Segmentación

The A/B pass rate and average A-level points tally for a school (most measures used by newspapers exclude General Studies grades,The Independentbeing one of the few exceptions), remain the key statistics which are used by the quality press for compiling performance league tables. For selective schools such as School X, the number of successful Oxbridge applicants which they can boast each year is also important for proving its academic worth. There have been a number of reasons why some students of this calibre in the school have avoided re-sits. Unsurprisingly, as I discovered through my research, most were simply satisfied with their results first time around. Others were wary about the prospect of providing their chosen universities with performance data which showed that they could only meet the conditions of their offer of a place with the aid of re-sits. Over the past year or so, however, more Oxbridge candidates at the school, both before and after receiving conditional offers of a place at one of the two universities, have taken the opportunity to re-sit. The fact I have found little evidence at School X to suggest that re-sits jeopardise their application, as examined in chapter four, may be a contributory factor.

Like School X, there has been a general tendency for Group Y schools to both offer their sixth form students more opportunities to re-sit their examinations, and relax their own limits on the number they can take in each series. The

understanding amongst colleagues that Oxbridge colleges tendnotto consult the re-sit data they now have access to, may also be a factor which has influenced independent schools to impose few constraints on the number of modules which are re-sat. In their quest to differentiate between candidates who have the same

overall subject grades,alluniversities entered an arrangement with UCAS and the examination boards to access, from summer 2007, the grades which have been achieved by students in each A-level module, including re-sits (Garner, 2006). Some universities appear particularly keen to siphon off the ‘very best’ from merely the ‘best’ candidates, but argue (Robertson, 2005), and it is hard to say otherwise, that the outgoing grading system does not allow this kind of selectivity. Candidates are awarded an ‘A’ grade for a total uniform mark scale (UMS) score of 480 and above, from a maximum of 600. In other words, an outstanding student can record a UMS up to 120 points higher than needed to achieve the top grade. In contrast, each grade between ‘A’ to ‘E’ is separated by only 60 UMS points (Appendix 3 shows how UMS scales convert into AS and A- level grade boundaries).

Universities are being further helped by the QCA in their efforts to scrutinise the quality of A-level candidates. From 2008, the revamped A-level structure, down from the present six unit format to just four, involves harder questions and longer exams of a more traditional essay orientation. A number of subjects, including Business Studies, have also lost their coursework component. On the other hand, it is reasonable to think that the introduction of an A* grade from 2010 as part of a new seven point ‘stretch and challenge’ scale for candidates scoring more than an average UMS of 90 per cent in their A2-level units (combined with a grade ‘A’ in the full A-level qualification), as opposed to 80 per centoverallin the outgoing system,shouldresult in universities being less eager to see scores for individual modules. The prospect of this happening, along with the future role of other methods of selection that are used by universities, such as entrance examinations, is discussed in more detail in chapter five.

Furthermore, as reported by Garner (2006a), findings from a survey byThe Independent on Sundayindicated that the eagerness of universities to be more selective may have been counterbalanced to an extent by the introduction of top- up fees of £3000 a year, starting in 2006 and along with it the prospect of

disenfranchising less affluent students who otherwise would aspire towards a career in higher education. The same survey revealed that numerous

universities, including members of the elite Russell Group such as Nottingham and Exeter, were unable to fill places on science and engineering courses in that year, and as a result were forced to make offers of lower grades. If such a trend took hold it might actually suit the independent sector, not only because it has been less inclined than the maintained sector to steer students away from traditionally ‘tougher’ subjects such as Mathematics and Physics (Johnson, 2006), but also because of the ability of relatively wealthy parents to provide them with financial support through university. After the downwards blip of 2006, however, UCAS reported in the summer of 2007 that the number of applicants having their places confirmed on results day exceeded 300,000 for the first time – an increase of 6 per cent on the previous year (UCAS website, 2007).

Government ministers were quick to claim that this increase was largely due to their introduction of grants worth nearly £3000 for applicants from deprived backgrounds, although more university bursaries of up to £5000 may be helping to reduce the financial divide which exists between students from the two sectors (Garner, 2007).