"Participation rates to the Sutton Trust 30 grouping of highly selective universities, comprising universities in Scotland, England and Wales with over 500 undergraduate entrants each year, where it was estimated that less than 10 per cent of places are attainable to pupils with 200 UCAS tariff points (equivalent to two D grades and a C grade at A-level) or less. They also have the degree entrants with the highest average examination scores. They comprise the following universities: Bath; Birmingham; Bristol; Cambridge; Cardiff; Durham; Edinburgh; Exeter; Glasgow; Imperial College; King's College; Lancaster; Leeds; Leicester; Liverpool; LSE; Manchester; Newcastle; Nottingham; Oxford; Reading; Royal Holloway; Sheffield; Southampton; St Andrews; Strathclyde; Surrey; UCL; Warwick; York. Students are those UK domiciled students aged 18 or 19 first applying in 2007, 2008 or 2009". You can find an article in Kent On Saturday this week, exploring the issues. Not surprisingly, The Judd School, Tonbridge; Skinners School, Tunbridge Wells; Tonbridge Grammar School; and Tunbridge Wells Girls' Grammar School top the list, with 72% of Judd A Level students being awarded places at one of these schools. These schools by their nature and location all attract many of the most aspirational families and motivated children. The main objective of the Sutton Trust is to improve educational opportunities for young people from non-privileged backgrounds and increase social mobility, and these national figures both expose some of the current inequalities and hopefully put pressure on schools with lower performances by these measures to encourage students to aim higher. It is noticeable that the two schools whose students achieved the highest average A Level points score are not featured in the higher reaches of this table. They are Dover Grammar School for Girls and Highsted Grammar School (for girls, Sittingbourne). Outstanding A Level performances by any measure, to outperform all the Kent "super selective" grammar schools, but situated in parts of the county where aspirations need to be raised for higher education. Four non-selective schools outperform grammar schools towards the bottom of the table: St Gregory's RC Comprehensive School; Bennett Memorial Diocesan School (both Tunbridge Wells!); Mascalls School, Paddock Wood; and St Simon Stock RC School in Maidstone.
Sunday, 31 July 2011 11:21
Report into relative success of Kent schools in getting A Level students into prestige universities
Written by Peter Read
The Sutton Trust has recently come up with a Report comparing schools' success at A Level with their success in accessing selective universities. There are some surprising results.............
Last modified on Monday, 01 August 2011 09:17
Latest from Peter Read
Leave a comment
Make sure you enter the (*) required information where indicated.
Basic HTML code is allowed.