Working class? Don't think that Oxbridge is for you.

What does "no artificial access on identity politics" mean?

She's the one playing the cultural war game!

Both Oxford and Cambridge have outreach ambassadors who go into state schools and push the message that their universities are for anybody who's capable, works hard and is passionate about their subject.

Birbalsingh is supposed to be the social mobility tsar - she's paid for it. How dare she tell anybody that they shouldn't be aiming for Oxbridge if that's what they want. I bet she wouldn't go into a private school and say the same thing.

Has no-one here read the article?

I don’t read Twitter.
Maybe she is ‘mad as a box of badgers’. Her school is popular and she gets results. It’s very strict. No bullying is tolerated. Pupils feel safe and do well. That in itself is a rarity these days.

Ms Birbalsingh is expert at creating a fuss on Twitter and social media, then playing the victim, telling everybody that what she really meant was something else entirely, and boasting about her weird little school that can't even get the quotations on the wall right.

I had a friend once who used to use the phrase "mad as a box of badgers".

Here she is.

I like her. She of the ‘toughest school head’ according to a recent documentary I watched. There’s a huge waiting list to get into her school - a run down area. Discipline, boundaries and working hard to achieve good grades are what she promises in her school. Her staff think she is fantastic.

Reading what Ms Birbalsingh has actually said, it seems she exactly advocates that - if you can succeed you should be able to .... irrespective of background, but there should be no artificial access on identity politics.

She has then however further commented that those from more disadvantaged backgrounds should be able to go as far as they can, even if it's not the so-called elite positions in education or society - "a broader view of social mobility, for a wider range of people."
I see little to argue with in that.

We can’t claim to be working class, but my sons did go to a state comprehensive, and one went to Cambridge. He didn’t meet anyone else from a state school for over a month, and as for cutlery - well, I thought I had prepared him to cope with anything, but he said he was still somewhat baffled when faced with five knives. The ‘work from the outside inwards’ rule didn’t seem adequate. He did well, though, rowed for his college (he couldn’t row before he went), and the whole experience enriched his life in the long run. He has found that, like it or not, being a Cambridge graduate opens doors.

Most Oxford students I’ve known have been far more concerned about being able enough academically compared with their peers to stay the course, as having been the brightest at school they are plunged into a world where everybody else is very academic too. Background doesn’t come into it - except for a few student groups who consider themselves elite (mainly entitled idiots who the other students take the Micky out of these days).

I didn’t suggest that Casdon. I said that some might not have eaten at a table at home. Nothing to do with table manners, just feeling totally out of your depth. I know a little of what I’m talking about - one of my son’s best friends, from a very disadvantaged single parent family up North, had a hard time at Oxford but stayed the course. He was far from happy though.

Not be a problem

Less than 1% of all students drop out of Oxford or Cambridge Germanshepherdsmum. That’s much lower than most universities. It’s very patronising to suggest that coming from a working class background means you don’t have good table manners. Working class doesn’t mean you don’t have a good upbringing in a large proportion of cases you know.

GSM -I'm sure the dinning room, would be a problem?
My niece was also given a personal bursery which all students are entitled to, as they don't want the Student to go out to work. As a family we always sent her back with food parcels, to save her money. ( I also did when he was at University, not Oxbridge)
How much you get depends your circumstances, no one asks.
Don't underestimate these student, they are not all "Brats"

Almost any young person who came from a house with no table but still got into Oxbridge would cope with dining in hall!

OH came from a family ‘up North’ that couldn’t afford a council house until he was 15. So no bathroom or loo in the house he grew up in. He passed his 11+ and went to Grammar School. Got into Oxford, which he loved. Captain of his College football team and made lots of friends, some of whom he still sees.

Did they come from disadvantaged backgrounds though, visgirl? That’s the point, and having a state education doesn’t mean you’re disadvantaged. Oxbridge bend over backwards to take students from state schools nowadays. But imagine coming from a background where people had no table to eat at and being plunged into dining in hall, with more cutlery to cope with than you’ve ever seen.

Germanshepherdsmum

I’m suggesting that some disadvantaged students would be happier, and maybe perform better, elsewhere. Suicide rates amongst students don’t make for pleasant reading.

You can’t operate like that! Back in the day when a working class student would have been like hens teeth in oxbridge, my cousin had a scholarship to Oxford. He survived and flourished - ended up in the Treasury which he loathed and spent his career working for the IMF.

Yes he came across idiots but apart from telling some hilarious tales of their stupidity Bute given my cousins intellect, they don’t seem to have worried him in the least, and this is what the country so badly needs very bright individuals, without any sense of entitlement and snobbery.

My friend's daughter went to Oxford after attending a state school, in an area of high deprivation.
She later became a professor there.

I have one Cousin Oxford and my Niece Cambridge.
Both state schools, both had an amazing time and now fabulous careers.
Neither had any problems.
My niece shared a house with a World famous drummers son, she was the sensible one in the house who they all looked up to.

A friend's daughter from a working class family went to Oxford. She was thoroughly miserable. She felt out of place and different. She was constantly sobbing to her parents on the phone.
Eventually she left, went to a different university, was happy and got her degree. I realise it works for some.

I’m suggesting that some disadvantaged students would be happier, and maybe perform better, elsewhere. Suicide rates amongst students don’t make for pleasant reading.

Using your logic GSM, numbers of working class students at Oxbridge would never increase in case they were upset by being a minority!

My son went to a state school but didn’t come from a disadvantaged background - professional parents. State school figures alone mean nothing.

Cross post WWM2 we were obviously thinking along the same lines!

According to the House of Commons Library ‘for the last two decades both Oxford and Cambridge have taken more than half of their entrants from state schools. The latest rates are 67% for Oxford and 68% for Cambridge, or somewhat higher if overseas students at UK schools are excluded. These rates have generally increased over the past few decades with particularly large increases in the last two years.’
To ask students to aim lower, whatever their background, is supremely patronising, they should all be aiming for the highest they are capable of achieving. In reality those who make it from working class backgrounds are amongst the brightest of their generation because they have had the odds stacked against them from the beginning. It’s most likely only elements like our esteemed PMs Bullingdon Club that are discriminatory once they arrive.