Secondary schools to be 'partnered' with universities

[UnquietDad]

so it says here

So who is to decide, I wonder, which school gets Oxford and which one gets The University of Central Crapshire (formerly Crapchester Polytechnic)?

I wondered that too.

Perhaps they will divide Oxbridge up and a school will just get a college.

Are there enough universities to go around or will they have to share or create more universities?

There are about 50-60 universites, I think, so no doubt there will be some sharing.

And who will share with whom? I can see all sorts of squabbling. And will it be geographic?

Anyway, I am afraid I just do not see the point of it all.

I saw this and laughed. There must be some secondary schools that the unis will be falling over themselves to avoid . Actually I think the Uni of Crapshire should be forced to link itself with the very top grammar schools and an Oxford college with BogStandard Comp from Nohopesville. Then it might serve an interesting and useful purpose.

Yes, there are about 30 secondary schools in our city, and already I can see them elbowing and jostling for the "better" universities. In fact, I imagine a process of "pitching" has already begun.

Don't the different universities have courses in different subjects though?

at work at a university (one of the ten top red brick unis) and we already have very strong links with many of the schools in the area, we are very strongly involved in widening participation and getting to the children to think about univerisity.

They do, of course. And Oxbridge is not necessarily the best for some.

School specilaisms may come into it. For something like languages where a whole bunch of universities are renowned - Manchester, Sheffield, Aston etc - the schools specialising as language colleges will probably have a good case to link with them.

I'm dubious about this as our secondary, albeit a good one, is a specilaist engineering college, so will probably want to link with somewhere like Brunel. Fine if you are that way inclined, but not if you are not.

katz - yes, thats another question - will they build on local links (which as you say already exist in some places) or look more widely?

There are over 100 universities, many of which already have partnership arrangements with secondary schools. This is nothing new to those working in HE or with post-16 students (I'm a lecturer). All that's new is the national rolling-out of what is currently a locally various scheme.

Almost all the current partnerships involve schools working with a university in their city/region, as there is a lot of evidence that the kinds of school students being targeted prefer to study reasonably close to home.

I'm sorry you don't see the point of it, claricebeansmum. Perhaps if you knew more about it, you would? IME, partnership schemes work well to raise expectations among potential students, and to diversify student intake - both positive things.

There are that many? Gosh. I think perhaps I was only counting English ones. Sorry.

hopefully ALL univerisites will see the benefits to doing this. i know we have.

The university i'm at already has strong links in the sciences and engineering (mainly due to national science week) and the languages, and other areas too i would guess but i don't know all areas. It probably also helps that the University offers various PCGE's which requires schools input too.

It is good to have this arrangement locally on one level but it would be nice to make links with universities (maybe more than one per school) further afield. It's true, more people study nearer home these days (and live at home) but they miss out on a lot of what I saw as the "student experience".

I think if I'd been told I had to live with mum and dad while I was a student I'd have felt like topping myself. I pinned everything on "getting out" for a bit. Not that I didn't love my parents or was unhappy or anything, but it's an essnetial ritre of passage! Maybe that's a very 80s way of looking at things... when grants were still available...

I am afraid I take a dim view of the government meddling in education. I can see that local links with universities is a good thing - benefiting from expertise etc but I am not sure how far this will go.

What makes me uneasy is the growing expectation in that everyone should have the chance to go to university. No - only the super bright should go to university.

If policy continue as it is I think we will see a gradual "brain drain" of the brightest and the best to overseas universities. Our degrees will become devalued. Why have so many of the top schools in the country decided to turn to the IB?

I have several friends who went from state school to university - funnily enough all Oxford - but they are incredibly intelligent women and went up to Oxford not because they were from state schools and not because they were women.

I think too many people go to university already, I am not sure I see the point of encouraging yet more. It is interesting the thing about Oxbridge having been set targets for admissions from State school pupils. This is government wishful thinking and wholly unaccepted by the Oxbridge admissions boards who insist that they should continue recruiting entirely based on merit. Oxbridge actually have a very transparent admissions procedure and are the only Unis in the coutry to publish their admissions information down to the names of each school that gained a pupil a place. The government would be better spending their money on an Oxbridge advisor at every LEA who could help prospective students with their personal statements and mock interviews etc.

As a teacher I would welcome more links with our local universities, although I think we are fairly well provided for already. What I don't need is another government initiative when we have sooooooooo much other stuff to do at the moment. We had a meeting on monday night when we had to go through the list of all the stuff the school is expected to do this year and prioritise it as high, medium or low for the department - this, despite it's headline grabbing would be very far down the list I'm afraid.

MMMM. The 'crapchester' one sounds very much like a local uni....

In our area, the local university already has partnerships with schools. Many of the parents work in some capacity for the university anyway. It isn't the University of Central Crapshire, though its name starts with the same letter. Some schools are more equal than others.

I teach in what would be considered to be a "tough" inner-city school. We have good links with a very good "red brick" university and really value this link. Many of our pupils do end up going to university but they take a few years longer to get there (too busy learning English, having just got off the plane in Yr 9 in many instances, so didn't get all their grade Cs!). It is really helpful for them to see a university in operation and realise that, for all its academic glory, etc, it's really just a building, and not beyond the realms of possibility that they too might be allowed into its hallowed halls.

The more links the better imho.

However, what tends to be happening currently is that the universities are putting things on for specific groups of school pupils, who are poorly represented in the university at the moment - our one currently is focussing on "ethnic minority boys" (their description). Unfortunately our biggest under-achievers and the ones who most need motivating, are white working-class girls, who can't understand why they don't get invited to the university. Maybe more involvement would mean that wider groups of pupils could benefit?

I first heard of this at DD's 6th Form induction. Apparently they are each given a Student at the Uni to speak to etc. They also get taken to Uni open days at all sorts of differing Uni's to get a feel for what is available if they work.

Sounds good news to me.

Milliways - Hogwarts does seem to have a 'special relationship' of some kind with Warwick - I'm not sure if it's 'official' or just a personal thing as Mrs McD has connections there - but a lot of Hogwarts students do seem to go there (including my DS)

Is he enjoying it?

DD's school hasn't got the Hogwarts grandeur & is linked with Reading!!

Seems to be loving it (not that he's ever very communicative) - he's doing history & politics, but most of the others from Hogwarts are doing English, which is Mrs McD's thing.

And so the Labour Govt increase selective schooling