11 Plus Exams Forum

http://www.ox.ac.uk/media/news_stories/2012/110712.html

They already have the most generous bursary scheme in the country, and this is pretty impressive, I think.

The problem with Oxbridge is that there is still a lot of prejudice once you get there.

!!!!!!! Prejudice from who?

I hope you don't tell your pupils that.

I truly hope there isn't prejudice once you are there as my very bright, very successful working class 17 year old DD applying for Cambridge this year.....any reassurance welcomed!

Hi all! ... Firstly, a great and generous commitment by Mr Moritz, and what extraordinary life stories he and his father have had!

As for the point about 'prejudice', here is some feedback from a young Oxford undergrad I met recently. She is from a quite well to do family herself, educated from the age of four in an elite private school and she has just finished her first year. She loves her friends, admires her tutor, loves her course and she adores Oxford as a place. .... As a North London girl, she also finds the University anything but diverse and far from inclusive. She said that there are many students who are from well off backgrounds and with attitudes she finds offensive. Nearly all her friends there are now from quite modest state school backgrounds .... And she almost never sees a black person anywhere in a college or in any university building. She finds this astonishing and, in general, after nine or ten weeks of term time, she is desperate to get back to London and the 'real' and 'normal' world.

WH

You can always find negatives anywhere. Oxford, and Cambridge, have roughly 1:2 independent to state educated students. I have never met anyone who has been through the system wish they had done something else, despite the imperfections, which are considerably less than in generations past. If bright young people are put off, it is their loss and arguably more than the universities', especially if it means they do not give the better heeled and better prepared a run for their money.

If 10% of students come from families that poor, which these bursaries are targeting, then we need more brilliant teachable applicants from such disadvantaged backgrounds. Not least to counterbalance the third who are drawn from 7% of school pupils at independents. We can only be thankful that Mr Moritz's father was not put off by those whose cups are half empty.

Hello mim! I'm afraid I beg to differ:

I think the Oxford figure is 42% intake from private schools, six times the proportion of kids actually at private schools.

And the old cup analogy - the problem is the hole built into the bottom of many kids' cups. ... The challenge is structural and moral, not one addressed by tired imagery and easy rhetoric.

WH

Well none of your better heeled will be getting their paws on the £11k a year, which some would say fills a lot of the holes you see. So much for imagery and rhetoric. One might almost be led to think you were against helping young people who come from poor backgrounds. Perhaps they are unwelcome competition?

Try Cambridge. A great deal of research and money poured into widening access and it started years'n years ago.

Aliportico - no I don't tell my students this THEY tell me.

All very sad I'm afraid - the college system can make it worse.