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

foxie48

For anyone who is actually interested in what Birbalsingh said in her speech this is what "School's week" wrote about her speech and I understand that they are normally quite critical of her!

I am interested in what she said which is why I watched her speech, so I know what she said.

That's a direct lift from her Twitter feed, isn't it? The quoted piece is not referenced or dated and I can't find it anywhere online. The bit about them being hard on her is what she wrote herself.

That's the trouble with encouraging the poor to be educated. We learn how to critique what gets published about those who think they run the world.

GraceQuirrel

I knew of a girl (daughter of friend of friend) who went to Oxford and spent 3 years in her room. Had nothing in common with her peers, no interest in joining any societies or attending balls (as she knew nobody). She still came out with a degree but Oxford and Cambridge really are for a certain set.

This is interesting, GQ, but I don't agree that Ox and Cam are 'for a certain set'. Quite a lot of people actually go to uni to study and aren't interested in what I'm going to call average or standard student activities.

I speak as one who decided Oxford wasn't for me during sixth form when I was being actively encouraged to apply there. I had a friend (still do) at the university I did go to who had actually started at Oxford but found it didn't suit her and who then re-applied elsewhere. She still got a first and then a PhD and I still ended up doing a PGCE at Oxford.

I was Oxford-based for twenty years and made some very good friends there, none of whom were 'typical' students as far as social life went. We still had great social lives but they weren't university based. Oh, and we all had all been to state schools.

I come from a council estate working class background. I got good enough grades to go to Oxbridge but thought I’d be ridiculed so never applied. I do not regret it a bit when I see the obnoxious oiks those places churn out

That’s a pretty unfair comment.

It's an ignorant comment, using the literal sense of the word, simply not knowing.

Surprisingly so from someone who says her grades were good enough to get her a place at Oxbridge.

Which is not to say there aren't any obnoxious oiks in Oxford. Of course there are, like everywhere else, but it's not the university (universities I should say nowadays) that produces them.

GraceQuirrel

I knew of a girl (daughter of friend of friend) who went to Oxford and spent 3 years in her room. Had nothing in common with her peers, no interest in joining any societies or attending balls (as she knew nobody). She still came out with a degree but Oxford and Cambridge really are for a certain set.

In my twenties I had an admin job in an all-male Cambridge college. The intake was from a broad selection of schools and family backgrounds. There was a tendency for cliques to exist among friends who knew one another from boarding school. However, lots of opportunities existed for joining in other groups e.g. college choir, sporting teams, town based charities. (The Chaplain even managed to wheedle me into making a thirty second appearance as a token female in his college revue). I got to know many of the students and they were a complete cross section of personalities. There were shy, lonely introverts from all backgrounds who would have struggled socially at any university. The one thing they all needed to survive was the ability to cope with a very intensive academic regime.

Volver we've become so polararised that the interpretation of what she said depends so much on who is saying it. I have found this, which I believe is a quote from her speech. I don't agree with everything KB says, she's her own worst enemy at times but I don't feel the need to misrepresent her. For most children, wherever they come from, Oxbridge is not going to be a realistic goal, it doesn't mean we shouldn't try to widen access and tbh in this I think there's been a degree of success but that shouldn't be the focus for measuring social mobility. I think that is what she is saying and if she is then I agree with her. There are many ways of succeeding in life other than an Oxbridge degree.

Ms Birbalsingh said: “For my top 5%-6% of children at school I’m really excited for them to be able to possibly get into Oxford or Cambridge.

“But I just recognise that for the majority of my children tI deliberately chose hat isn’t really a reality, and that we’re too often distracted by that romantic Hollywood-type film of you’ve been born at the bottom and now you’re at the top and so on.

“When in fact most of us don’t actually even want to be prime minister and we don’t want to be millionaires – what we want is to be able to find a job where we can find purpose and fulfil our talents.”

She said this was not about dampening aspiration for working-class pupils.

“I don’t dampen it at our school, most certainly. But it’s also the case that it’s important to remember that not all of us want to be bankers.

“We need to value a whole variety of different careers that are out there and options for young people.

“And valuing their talents, because not everybody is going to get top 9s in their GCSEs, not everyone is going to go on and do A-levels, and to then take the sort of condescending view of people who don’t do A-levels is wrong, because they are fulfilling their talents and doing something that’s got equal worth.”

GovernmentParentsEducation SecretaryBritainITV

There seems to be some almost deliberate misunderstanding here of what Ms Birbalsingh said, and some pretty unpleasant posts.

The speech mentioned "poor families", because her role is supposed to be about "lifting people out of poverty". I didn't see the words working class but I'm sure someone will correct me if I missed them..

I read nothing about discouraging children from poor backgrounds to aim high. Quite the opposite. The point was that published measurements of success in improving social mobility concentrate on a few talented children growing up in poverty who reach the top of the ladder and high-profile careers. And that the success of the many more less talented children who get a firm footing on the lower rungs is equally important.

No doubt it could have been better phrased, but I think it's a powerful message.

Has anyone actually read the linked article? Or anyone else's informed comments on the current rate of state school admissions to Oxbridge?

Sorry @winterwhite, you obviously had. I read the first couple of pages of comments and was so frustrated I went off half-cocked. I apologise to all the free thinking, intelligent contributers on here.

That's not a quote from her speech.

I have to go and do something right now but I would like to answer your points foxie4 so I'll be back in a while

NoddingGanGan

Has anyone actually read the linked article? Or anyone else's informed comments on the current rate of state school admissions to Oxbridge?

Did all those free thinking intelligent contributors realise that this has nothing to do with admissions to Oxbridge?

to be continued...

I went to Edinburgh University and the LSE. There were quite a few English students from Eton, Harrow etc studying at Edinburgh. The other students called them ‘Yahs’ because of how they pronounced the word ‘yes’. ?

Maybe she is making a different point? I hate voxpops where the loss of a young person is added to by “he / she was going to be a doctor / lawyer” as if other occupations aren’t just as worthy of grieving. Oxbridge is great but nothing wrong with striving for other universities or an apprenticeship

My son went to Oxford from a bog standard comprehensive in Hull .
He got the highest marks in the Maths faculty finals , earning himself a First and a substantial financial prize .
I did worry that his school was pushing him into a social strata where he would not fit in .
I couldn't have been more wrong.
He had a wonderful time and made lovely and life long friends.

Just how it should be.

Well said, winterwhite.

I should just point out that getting ‘good enough grades’ alone will not get students into Oxbridge. There are many, many people with top grades who don’t get a place. On the other hand, I know somebody who was offered a place at Oxford if he got two E grades (though in the end he did much better than that). He happened to be a brilliant organist, and that’s really what got him the place.

If working class children don’t go to Oxbridge, the syst3m will never change will it??

So, correcting some inaccuracies first…

foxie48’s long quote in her post at 14:52 is not from Birbalsingh’s speech yesterday.
Her speech yesterday was not about widening access to Oxford or Cambridge.
Her speech yesterday was in her position as Chair of the Social Mobility Commission, not as a head teacher.
winterwhite - It is not the role of the Chair of the Social Mobility Commission to be "lifting people out of poverty".

I think the headline from the article I quoted yesterday has had the effect of making people focus on Oxbridge admissions numbers and produced a long line of stories about people who went to Oxbridge from “poorer” backgrounds. But the Oxbridge reference is to encapsulate what she was saying – that if you are from a “poorer” background, you should be happier with less achievement.

She has a general modus operandi that she is following in this instance. Set up a straw man, saying that everyone considers success as being a CEO, or a lawyer, or similar, and that other successes are being ignored. Well that is an inaccurate position from which to start. That is an idea that she has made up in her own head, and she goes on to explain how she is going to fix this non-existent problem. And it’s mainly by encouraging the ones at the bottom (her actual words) not to expect too much and to be happy with less.

I don’t have the knowledge to know if she is a good educationalist or not, it’s not my area. But as a person from a poor/disadvantaged/working class background – choose what you want to call it – I can see that her approach is not going to be one that encourages people like me to aim to be the best they can be. And that’s her job, six days a month. Appointed by Truss who said she would be addressing the issues of low expectations. She’s not doing that. She is advocating the concept of low expectations and painting that as a virtue.

So its not a deliberate misunderstanding winterwhite, it’s a sensible reading of what she says and what it means. She is clearly totally unsuited to the role of Chair of the Social Mobility Commission and having a school which seems to do well isn’t going to let her off justified criticism in other roles.

Transcript of her speech. www.gov.uk/government/speeches/bucking-the-trend-a-fresh-approach-to-social-mobility

Summary of her role: publicappointments.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/Social-Mobility-Commission-Chair-Candidate-Information-Pack.pdf

FarNorth

Dickens
The message is that social mobility works at all levels. We shouldn't focus on just one goal.

To some limited extent, it always has worked 'at all levels' - long before it became government policy.

People have extricated themselves from poverty and climbed the ladder. My own mother did - but she did it with the financial help of the then government.

Is there equal weight to vocational and academic skills?

The chap who runs Pimlico Plumbers (Charlie something?) is a pretty good example of social mobility isn't he?

foxie48 That sums up perfectly what she said - I actually read the article in the Telegraph covering her speech (and was really annoyed at the clickbait headline - I don't pay my subscription for tabloid crap like that) and saw her interviewed by Dan Wootton on GB News last night. She was NOT saying that children from disadvantaged backgrounds shouldn't aim to go to Oxbridge, she was saying that people who are not capable of those dizzy heights should also be praised for improving their circumstances and that too is social mobility. The left love to misunderstand this woman - her school has many disadvantaged puptils and some of them do end up at Oxbridge.