So many great potential candidates for the course, but not enough places.

Agree @Motheranddaughter most sensible people are in favour of positive discrimination for disadvantaged groups but the lack of clarity about it fuels the rumours.

at the end of the day, university is 3 to 4 years, if you’ve been failed in primary and secondary education,and you get to university without the required study skills, that’s a much harder thing to unpick than whether you went to a relatively better or worse university.

Two family members went to uni and dropped out - because university is often too late to build missing skills and the support is generally not there at that stage.

the stats on % of foreign students are available - one of the few things that are! That has been going on for years - there’s a yes minister from the early 80s about this.

Thank you so much for taking the effort to create a new account! Obviously, your insight as someone being in the know is invaluable!

It is not equality to advertise/encourage ‘privileged’ students to waste an application on courses that the university will automatically reject due to lack of widening access flags.

Wouldn’t it be better to improve state schools so private school students don’t get ‘preferential treatment’ due to their higher grades?

Eh? Don’t understand.

one hundred percent agree!

Improve schools, run homework clubs, study sessions more visits to cultural experiences etc

The only preferential treatment private schools pupils got was because on average they got higher grades and better work experience than many state schools. Universities didn’t prefer private school pupils just because they were private school pupils. Widening access is about trying to level the differential playing field presented by variable schools and home circumstances which result in poorer grades and less access to resources. If it was just about school then it would be easy to address this simply by blinding universities to school the pupil was attending.

Plus you need to work with the community to see the value educational ambition.

The Scottish admissions/funding situation is driving students away though affluent students with grandparents elsewhere are even applying as rUK in a case I know of - got straight into Edinburgh having taken a gap year, applying the year before got no offers from any Scottish university

Absolutely

Either that or applying to English universities. Then staying in England as graduated.

Excellent idea. When do you think we might start seeing some results if we start pouring a ton of cash into combatting child poverty now?

That is the problem - the idea that simply ‘pouring tons of cash’ at something is the answer. We end up in situations like with PEF where some schools had trouble spending the money within the guidelines when what actually was needed was action in the community. Throwing cash at something is very effective at wasting money but little else. What is needed is careful evidence-based interventions across the whole community. It might, for example, be far more effective to spend the money supporting an employer to set up in a community, or to give planning permission to a supermarket selling cheaper fruit and veg.

Doesn’t matter how the money should be spent-the sort of effective intervention you’re talking about still costs money. I repeat. When will the results start showing?

It won’t show at all if it is spent ineffectively. And what do you count as ‘spent on child poverty’? Money spent public transport subsidy? Business development zones? Library services?

I have no idea. While I agree that we should be working harder at minimising inequality and disadvantage at grassroots level, it was you who said that such efforts should replace current widening access programmes.which is what this thread is about. Yes, cheaper vegetables is an excellent idea. So is levelling the playing field at application level.

I think we also need to build pupils confidence and experiences. If they do not have experience of friends or family attending university, they are less likely to attend. I used to work in a very deprived rural/ industrial area.
Teachers there ran the groups I mentioned during lunch times. We organised trips to universities using public transport to show pupils where it was and how to get there. We'd take them to student plays, poetry readings or art shows. It opened up the world for some of the young people and encouraged them in their academic journey.

There are some really successful schools in targeted areas who are making improvements in results and positive destinations through a number of different approaches and initiatives.

Yes, we should do that. We should also make adjustments to admission processes to help level the playing field. It’s not either/or.

The one thing that would make the greatest difference to educational outcomes in the state sector is the ability for schools to discipline and exclude violent and consistently disruptive pupils.

At the moment in Scotland, it is the tail wagging the dog. One disruptive pupil disrupts the education of the rest of the class. Yes, it’s more ‘inclusive’ but bad for society overall as the majority then underperform academically. This is a key reason why people opt for private education - there you behave or you’re out.

Inclusion at all costs has failed. We need investment in SEN support and separate educational units for the NT but disruptive.

Yes, possibly. But also fairer admissions procedures.

Completely agree.