"The year they stopped the interview the intake became far more middle class because the catchment was smaller. They re introduced the interviews to make it more inclusive. They re introduced the interviews to make it more inclusive.
You may not like the idea of the school but please get your facts right."
Hahaha.
Oh my aching sides.
They DIDN'T reintroduce interviews, which are obviously anything but inclusive, since they can very effectively weed out any low-achieving kids through this process - what they did do was reintroduce rules which require parents to detail their brass-polishing, flower-arranging, etc., activities in support of the Catholic church.
What they DID do, is drop the interviews because they were ILLEGAL, and then when they found out that this was reducing the quality of the intake, came up with a long and intrusive form that amounts to an interview, asking what activities you do in support of the Catholic church.
In terms of schools and their precious 5 GCSE pass %, there is really one critical thing - and that is the number of children who enter the school at 11 below level 4. For the Oratory school, their admissions process restrict that to 3%.
In addition, with 66% high attainers, that is children entering at level 5 and above, those children are nailed on to pass 5 good GCSEs - wherever they go to school.
At Clegg's local school, ARK Academy, 97% of high attainers got 5 good GCSEs. At the Oratory, 99% did.
No matter what you say about diversity, FSMs, whatever, the fact is that the Oratory School has excluded low-attaining children from the school. This is not diverse at all. There should be about 30% low attainers, but actually there are 3%.