Clearing no longer 'bargain basement for the unsuccessful' as savvy students use it to 'trade up' uni courses
Dr Jo Saxton said sixth formers entering Clearing on A-level results day was the 'new normal', with much of the old 'stigma' removed.
The admissions chief also said this year's students could be better-achieving than previous years – opening up the possibility of even higher grades.
And in a wide-ranging interview, she also urged the Government to encourage university entry for students from disadvantaged regional areas.
Dr Saxton was speaking ahead of hundreds of thousands of 18-year-olds receiving their A-level grades on Thursday.
Those who miss their grades and get rejected from their chosen universities can enter Clearing, which matches unplaced students with unfilled places.
Asked if there was still a 'stigma' to Clearing, she said: 'There is a new normal.'
'Clearing maybe was perceived as a bargain basement – it was for the people who had been unsuccessful.
'But that is definitely not how current applicants perceive it.'
She pointed out that because so many top courses are now entering Clearing, many students even use it to 'trade up' from their existing place.
'For current applicants, it's [often] the mechanism by which they change their mind,' she said.
Around 26,000 courses are currently on offer in Clearing, with most of the top universities of the Russell Group listing places available.
Dr Saxton said students are becoming savvier, by pre-researching alternative courses before results day.
'They're not blindfolded throwing a dart at a dartboard,' she added.
It comes after experts predicted at the weekend results may remain higher than before the pandemic.
Asked if there would be grade inflation this year, Dr Saxton suggested any rise in grades may be down to the cohort being cleverer.
This is because they were the first cohort since the pandemic to have their GCSE grades returned to the old harder standards – meaning more people at the lower end may have been put off from doing A-levels.
'The practical consequences of that is that it did mean that fewer students than in recent years actually met the entry criteria that most schools and colleges would set for progression into A-level subjects,' she said.
'It probably means there's fractionally higher prior attainment across the cohort.'
Dr Saxton was speaking at an event run by the Higher Education Policy Institute (Hepi), about her views as the head of the UK's official admissions body.
Asked about her 'hopes and fears' for the Government's up-coming plans for universities, due to be published in the autumn, she said she wants to see more action on students from disadvantaged areas.
She said: 'We're definitely thinking about it and have been involved in some of the conversations.
'In terms of what I hope for, I'd really like to see more about access and participation plans, particularly from a regional angle – that regional disparity. That London advantage.
'More people in all parts of the country should get to benefit from higher education.'
Last year, 27.8 per cent of pupils got A or A* grades – a record outside of the pandemic – and a record number also got accepted onto courses.
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Live Lotto results for Wednesday, August 13: National Lottery winning numbers from tonight's draw
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The Guardian
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But trying to be sustainable, we challenged ourselves to keep it and use it in the garden.' Mixed with soil on a 50:50 or even a 60:40 basis, the crushed concrete 'acts like a sieve', preventing the soil from holding as much moisture and forcing the plants in the garden to grow more slowly, Pottage explains. 'The plants put down a lot more roots, because they're exploring, looking for more water and nutrients.' Species set to be planted include amsonia, a sky blue flowering plant native to the North American prairies; Myrtus communis, an evergreen Mediterranean shrub with small white flowers; and Euphorbia myrsinites, an alpine plant with silvery blue leaves and lime-green flowers that is often grown in rock gardens. • We had to restore a 100-year-old garden before we could build a home While they may not grow as lush or as tall as they would in moisture-rich soil, plants with deeper roots have more resilience to drought in the summer and wet weather in winter, he says. 'With roots that are deep and widespread, a plant can access what it needs but is never in a position of excess: it never has water standing around it.' This also prevents its leaves from ballooning with water, making the plant less prone to bursting and freezing in winter. 'It is hardier and more tolerant to cold weather.' The downside of mixing concrete into soil is that it increases the soil's alkaline levels. 'But it's surprising how many plants will tolerate that high pH levels — there will be plenty of perennials in the garden that people will recognise, like asters, geraniums, agastache and heleniums,' he says. 'It will still look very pretty.' As well as re-using the concrete salvaged from the site, steel from the old glasshouses has been melted down and will be turned into pergolas for climbing plants. A redundant water tower will be converted into a rainwater store, bat loft and nesting site for swifts and swallows. As well as a large pond, a 2,000 sq m wildflower meadow will be planted in the innovative soil, in an effort to improve the diversity of the habitat for pollinators. 'Although these meadows look great in the first year, normally, what goes wrong is that grass species outcompete wildflowers, which have a weaker constitution and are not very robust,' Pottage says. 'We know, from other parts of the park where we've done meadows on our clay soil, that we end up with cow parsley and really vigorous grass.' Using crushed concrete in the soil will be a gamechanger, he predicts. 'There won't be enough nutrients in the soil for the grasses to go ballistic, but wildflowers live longer on poor soil — so this should be a very diverse and long-lived wildflower meadow.'
