British private schools pimp their pupils to papers for publicity

[muriel_volestrangler]

(A levels are the final exams students take at English schools, so the girls are typically 18. GSCE students are typically 16)

Via Liberal Conspiracy:

Last year, I received an unsolicited voicemail from the press liaison at Badminton School in Bristol: “Hi Chris, . . .Just wanting to give you some details of some absolutely beyootiful girls we’ve got here who are getting their A-level results tomorrow. Some lovely stories . . . They’re amazing girls.” Bedales School in Hampshire helpfully supplies photos to journalists, sending out pictures of some of its pupils celebrating GCSE results. Oddly, it seems to forget to send out any photos of its male students (or its dowdier girls).

Most alarmingly, another (very grand) private school invited the FT education correspondent to an end-of-year sports event. I was, alas, too busy. It was a shame, I was informed by a senior teacher. He said that watching the girls playing sports would have given me a unique opportunity to pick out promising candidates for A-level day pictures.

The big story about A-levels this year will be the fact that as many as 200,000 aspirant students could be denied a university place. So the real scandal about A-level results day coverage is not going to be the preponderance of pretty girls. It is that the newspapers will tend to run too many happy pictures.

In the interests of balance, the broadsheets should endeavour to take more photographs of young people crying. And more photos of disappointed people who got into their third-choice institution. I will not be pleased unless I see lots of photos of young people visibly worrying at making do with what their parents think is a “Mickey Mouse course” at a “jumped-up former polytechnic”

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/54f49ade-bc80-11e0-adac-00144feabdc0.html

"A blog exploring the hypothesis that UK newspapers believe that only attractive girls in low cut tops do A-Levels."