Evening Standard Comment: We must reduce the educational divide

A-Level results
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WEST END FINAL

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Amid the hand-wringing and inflation hysteria, students from Brampton Manor Academy in Newham are celebrating after 55 teenagers achieved the A-level grades needed to study at Oxbridge — more offers than were made to Eton College.

Indeed, of their 350 A-level students, a phenomenal 330 have won places at Russell Group universities.

The school, where a majority of pupils are from ethnic minority backgrounds, in receipt of free school meals or will be the first in their family to attend university, came out ahead of Boris Johnson’s alma mater, where 48 students secured Oxbridge offers.

Brampton Manor has adopted an Oxbridge preparation programme and lives up to its motto, “success through effort and determination”. Its success is further evidence that London state schools are now some of the best in the country and have been for some time.

Yet some of the broader trends from yesterday’s A-level results are concerning. Not grade inflation — this year’s cohort cannot be meaningfully compared with those that sat exams. But the gaps between the wealthy and the disadvantaged. Private school students saw the largest rise in top grades.

Meanwhile, Ofqual’s equalities analysis reveals that the long-standing gaps indicating lower outcomes of black candidates, free school meal candidates and candidates with a very high level of deprivation relative to their respective reference group all widened by roughly 1.4 percentage points.

Exams, for all their well-publicised shortcomings, remain an equaliser. The real issue is not whether we grade A-levels by a letter or number system, that is merely a distraction. Our focus should instead be on reducing educational disparities, exacerbated by home learning and teacher assessment.

And a new secretary of state, one with a passion for education and in possession of some of Brampton Manor’s effort and determination, must be a necessary first step.

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