When parents are slagging off the local comp...

[Everyoneafter3]

I've posted before about my concerns over the local secondary, which, thanks to comments on this board and an excellent recent Ofsted, are very much allayed. I had a very good read of school newsletters etc and am much happier. Dd1 (Y4) is musically gifted and will also audition for a specialist music school.

The area in which we live is very affluent: many children round here go to fee-paying independent schools. These dc are going to school and telling my dd (and others) that the local secondary is rubbish ("my mum and dad say..."). One particularly stupid parent has said at home that "no child of mind will set foot in x school" which of course is coming back home with our dd.

Dd1 has now got it into her head that the local school is terrible, that she's really upset to go to not a good school, that she wishes we weren't poor (we're not! But no, we can't afford independent school fees without having to sacrifice other stuff we prioritise as a family). She's been researching exam results and all sorts.

For our part we've said well look at any local school she'd like to, although as we live across the road from the school in question it'd be unlikely that she'd get in.

I'm heartily sick of parents telling their dc how awful the local school is. It's simply not fair. My dc won't receive a 'lesser' education. They aren't going to a 'rubbish' school. If this continues I'm tempted to speak to their current primary school tbh. What else can I do? I've told dd to not listen, we've looked at the school website, talked about results (!) but I'm at a loss.

"No I accept that Bertrand. I was using finance as shorthand."

But it''s not a shorthand. It's a different thing. Your children, like mine, are loaded with privilege, regardless of our financial situation.

And I do have to say that if I was ever tempted to engage a "consultant" reading the posts of the one who is a regular mumsnetter would rapidly put me off the idea.

Research in France (and it has dug deep) is quite conclusive about parental wealth and parental education (in particular, knowledge of the education system itself i.e. having a teacher for a parent) combined being the recipe for academic success. Obviously this sort of research is not system/culture neutral and quite possibly parental wealth is less critical in the UK.

Clavinova - numbers are from the old school way of counting up the no. of leaver's destinations given on each website.

Goodbye & User - I just don't accept that the Grammar school kids have less cultural capital than the private schools.

I could accept that some of them have less money, although a fair number attended private preps prior to Grammar school (especially in London!).

User7, can you give your views on why the elite Grammars are behind the top Independent schools when it comes to Oxbridge?

If it's not parental wealth, what is it?

user615 I don't see those things as necessary either, for obvious reasons. But my point to the clearly well off poster was that she shouldn't assume that all parents at good state schools have the same background. They don't.

Bertrand you know very little about me, I hope :) I take exception to the phrase 'loaded with privilege'. Speak for yourself, but not me! Anyhow, let's not get personal.

"User7, can you give your views on why the elite Grammars are behind the top Independent schools when it comes to Oxbridge?"

What do you mean by "elite grammars"?

Alyosha around 6% of the recent intake at our school went to private primaries - that's not excessive.

Our parental community is mixed and not similar at all to HBs - London schools are very different from the schools outside. Comparisons don't fare well.

"Loaded with privilege"

A warm dry house, educated parents, books, museum visits, quiet to study, educated siblings, dinner table conversation, good food to eat, educated siblings, a listening ear or two, attention, aspiration, awareness of the world, acceptance, love, faith (as in people having faith in them) encouragement, pleasure in their achievement.....not sure why you would take exception to the assumption you provide these things for your children.

Well Bert there are grammars and grammars. Not just in the level of ability of the students at the point of entry but in their success overall. The top ones are 'elite'. Same as unis. No rocket science involved.

Alyosha - the population of top private schools is not "just" wealthier than the population of elite grammar schools. Many DC at top private schools inhabit a universe that is exceptionally stimulating and have been exposed to things that money cannot buy.

No Bert on that list I fail too, on more than one score. As I said, speak for yourself but please don't make assumptions because you're so often wrong.

I don't know how many are in the 6th form at Westminster, but, assuming that the blunt measure of A is what Oxbridge is interested in, if there are 150 kids at Westminster and they each take 3 A levels, 16% more A grades is over 70 A, which could mean 24 more straight A students. Similarly at NLSC 6% difference is 16 A grades which could be 5 straight A students. Of course this is not accurate, but actually those percentage points difference are probably mostly among the top university applicants, not the year group as a whole.

There's no doubt that private school applicants are advantaged in lots of different ways, but I'm not sure that it's in the ways you are convinced it is. Historically there were college links with schools; there may still be but not at many of the schools you've mentioned on this thread. And admissions tutors are telling you that there aren't.

The problem of private schools' overrepresentation at Oxbridge has been a hot topic for a long time, hence summer schools and contextual offers. The real problem is the existence of the advantage conferred by private schools which I suspect is more far reaching yet also more subtle on an individual basis than you believe. There may be better advice about where to apply and better interview preparation. There may be wider teaching, not just teaching to the A* grade. I don't know. But it's not as simple as colleges being prejudiced.

Bertrand - by elite I mean London grammars which are considered by parents to be as good as, if not better, than the leading London private schools (aside from Westminster, SPGS & SPBS).

Schools you would choose over good private schools.

Schools which are selecting from the top 1% if not 0.5% of kids, more selective by far than local private schools.

And not only that, but grammar schools which have parental wealth & cultural capital similar to the local private schools.

Bobo - what experiences will they have had? Intrigued!!!

Tell you what, goodbyestranger, why don't you just ignore everything I say. You always take it too much to heart and I am sure it's not good for you.

Alyosha- can you say what you mean by "elite grammar schools"?

I just don't accept that the Grammar school kids have less cultural capital than the private schools.

And this is where we disagree.

Take a look in detail at the website of Winchester or a similar school and look at what they offer. It's in a completely different league to what grammars can afford to offer.

There seem to be two contradictory views expressed on this thread, sometimes by the same posters:

• Grammar and private school pupils have comparable achievement and comparable performance in pretests etc and thus more of the former should get into Oxbridge.

• Private schools offer deeper and broader education to their pupils and thus allowances should be made for grammar pupils doing worse in interviews/pretests etc, even when their grades are the same.

In reality, the admissions situation is much more nuanced and cannot be reduced to simple one line statistics - each case has to be viewed individually and any assessment of the fairness of an admissions system has to look carefully at all the information, including transcripts and summaries of interviews not in the public domain for data privacy reasons. The social scientist in me is frustrated at some posters refusal to understand this.

Sorry, cross post, alyosha. Could you name one? I didn't think there were any grammar schools that selected from the top 1%, never mind the top 0.5%......

Ontopof...that's quite an assumption you're making there! There's absolutely no reason to think that all of the extra As are concentrated on individual pupils. In fact quite the reverse, there will be slightly more kids getting AAA rather than AAA. Westminster & NLCS will have more kids getting straight A*s I'm sure but not 54% more or 300% more.

The college links do still exist though - what about Christ Church college & Westminster/Eton? What about the fact that historical links between some schools and colleges have been acknowledged on this thread - but then dismissed because apparently it's OK, as the colleges only get the best kids from those schools.

I was a beneficiary of a link with a college, it simply means there is a tradition there of applicants going & getting offers, and everyone knows that they will get an interview, and probably an offer, and even in some cases what that offer will be. In my case a normal candidate probably wouldn't have even got an interview at Oxford for a competitive course with predicted grades of AAB and As levels of AABB. But I did. So did friends, because the school had links with the college.

Yes, Henrietta Barnett School, Latymer School, Tiffin Girls & QE Boys.

All have around 10+ applicants per place and lots of applicants from private preps, lots of applicants also applying to private secondary schools who would choose the grammar as the 1st choice.

Tell you what Bert here's a plan: why don't you stop trying to describe the life of someone on the internet that you haven't got a clue about. You're so silly about me - not sure why. Anyhow, bottom line is I shouldn't be required to ignore silly personal posts - silly personal posts shouldn't be written in the first place.

But I do agree that no grammar in the country takes the top 1%.

No I don't think that works to get them the top 1% Alyosha.

No advice really but people really should think about what they say to and around their kids more. I had kids in my class telling a boy who was already signed up.for the local comp "my mum says there's loads of bullying at that school."

My dd is in year 6 and we are in grammar school land. I have been very careful throughout the process to not present grammar school as the best and comp as great but to present the view which I actually hold that different schools suit different people.

Bertrand:

"93 in Year 7
The School received in excess of 2160 applicants for Year 7 in 2016"

23 applicants per place last year for HBS.

"In 2016 there were 1974 applications" - Latymer School.

There are 192 places, so "just" 10.2 applicants per place.

For Tiffin there are 180 places for which 1358 applicants, so 7.5 applicants per place.

QE Boys has 2204 taking the test, but don't know its intake - could be from 10 applicants a place to 20.

Oh, I know that those A* grades wouldn't have been distributed like that. I was just using the calculations to show how in reality a few percentage points can make a big difference.

There is no way that HBS and Tiffin take only the top 1% of the ability range. Absolutely no way. Loads of very clever children don't even try for any of these schools for a whole host of reasons. Westminster and SPS/SPGS have a far broader intake too - most children will be in the top 10% but not all, and certainly not all in the top 1%. These schools are selecting children on the basis of tests and interviews on one or two days at the age of 11. They are all clever kids, but by no means all extraordinarily clever.

I disagree goodbye - HBS are selecting from 23 candidates for every place. And those 23 candidates will already be in the top 20% of ability - as they have parents who really care about their education and have gone through the hoops to get them to take the test.

So I think HBS probably has the top 1% or even top 0.5% in abillity.