Matthew Godfrey's Education Blog

Increased collaboration between private and state schools – where both share their expertise – benefits all, says deputy head Matthew Godfrey This article appeared in The Daily Telegraph on 21 July 2014 Michael Gove has said he wants to break down the “Berlin Wall” between state and independent schools. He hopes for a time when a state-educated pupil being accepted to Oxbridge is not a cause for celebration, but a matter of course. His laudable goal seems a long way off. Last year, a little more than a fifth of state-school pupils who applied to the University of Cambridge were accepted, compared to more than a third of applicants from independent schools. The gulf is even wider when analysing entry rates to the Russell Group, which represents 24 of the UK’s most selective universities. Around 65 per cent of students from independent schools go on to these universities, compared with just 25 per cent from state schools – a 40-percentage-point gap. In tackling this is...