Fee paying schools but not £20K a year kind

[CookieDoughKid]

Can anyone tell me why we don't have fee paying schools where parents can contribute. I can afford £2000 a term (just plucking a realistic figure for me) not £5000 a term. I'm thinking that this would contribute to better facilities, resources, buildings, teachers, IT, books, labs etc. I'd even vote for some kind of entry test and whereby the school could allocate stream classes from day 1 and have 33% of each ability to keep it ''inclusive''. I'm not from the education sector and I don't have any experience in teaching at schools but I think there is a gap where high earning professionals like myself could and want to contribute to a quality school given that there are so few good quality state schools about (especially secondary).

[CookieDoughKid]

Thanks Gruach I will have a read of those links. I'm in Oxfordshire so it's not a state grammar, no state boarding and private Indies very very expensive. I am unsure about good quality state secondary schools given that you have to be able to afford a £500k+ home near it I.e. Cherwell school which is regarded as one of the best (and its a really big oversubscribed school) and £500k+ doesn't buy you much in terms of house floor space either).

[mummytime]

Cherwell is not the only good secondary in Oxford!

[Gruach]

Ah, ok. OP you're lucky enough to be in the midst of some of the best prep schools in the world country - but that doesn't help if you're too poor for fees and too rich (or not competive enough) for the very rare but wonderful bursaries.

If you haven't already it might be a good idea to start another thread asking specifically about your local schools.

Btw have I misunderstood? I thought the point of boarding schools (including state boarding schools) was that one doesn't have to be local. Do some more research my friend.

[Lurkedforever1]

I can see the logic, but if you look at how far 6k goes in the state sector, I don't see it would be a major improvement to what a state school offers. There is one cheaper ( but not that cheap) small independent that does well near me. But I think that's because of its situation. Parents who can't afford the usual independent costs, but are left with dodgy catchment choice. And the nearest state grammars would be way to far on a daily basis. I'd say the result is more of a luxury grammar school iyswim. Which still works out better than the state choices and is cheaper than moving into a decent catchment. It probably wouldn't work if it wasn't for the area and it tried expanding in size.

I do like the idea of being able to use your state funding towards a private place and topping it up though.

[mummytime]

"I do like the idea of being able to use your state funding towards a private place and topping it up though."

This is a political hot potato and one that I for one am against. If that funding per pupil was transferable, then it would actually be a lower amount; as you would have to add in to the number of pupils those pupils who are not educated in the state sector. EG the sum would change from:
Total Funding/(No of State pupils)
to: Total Funding/(No of State pupils + No of private pupils).
I don't see the total funding would be at all likely to increase.
In addition this would disadvantage the lower income families (which in the SE can mean anything up to £100K pa) who cannot afford private schools even using a voucher.
The cost of premises, especially suitable premises would prevent many schools being able to open in expensive areas, especially low cost ones.

It would be a case of giving a tax break at the expense of the poor to the rich (assuming they could use their vouchers against schools such as Eton).

This is why even Margaret Thatcher didn't get such plans through.

[Lurkedforever1]

Yes, there is that side to it. Perhaps it should depend on what your local schools and income are. If state schools were in competition with each other for pupils funding, instead of the majority knowing they'll get the full quota and having to compete with whatever dumb system is rolled out to measure standards, I think the bad and mediocre would be getting their act together pretty fast. Not to mention the fact if the entire funding for any child with Sen in mainstream was at the disposal of the parents, any who wanted non mainstream provision would have a much bigger chance of obtaining it.

I agree it wouldn't be practical to implement in any fair way though. Just irks me that state education is one size fits all postcode lottery.

[NewLife4Me]

My dd school is like this but very competitive for entry and elite/ specialist.
Fees are 31K but paid on a sliding scale.
So you can be the poorest of the poor and not pay a penny or earn 190k and pay the whole lot.
It is government funded through a scheme.

[Abraid2]

Quite a few children leave my children's private Oxfordshire schools for Cherwell and seem to do well, though quite a bit of private tutoring goes on, which skews the figures, I think.

[Parsley1234]

Holyport admissions is on "as the crow flies" even for boarding unless The child is Termed LAC and has only been open since 2014 so too soon for league tables.

[JasperDamerel]

I'm not quite sure what you are suggesting? Is it a cheap independent day school? That might be possible, but is unlikely to be better than a properly run state school. My local Steiner school has low fees, but they keep their feed low by having only a minimum of facilities and getting the parents to volunteer for just about everything (running the office, fundraising, catering, maintenance, decorating etc) as a condition of entry.

Or are you suggesting that there should be state-funded schools which are only available to children whose parents pay a top-up fee of several thousand pounds a year? Because that's pretty outrageous, and would pretty much destroy the state education system, which works very well in most parts of the country.

[Needanadulttotalkto]

OP, what is it you're looking for in particular that you don't feel you can find in a State school? Is it mostly the facilities and extra curricular?

I was having a conversation with someone about the differences is state vs private school days, and I was saying that my DC's private pre-prep does about 2hrs a day of English and maths and the rest is humanities, music, sports, forest school etc (highest achieving school in the county btw, so it's not that they don't take academics seriously) and the other person was saying that her good state school's year 2 does almost all of the day except for about 1 1/2 hours as maths and English - so an opposite structure to mine! Also, they got far more homework than we do.

[JasperDamerel]

I think it varies from school to school. The state school my children go to probably has roughly that balance at KS1, although with fewer opportunities for music and drama, with reading, spellings and times tables for homework. It's harder to gauge exactly how the time is divided up, because literacy and numeracy will often be linked to work done in history, geography or science. There isn't PE every day, but there are sports clubs at lunchtime and after school, so most children end up doing sport every day. In my experience the main differences are probably less music and drama, and no compulsory foreign languages in KS1.

[caroldecker]

There is nothing to stop you topping up any state school - this is why the PTA raise funds. As Jasper says, making it part state funded but only available to people with top-up funding would be wrong.
Thatcher did have the assisted places scheme which put 6,000 children a year into private schools with the state paying the fees. This was only available in selective independents.

[Iamnotloobrushphobic]

The assisted places scheme was a farce and research showed that it didn't reach the disadvantaged children it was aimed at as most places were filled by children who had parents in professions such as teaching.
Republic of Ireland has very cheap private school fees because all teacher salaries are paid for by the state. It isn't a model that I think we need in the uk but I understand that Ireland want to keep it because people there are used to it and might flock to state schools if they changes the system and parents had to pay full fees.

[AnotherNewt]

Could you link that research, Iamnotloobrushphobic or if it's pre-Internet, say where it could be found?

Because although there's lots of anecdote floating round, I've never seen a proper survey and would like to. The abolition of the scheme was one of the first actions of the Labour government in 1997, and they always cited political principle as the reason, not problems with how the scheme was running.

[HeighHoghItsBacktoWorkIGo]

Aren't there some state schools, around London (often faith schools and grammars, such as QE boys) who ask in a very heavy handed way for monthly top ups from parents? Is this effectively what you are thinking of OP?

[Iamnotloobrushphobic]

Another newt- I can't remember the article that I originally read on this topic but this one is a good start point for evaluating the effectiveness of the assisted places scheme:
eprints.ioe.ac.uk/5937/1/Whitty2010Private23.pdf

[Iamnotloobrushphobic]

I think the research I read might have been from this extract:

My concern about the pounds 105m spent on Assisted Places was based on independent research, not, as he says, "assertions". I refer to the dedicated study published in 1989, The State and Private Education: an Evaluation of the assisted places scheme by Tony Edwards, John Fitz and Geoff Whitty (Falmer Press). It states clearly that fewer than 10 per cent of the selected children had fathers who were manual workers, compared with 50 per cent in service-class occupations such as teaching, and that although children from single-parent families made up the largest category, other disadvantaged groups, notably the unemployed, and black and Asian families, had poor representation. They also found that two-thirds of those taking up places for the first time at 16 were already fee-paying pupils in the same school.

I think I might have read it when I was a student studying social policy but I think the article needs a subscription to read it in full.

[Lurkedforever1]

I could be wrong but wasn't the assisted places scheme supposed to be for kids in areas with no state grammar? Therefore any stats on intake would be similar to state grammar intake at the time? In which case it's the selection system that was flawed rather than the fact it was at independents iyswim.

[Iamnotloobrushphobic]

It was the selection system that was flawed but also (like with state grammars) middle class parents knowing how best to navigate the complicated applications system.
My son is a recipient of a bursary at a very selective independent school and also had an offer from a state grammar school. I wouldn't consider us to be middle class (and we certainly don't have a middle class income) but I am educated to degree level and have the ability to navigate the system which is something that I think many working class parents are unable to do. The assisted places scheme needed reform to ensure that the most deprived but bright children were able to benefit from the scheme (same reform as is needed in the current state grammar system).

[Lurkedforever1]

That's what I was getting at, same problem as with state grammars. Although tbh I think in areas like mine (no grammars) the bursary system is even more unfair. Not because of the schools, just because they are so limited and full ones are extremely competitive. And parents who could just about negotiate the state selective process are going to find it harder when it's the kind of big independent with the funds for full bursary. Dd got one, but near me the state secondary options aren't great for most people, so the competition is fierce. Dd said one of her new friends only got in as a late reserve bursary award without a scholarship, and between them they've established the other girl would have aced the maths/nvr/vr like dd, but is 'only' high end level 5 for writing and spag, thus very nearly missed out. Dds other friend who is equally able as dd was nervous on the day and probably dropped a few points because of it, and therefore didn't get past exam stage, unless the parents wanted a full fee place. Which is pretty bonkers really, although not the schools fault.

[Grazia1984]

Haberdasher's Herts is
Junior School £4,507 per term (£13,521 pa)

Don't assume all of the best schools charge £20k.

Newcastle Royal Grammar iJunior School fees for the academic year 2015-16 are £3, 270 per term (£9, 810 per annum).