Top Independent v Top Grammar

[bns]

1) Top Russel Group Uni's and for the most competitive courses , natural sciences i.e STEM subjests, medicine, dentistry, Law ect not including P.P.E oxford's equivalent to media studies(joke!)(by top uni,s I mean the top U.K uni's in the top 50 of the World Ranking not the rankings produces by students themselves as per the Guardian!) are under extreme pressure due to the way they now funded to accept more and more kids from the state sector.Today the indies which produce 10-40% of their intake to oxbridge will find that over the next decade that will drop by at least 50%

so which bit of my statement do not agee with, but provide the evidence I'm not interested in opinion X

Ahem, you stated your opinion that the top private schools will see their Oxbridge numbers fall by at least 50%.

This is not a fact and is an opinion unsupported by any data or statistical trends.

2) Indies have the advantage of networking?
This is probably still true for high status, traditional Public Schools eg. Eton, Westminster, Winchester, MGS (not so relevant to the more minor Public Schools). However, this advantage is diminishing rapidly as the top echelons of the top Uni's is gradually being displaced from the private sector to the State educated sector (it's interesting, isn't it, for the second most importnat job in the UK, whwere it really counts< for the job of the new Govenor of the Bank of England, no applicant came from the independent sector. This is truly amazing, considering we are one of the financial sectors of the world and supposedly have the best independent school sectors in the world, no one from the UK was up to the job and we had to import someone from Canada to do it.

That is absurd, you choose one job out of tens of thousands of senior positions and claim this as evidence. The fact is that large scale studies show that top jobs are dominated by people from private schools.

Indeed a recent study showed that, despite performing slightly worse (3%) at university relative to their state-educated peers, privately educated students are far more likely to gain professional employment after university.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/201 ... -potential" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I've asked my DH who is an Admissions tutor for Manchester Medical School for what he feels makes a "rounded"individual and his opinion, not mine, is that he does not care if your child is a grade 8 distinction at the piccolo, head boy/girl or sings for the Westminster choir, what he wants to see in his prospective students are the following attributes:
a. Self ambition (not parental/middle class ambition)
b. Hard working
c. Resilience
d. Self confidence
In two of these four, State children far out-perform their Indie counterparts ie. hard work and resilience. Ambition is about equal between the two and the Indies definitely take it on the self confidence aspect. What he's really looking for is resilience to come through adverse circumstances. A child who makes it through difficult times, without any particular advantage, living with and being a part of a diverse community is, on balance of probability, much more likely to be empathetic, sympathetic and have greater communication skills to relate to people of all stratas of society.

Ah more unsupported opinion.

The fact is that children are not making it to study medicine from Bootle comprehensives, the people making it are middle class privileged kids going to middle class privileged state schools. The idea that successful state schools are in any way diverse is laughable.

The top state school for GCSE results has 2.8% FSM kids. Most parents go for the least socially diverse school they can find, because it will have the best results.

In short, a State education gives you a more rounded personality, not less!!!

If you say so.

Of course, many Indie children go through adversity as well, illness, bereavement, family breakdown and this is always taken into consideration.
St. George's Medical School has proven that State kids who enter medical school, even with slightly lower A Levls, out perform their Indie counterparts, even though most of the private educated students have gained higher entry grades.

Cambridge have contradicted this: http://www.tes.co.uk/article.aspx?storycode=6077920" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Again, I apologise for upsetting anyone who is under tyhe impression that Independent education necessarily should or does afford them an advantage over the rest of our children. The actual evidience shows otherwise and this will become more apparent over the next decade or two.

Unfortunately your post contains precious little evidence and much unsupported opinion.

The issue you also have probably overlooked is that the people making the 'private vs. grammar' decisions are I believe in most cases looking at top 50 private schools, not Mrs. Smetherington-Smythe's School for the Rich but Dim in Upper Ramsbottom. These top schools that are being compared will send two or three times more students to Oxbridge than the grammar school, they will have smaller classes, better facilities, they are aware of what the local state sector is offering for top students, and they will be aiming to beat it comfortably.

The real issue is that these schools are charging handsomely for the privilege and parents might prefer to try and buy tutors, music lessons, and so on, privately, rather than fork out £15k/year for the school.

Of course there are mediocre private schools with poorly qualified teachers and average facilities, but these are not the schools that people are rejecting grammar school places for! There are as many outstanding private schools in London as there are grammar schools, for example, and these are the kind of choices people are making - expensive but outstanding private vs. inferior but free grammar. Let's not beat about the bush here!

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/ed ... hools.html
It looks like OLD MAZZER prediction my well becoming true if this trend continues his/her projections would be about on target over a 10yr period.
It is foolish to ignore/poo-poo insider knowledge , I for one am quite worried my DD just secured a place at a top tier Indie on a full bursery, Iwill be watching this trend closely and if I have to move my child to our very good local comp for 6th form, or lower my income slightly which would mean that we would qualify for FSM, I am quite prepared to do it, I can socially engineer as well

[sbarnes]

This is indeed fantastic news; thanks for the link.

[Amber]

How fortunate that a child's education history from GCSE onwards is passed to universities, so parents looking to engineer advantage for their children by making them move schools or claim free school meals will not succeed; indeed their motives will be pretty transparent. Anyway, most children with anything about them will have their own ideas about where they want to go for sixth form and university, and won't want parents tinkering with things in order to leverage advantage for them.

[bns]

How fortunate that a child's education history from GCSE onwards is passed to universities, so parents looking to engineer advantage for their children by making them move schools or claim free school meals will not succeed; indeed their motives will be pretty transparent. Anyway, most children with anything about them will have their own ideas about where they want to go for sixth form and university, and won't want parents tinkering with things in order to leverage advantage for them.

we are of very meager means on benefits and a single mum, I could not afford tutoring so my DD was DIYed, what annoys me that my DD got almost full marks in one of best Grammars in the country , and we rejected it , and the above posts from 12- was one of reasons I decided to go private now it looks she will be discriminated against , it was a difficult choice , my DD is desperate to go to Manchester Med School, so she can "buy her mum a nice home" bless her!
not all DC who go private are from privileged backgrounds!!
its O.K for the wealthy they will send their kids to MIT ,Harvard , Ivy League Unis ect even better than oxbridge/red bricks , what about us poorer folk?
ps this is not a critiicism of 12- , it was my choice" we have made our bed ...ect" but on reading his/her robust riposte I went with it, but in retrospect , the response was all historical well established informatoin and not in contention not even by MAZER( and on closer reading the links-evidence provided bt 12- are self contradictory in many respects) but what I really needed to know was what was the future trends would likely to be , given Russel Groups are now funded differntly now, what will it be like ,under a likely labour or lib-lab government?
maybe i'm getting all "het up " about nothing . and nothing will change as per the last thousand yrs, but it angers me why poor bright children on burseries/assisted places should be punished for choices made by adults!
maybe the isc could take some legal action against such blatant discrimination.