Private pupils 55 times as likely to go to Oxbridge

I think you are trying a little too hard to carve out a niche for yourself. Your point is irrelevant - I wasn't talking about probabilities, I was referring to the Oxbridge discrimination angle - even your argument says nothing about probability, but observed frequency instead.

The bottom line is that there are 57 times more students with 3As+ from the private sector and as far as Oxbridge admissions are concerned and the issue of unfair discrimination, that is all that matters.

If you want to take your non-argument down some irrelevant back alley please feel free, but your rather naked (and neurotic) attempt to hide the fact that state schools are garbage (except grammars) cuts no ice here.

Personally, I'd like to know how many of those 176 students attended grammars (or somehow managed to get a scholarship to a private school); the Sutton Trust (and other lefties) love to lump in state grammars with the rest of the crappy comprehensives when it suits them; if, as I rather suspect, that a significant number of those 176 are from grammars, that would be constitute an even more damning indictment of the state sector/comprehensive schools.

I think the point here is that fewer people % wise from state schools on school dinners get the grades required for Oxbridge compared to those from private schools, which is more a failing of the state school system than anything else (although I don't think the state can quite afford to educate every pupil to the same standard that Eton can, for example).
I have one major problem with this article: why are Oxford and Cambridge singled out ALONE? Yes, they are both considered outstanding universities, but they are by no means the only universities that people who are getting A*AA and higher should be aspiring to.

You clearly don't understand the difference between probability and relative frequency - in reality, there is no such thing as probability in social science.

Your point is completely irrelevant and utterly fatuous. With reference to the Oxbridge admissions issue, it is the "probability" related to those with 3As or more that is of concern to Oxbridge, not the "probability" of anybody from any particular group getting in regardless of their grades.

The probability of getting in with less than 3As is virtually zero regardless of origin and the "probability" of getting into Oxbridge with 3As is similar whatever the background.

It's clear your tiny mind can't handle the fact that the "probability" for the FSM sector you refer to is of relevance to the state, not Oxbridge.

English clearly isn't your first language - I didn't say that Oxbridge admissions were not concerned, I said "...as far as Oxbridge admissions are concerned.." which is something else entirely.

Your obsession with proportions/percentages is a joke.

Go back to school, little boy.

...

You clearly don't understand the difference between probability and relative frequency - in reality, there is no such thing as probability in social science. Your point is completely irrelevant and utterly fatuous. With reference to the Oxbridge admissions issue, it is the "probability" related to those with 3As or more that is of concern to Oxbridge, not the "probability" of anybody from any particular group getting in regardless of their grades. The probability of getting in with less than 3As is virtually zero regardless of origin and the "probability" of getting into Oxbridge with 3As is similar whatever the background. It's clear your tiny mind can't handle the fact that the "probability" for the FSM sector you refer to is of relevance to the state, not Oxbridge. English clearly isn't your first language - I didn't say that Oxbridge admissions were not concerned, I said "...as far as Oxbridge admissions are concerned.." which is something else entirely. Your obsession with proportions/percentages is a joke.

Go back to school, little boy.

Bringing back grammar schools would certainly help.

The unfortunate result of mixed-ability education is that able students are often dragged down by the requirement of teachers to cater to people far less intelligent than themselves. Similarly, particularly gifted students are often bullied or made to feel unincluded if they have aspirations higher than their classmates. In private schools, where everyone's being trained for university education, this isn't so much of a factor.

Statistics such as these aren't purely indicative of a failed state education, it's of a state education which refuses to recognise innate ability.

That's what they're trained to aim for at private school.

Indeed, this whole thing is a nonsense and if you had read my first post on this thread, you'd know I said exactly the same thing about FSM as a proxy for poverty. As for being a leftie, you'll grow out of it (I hope) - the left have done nothing but betray the working classes and have force them into a lifetime of failure and depdendency. The destruction of grammar schools was the biggest social and educational disaster of the last century IMHO.

I'm not so sure. I went to a comprehensive school, with some classes mixed-ability and others streamed, with a greater proportion of the latter as we moved up. Seeing that other people have trouble with you find easy is good for developing empathy, and can teach you to help people out. Going from 11 to adulthood never having to interact much with people who aren't academically clever is a bit of a recipe for lack of insight, especially when people go straight on to competitive universities and the professions.

Bright pupils are failed by rubbish comprehensives, but to me this is more to do with breakdown of discipline in general, demotivated teachers and so on than being dragged down simply by contact with less intelligent peers. I'm sure it is frustrating when the disparity is very great and not well handled, but from experience I don't think that's an inevitable consequence of having a variety of ability within a school.

The other problem I have with grammars is that a distinction is made between two classes of student at an early age, with the less able streamed off into what is implicitly an inferior education (seperate but equal is always a hard sell, never mind different but equal). Those schools are likely to have more problems with discipline or demotivation, and students will never have the benefit of intelligent\motivated peers. Not to mention educated and middle-class will have the advantage of any test no matter how pure its intentions leading to stratification by class. Oxbridge's demographics show this and I think that's a price worth paying for excellence in higher education, but not at secondary level.

Anyone who does end up at a secondary modern or whatever they end up being called and discovers intellectual gifts or aspirations aged 12 is going to have even bigger problems with bullying or not being included, with their potential clever peers having been hived off.

The real tragedy of failing comprehensives isn't the people who go to UCL who might have gone to Oxford, or even the people who go to Warwick who might have gone to Oxford. It's the people who don't get an opportunity to go to university when they might have been capable of it. And even more so, the people who leave school effectively illiterate or innumerate. While that goes on, arguments about the fate of the top 10% are the tail wagging the dog.

Against my own argument: current "comprehensive" system is selection by postcode. Better opportunities confined to clever working-class people still better than rubbish opportunities for all working-class people.

Indeed, this whole thing is a nonsense and if you had read my first post on this thread, you'd know I said exactly the same thing about FSM as a proxy for poverty. As for being a leftie, you'll grow out of it (I hope) - the left have done nothing but betray the working classes and have force them into a lifetime of failure and depdendency. The destruction of grammar schools was the biggest social and educational disaster of the last century IMHO.

On the contrary, we are not 'trained' to aim for Oxbridge. :/
We just have the desire to do more, achieve more and become more well rounded people.

I have been in state education, now in private, the teachers just push you further and when you get the grades you want to achieve more in private education.

I think its because comprehensive schools just don't have the resources to help Oxbridge candidates e.g. at my school and lots of other comprehensive schools you just have to work yourself, especially for interviews. In private schools they get better training for interviews (perhaps pre-interview I don't think it matters that much).

Approx 1 in 4 on free school meals who got 3 As got Oxbridge offers in 2007. That was only the same odds as many independent school pupils in the same year. Whereas students at state schools who receive free school meals have really done fantastically well in terms of self motivation and independent study to get those grades.

Approx 1 in 4 on free school meals who got 3 As got Oxbridge offers in 2007. That was only the same odds as many independent school pupils in the same year.

The same odds? Source? Are you saying that out of ALL the independent schooled students who got 3 As in 2007, 1 in 4 went to oxbridge? I very doubt that...

Here is the link to the Sutton trust report which generated the newspaper headlines. The website has other research reports which also help explain my post.

http://www.suttontrust.com/research/responding-to-the-new-landscape-for-university-access/

On Page 16-18, the proportion of students who have been receiving free school meals who are accepted at universities, including Oxford and Cambridge, are shown.

It will be obvious from the data that Oxford accepts the smallest proportion of sixth formers attending state schools and in receipt of free school meals students in the country, even (and particularly) when compared to, say, UCL/Imperial/kings College London.

Before there is an outcry about the high academic standards Oxford has, it is (not) amusing to note that even Oxford Brookes takes fewer students in receipt of free school meals from state school backgrounds than UCL.

Here is the link to the Sutton trust report which generated the newspaper headlines. The website has other research reports which also help explain my post.

http://www.suttontrust.com/research/responding-to-the-new-landscape-for-university-access/

On Page 16-18, the proportion of students who have been receiving free school meals who are accepted at universities, including Oxford and Cambridge, are shown.

It will be obvious from the data that Oxford accepts the smallest proportion of sixth formers attending state schools and in receipt of free school meals students in the country, even (and particularly) when compared to, say, UCL/Imperial/kings College London.

Before there is an outcry about the high academic standards Oxford has, it is (not) amusing to note that even Oxford Brookes takes fewer students in receipt of free school meals from state school backgrounds than UCL.