Grammars don’t help pupils get into elite universities

GOING to a grammar school does not make you any more likely than a comprehensive-educated child to get into an “elite” university, a study has found.

However, pupils who attend private schools are more likely to go to a Russell Group institution than peers from similar backgrounds.

After controlling for pupils’ background characteristics, such as family and academic achievement by age 10, researchers found “no advantage” in attending a grammar school. Meanwhile, those educated at fee-paying establishments were more likely to go to a top university, analysis of the 1970 British Cohort Study study showed.

University College London (UCL) researchers used data from the longitudinal study to look at the link between secondary schooling and university admissions of those born in 1970. They examined how likely children from private schools, comprehensives and grammars were to go to Russell Group universities.

Prof Alice Sullivan, a UCL sociologist who led the study, said her team initially found “stark” differences between pupils’ progression to university depending on their type of school.

They found that 29 per cent of private school pupils went on to Russell Group institutions compared with 12 per cent of grammar alumni and 5 per cent from comprehensives. But after controlling their background characteristics, the differences disappeared.

Prof Sullivan said private schools “appeared to confer a genuine advantage in the chances of attending an elite university”, while grammar school pu- pils’ chances “were comparable to those of comprehensive school pupils with similar socio-economic backgrounds and primary test scores”.

The findings were included in papers published by the Higher Education Policy Institute that looked at academic selection in schools.