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.

Bobo I suspect it was managing expectations from knowledge of the level of the candidates and academic competitiveness of a college rather than direct influence on the college admissions team, even in those times.

Very possibly, sendsummer. Similar arrangements still exist between top French lycées and top prepas. It isn't fair on applicants from schools that aren't in the loop.

Agree but I think not an issue now since most candidates worthy of a place get a second interview or are pooled or indeed if uncertain of college choice can make an open application.

I agree, selection procedures seem to be more rigorous and transparent these days. But it is nevertheless useful to acknowledge the way they were. My grandfathers just "expected" to go to Cambridge from their public schools (my grandmother, of course, got there by a harder route).

Very truly dare I say comprehensively derailed?

Yes I agree, and (given OP has not returned ) am just posting an opinion. for those who are chatting

Is it not concerning to anyone the huge number of Eton and Winchester leavers who all go to one particular college...?! - No, because it does not happen.

And why for the last 5 years - was there a connection before then? What's changed in the past 5 years? - well of course there was a connection before then with the older schools and colleges. Not the least founders. Anecdotally the college with which DS's school had a founder in common , pupils were positively discouraged from sending applicants since about 50 years ago . Now not so much. Huge advantage , I admit, to going to a well funded school , but being shown into a college at e.g. Oxbridge simply because of the school , by which I mean the school's name , don't believe it

Maths wrong for anecdote - I meant about 35 - 40 yrs ago.

There's lots of anecdotal evidence that Westminster & Eton send a lot of boys to Christ's Church - but no hard evidence. Christ Church is one of the colleges with the lowest levels of state school students. I'm sure I'll find something...

Do none of you "Oxbridge admissions are 100% fair" folk think it's a bit odd that one of the governing members of Westminster school is a Christ's Church person? Does that not seem a little unfair?

Snoopy - maybe SHHS was really shit, because we had none of that. For history we only studied our textbooks; we were encouraged to read other books but only the super keen did. Occasionally the teachers would photocopy bits of other books for us to read.

We went to an interesting symposium once in History.

For French we got to do a week's exchange with a french lycee.

And for Geography we went to wales for a field trip...

So...perhaps this is privilege speaking, but I never really considered the above to atypical for private or state, but of course it could be.

I would say you were being spoon fed a bit - if you had to read different texts for your class you were being pushed to read outside your field, you weren't choosing it for yourself.

Basilisk, what could I do to convince you...if I found hard evidence that huge numbers of Westminster & Eton boys/girls go to just one college?

I'd also like to point out that Christ's Church's own bloody website has a whole paragraph about their historic connection to Westminster at least: www.chch.ox.ac.uk/sites/default/files/Visitor_Information-gb.pdf

Their newsletters also have a fair amount of Westminster guff on historical connections. There must be a decent number of alumni there as a whole alumni event was staged there, just for those who matriculated in 2004!: www.chch.ox.ac.uk/sites/default/files/ChristChurchMattersIssue23.pdf (page 37).

I'd also like to point out that going to university is much more like going to Michaela than going to westminster; you will spend much of your time in enormous lectures, in silence, taking notes. You may have a seminar, with a lecturer directed discussion, with preparation from a set text. If you go to Oxbridge, you will have demanding essays and other work set every week and criticised by someone who knows a lot more than you. You will be given a book list and told to read it, preferably all of it.

Alyosha

You need do nothing to convince me. I have only vicarious evidence from another reasonably placed school ( i.e. historic connections) that pupils are not sent to a college because it will take them because of the school . If you have hard evidence, that would be interesting. If I had to put my own money down, I would say that the likes of Eton and Westminster pupils will go to a very wide range of universities. ( well, a lot to Oxbridge but, increasingly , elsewhere) , but because they are selective and well funded. We are beyond the days of Brideshead etc. . Of course a well funded school is an advantage , & I cannot speak for those two schools , but I bet they cannot squidge in an applicant who is below par.

Basilisk, for Oxbridge one girl in my year got an offer because her dad knew the admissions tutor - but you are right, he had to make the offer AAA, and she didn't get it (as predicted she got ABB).

I was talking about this with some friends who also went to my uni (RG but not amazing RG), one recounted how his friend got in to do Economics with BBC grades because the headmaster of his school (RGS) rang up the admissions tutor, who said they would make an exception as RGS had sent so many good students to them in the past! This was 10 years ago.

Alyosha the two colleges which currently seem to take the most Etonians are not the ones you mention. If you take the numbers of successful applicants from these big name schools and divide them between the constituent colleges of Oxford and Cambridge evenly(ish) then it computes that no one college has more than a small handful of students from any single school in any one year, which is what's borne out on the ground. I'm completely with Basilisk.

I'm struggling to see what possible relevance the fact that four generations of the same family attending a single college has to do with modern day admissions - that was commonplace. Many people (especially men) who formerly got places wouldn't do so now, or even scrape an interview. I should think you could go further back and say that many wouldn't even now get a place at their illustrious school, because having a bob to burn is no longer sufficient at the best of the schools.

attended a single college etc, not attending.

Aloysha, I think you've misunderstood- that event is clearly for all who matriculated in 2004 and happens to be held at Westminster.
I love the fact that being encouraged to read around the syllabus is being spoon fed! So better to take everyone through the set texts word by word and not tell them to read anything else, as at least that's not spoon feeding!
When I was at Westminster we were told to ensure we didn't apply to the same college as others, or if we did, to ensure that it was for a completely different subject. So I'd doubt there were many encouraged to apply to CC (in fact I don't remember any who went in my year)

Although interestingly (well, it interests me), the person who founded the Oxford college from our little country village wrote in a letter over four hundred years ago that she intended the college places to go to 'scholars of her own country (sic), not scholars of St Paul's'. That was quite a nice touch, although I think history has disappointed her rather.

And as we are into anecdote - My DS ended up flipping a coin with a friend of his so they did not both apply to the same college for the same subject.

Snoopy - gosh, how interesting. I wonder why they decided to hold it at Westminster school? That would pretty unusual for most reunions.

Goodbye - I don't think they're evenly distributed at all, you can look at the top colleges for private schools here:
www.ox.ac.uk/media/global/wwwoxacuk/localsites/gazette/documents/statisticalinformation/admissionsstatistics/Admissions_Statistics_2013.pdf

Page 9, you can see that Christ's Church has the lower no. of state school students, just 42%, with Mansfield the highest at 73%.

Alyosha I know that the distribution of independent school students generally varies but you weren't talking about successful applicants from St Cake's, you were talking about Etonians etc - that was what I was responding to. In fact, quite a few Etonians seem to find their way to a less popular college, so make of that what you will :)

Snoopy, spoonfeeding IMO is the school telling you you have to read xyz book because you're told to, and they'll be testing you on it/discussing it next lesson.

Not being spoonfed is giving you a list of good books and telling you it's your responsibility to read them, the school isn't going to check up on you.

I'm not saying the 2nd is better teaching, but it's closer to life at university.

Goodbye - I stand corrected re Eton. What about Westminster, if you have the stats?

Do you know where we could find them online?

No idea about online, sorry.

Alyosha, yes, there will be colleges with more private school pupils, in any particular year . What I remain to be convinced of is that a particular college will take a pupil from a particular school , despite what historic connections there are. And I am talking in the last 2 -3 years not 10 years ago.

Have you read the admissions stuff for Oxford re pooling , 2nd interviews etc ?

Aloysha - I assume because of the connection, plus it's a central venue with catering and probably cheaper than other places.
Regarding the suggestion of other texts, I seem to remember we discussed these in our classes and decided as a group which to choose. Clearly we were going to choose a Shakespeare, a Canterbury Tale, a Hardy etc as these were going to be useful to compare to our set texts a year later, but we had quite a bit of free rein for the more modern texts. We actually had our own specific English A Level paper with texts that we chose.

Ha ha snoopy - yes the colleges tend to rent out accommodation etc for forums / conventions etc. Many years ago remember trying to get a client through the Teddy Hall gate.

Which Canterbury Tale if you don't mind me asking ?

Snoopy - might it also be because a large proportion of that year actually went to Westminster? I would find it pretty odd if I had a university reunion at someone else's secondary school, I have to say.

I didn't do English so no idea how common that is/was! No choice of set texts for history, but some recommendations.

Basilisk, what has changed in the past 3 years...? Oxford actually went backwards in state admissions in the past 3 years!