Top state schools for Oxford places| Top state schools for Cambridge places

A LEAGUE table of the state schools most successful at getting pupils into Oxford and Cambridge universities has been revealed this year for the first time under freedom of information laws.

The figures show that less than 20% of secondaries provide all the entrants from the state sector, with most of the successful applicants coming from grammar schools or sixth-form colleges.

They expose the extent to which many comprehensives — which may have only a small number of exceptional pupils — are failing to get students into Oxford and Cambridge, suggesting that the millions the two universities have spent on trying to create a broader social mix among their intake has benefited schools that take children from largely affluent families.

The top places are taken by three London grammars and Colchester Royal Grammar in Essex. The Latymer school in Enfield, north London, the most successful of the Oxbridge state schools, won 46 places from an upper sixth of 243, putting it on a par with some of the most successful independent schools. Queen Elizabeth, a grammar in Barnet, north London, and the Royal Grammar School in High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire, sent 16% of last year’s sixth form to Oxbridge.

Among the high-performing state grammars is St Olave’s in Orpington, Kent, chosen by Harriet Harman, the constitutional affairs minister, and her husband Jack Dromey, for one of their sons. This year 12% of its 167 sixth-formers went to Oxbridge — 11 to Oxford and nine to Cambridge.

None compares with St Paul’s girls’, an independent school in Hammersmith, west London, which sent 34 girls to Oxford and 22 to Cambridge this year out of a sixth form of only 100.

Cambridge takes 48% of its undergraduates from state schools, 38% from the independent sector and 14% from overseas. Oxford takes 47% from state schools and 43.4% from independents.

Of the 3,400 state secondaries, Oxford has listed 118 that had four or more offers of places and 16 that had 10 or more.

Cambridge has listed 69 schools where at least five pupils had started an undergraduate course at the university this year.

Among the successful comprehensives is the London Oratory school in Brompton, west London, the Roman Catholic school chosen by the Blairs for three of their children. It is one of 27 comprehensives that sent four or more pupils to Oxford and Cambridge.

In some schools there is an anti-Oxbridge climate. “It goes against the grain to select out their pupils for elite universities, whereas in most selective and independent schools, their status depends on the Oxbridge count,” said one retired grammar school head.

David Adelman, principal of Godalming college of further education in Surrey, said it wasn’t always in pupils’ interest to push them for Oxbridge. “For those that don’t get offered a place it can be demoralising and put them off striving to get into other universities.”

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