Concerned about the change in curriculum/culture in independent schools

[clarafarraday]

My son has attended an independent school for some time now. Recently I have noticed a change in focus to accommodate new international students. The rumours are that financial contributions are having an impact on decisions being made at the top. I chose to send my son to this school because of its prestigious reputation and I was hopeful that they would help him to excel and achieve his full potential. I’ve tried to speak with the school’s bursar but I am not getting anywhere. I feel that focus is shifting and special measures are being introduced for these international students which is wrong because we all pay our fees.

I have put both my DCs through private London Day schools and I teach in a small independent school as well. However I am also becoming concerned about the increasing numbers of wealthy foreign students in the London schools. On the whole they are a great asset to the schools, as the majority are hard working and academic, so that is not the concern. However they are increasingly squeezing out local pupils, both because of the increasing fees and competition in the entrance exams. The Headmaster of Eton apparently recently observed that this is making the charitable status of these schools increasingly difficult to defend.

it would be nice if the op came back to the tread she started. what does she mean by "special measures" and how are these measures affecting her son.

Roundaboutown. You are right quality of teaching is very expensive. Although it can be free in a lot of comprehensive schools. Overseas parents don't have the luxury of that choice. We do have a choice of wether to send our child to a good boarding school or an international school. Which is oversubscribed and may charge more than full boarding in the UK.
My question to the OP is if the racial makeup of the school is so important. Why didn't you ask the school? We did as we didn't want a too competitive environment for our DD. You have to remember the overseas kids have to pass the same exams and they still have to pay the fees in British sterling. I think it has to be mentioned though that some schools such as Lincoln Minister school. Do charge an extra 1,000GBP to overseas students. Which I find is ridiculous.

We still do not know what the OP was actually talking about. It's not even clear that racial makeup was even an issue vs parental wealth vs religious balance or what.

"I'll admit to being wrong only when the public schools publish the full data"

Some schools do.

And since the tribunal ruled that provision of bursaries (though desirable) is neither necessasy nor sufficient to avoid closure of the charity, it's not going to be a central issue.

Really, which ones? I'd be interested to see how they do it.

We might be at cross purposes. Which data is it that you're after?

(If it's bursary provision (which has to be somewhat anonymised, to avoid individual recipients being identified) then it's usually just a case of looking to see what's in the annual report. Level of detail varies, I agree, but that does not mean it's inadequate for all. But I think I might have made a wrong assumption that it is this).

I'd be amazed if it is made public because of the low numbers of pupils involved

but logically all private schools that are charities should have to state

• number of pupils in receipt of FSM
• number of pupils who are the first in their family (siblings, parents, grandparents) to attend private school

that would highlight whether the charitable status is resulting in widening participation
and if not, what else is being done.

I agree, Ta1lkin, and they should also publish how many pupils receive partial bursaries and what their parents' relevant incomes are. Well off families snaffle so many of these.

On another thread, we calculated that a couple of "NHS workers" in receipt of 10% bursaries from St Paul's School for their two DS, as proudly advertised on the school's website, had to be consultants.

And you didn't give one single damn about the children you were potentially outing. Whose families applied in good faith. Not anticipating that you would be digging through their personal business.

FFS.

No, Gruach, I wouldn't give a damn about that.

If a school benefits from charitable status by handing out bursaries to the very rich, both the school and the parents in receipt of its charity should definitely be outed.

I'm generally in favour of seeing hypocrisy exposed.

I wonder how many times you have been told that charitable status is not dependent on the "handing out" of bursaries.

I wonder why you feel that children in receipt of such bursaries are less entitled to privacy than other children at any given school. Or that you are entitled to speculate, to the extent of pretty much identifying individual children and broadcasting their family circumstances across the Internet.

The wincoll houses ( ok, didn't look at college, DH having the flashback-horrors the whole time and no way would DS have got in) were shabby, paint peeling, untidy, with boots and trainers dumped by the front door and smelling of wet dog/ teenage boy in exactly the same way our house does.

What's the problem?

Granola, on what information do you base that statement? Interesting to looks at your information sources.

A school I know well ( not Wincoll) combines scholarships and bursaries where appropriate. Its means testing is extremely rigorous for both. Ok, some parents may lie. But you are not eligible if one parent does not work ( unless there are significant caring responsibilities which would make it impossible), if your income, joint, earned and unearned is above a certain level, income held in trust is taken into account. This school is scrupulous and up to many if the ways that people try to game the system. It also has 30 per cent of its pupils on bursaries and wants to raise that to 50 per cent. Quite a few of the kids at the school down the road where I am a governor come from much better off families than those on bursaries at this independent school. Ok, there are the super wealthy too, but handing out money yo the rich is not what it's about.

It was advertised on the St Paul's School website under "Assistance with Fees" earlier this year. The fees are c£22k pa, so 10% off 2 sets of fees is c£4k. The net income required to pay the balance would come from two big professional salaries, not from the more modest earnings of people normally described as "NHS workers" in the real world.

Since that discussion on MN, prompted as I say by the school's own intriguing and somewhat bizarre publicity, that section of its website has changed. It no longer mentions a 10% discount on fees and concentrates instead on parents in receipt of 100%, 70%, and 40% bursaries.

The 10% ones are particularly interesting, though, because they so obviously, by definition, go to well off people. How many? What proportion of the bursary funds are used by the rich and the formerly rich? I think we should be told.

Well, in the case I know better, the child might get an academic scholarship, which I think at that school can only go up to about 25 to 30 per cent.

They might then get a bursary, (rarely mentioned in the same breath as the school tries to ensure no one knows who gets what,) usually taking the max to no more than 95 per cent ie the parent is expected to find some money to endure that they are fully supportive. But one of the young people I know is on 100 per cent. Both parents work, I'd be surprised if their joint earnings pre tax are much over the average income in total. And similarly I know if a refugee family where only one parent has been able to get a job, and that a poorly paid one, ie well below national average, where the children have been totally supported.

I don't know St Paul's data, but it's not impossible that the children were also in receipt of bursaries. It's also quite possible your interpretation is the right one.

So it will depend. But my impression is that people are trying far harder than say 20 years ago yo be needs blind. But they do need to balance the books and that's where the OP's opening statement cones in.

All private schools should publish data on the financial assistance they provide.

Meanwhile they should be cutting costs.

You can never become "needs blind" if your fees keep rising so fast that the bursary funds are used for a an ever wider range of incomes, even for NHS consultants.

If you cut costs, it is easier not only to retain social diversity but also the school's traditions and ethos. Resorting to the international super rich, just because they're there and can bear your fee rises at the moment, is no kind of vision.

It's a little sad - this desperation to keep private education as the preserve of one type of family. "Our sort."

Complete inability to understand that other people, who might do things in different ways, might also want that education for their children.

Let me tell you - if I'm asked to state my occupation I am entitled to name a fabulously glamorous, intellectual and reputedly lucrative profession. But that isn't going to tell you anything about my life right now.

I know several families where the titles of the two parents' occupations give no clue that two sets of grandparents and other extended family are contributing to one child's fees. People close to me have been offered bursaries which take into account the fact that some portion of the fees will be paid by people other than the parents. That means the school may offer, say, a 50% bursary even though the parents by themselves might only be able to pay 10%.

But people on this thread want to seek out those particular children and expose their parents' income (or even the fact they have a bursary at all) to their classmates and other parents and staff.

I want the next generation of my family to be educated amongst the people they will be competing against for the rest of their lives. Not just a tiny, tiny section of the downwardly mobile, white, English middle class, who truly believe the world belongs exclusively to them - even as their jobs, advantages and future security disappear with the flood.

The recent ISC statistics on affordability confirm that independent schools are fast becoming the preserve of an ever tinier sliver of the very richest families in the UK who are joined by similar families from abroad.

The homogeneity of the international super rich is one of its most depressing aspects. It's great if some of their DC get to experience something different in a British school. Diversity, social, economic and cultural, should be welcomed and encouraged in all schools.

When schools bend over backwards to give the international super rich what they want, rather than what the school has always done best, then you have a problem. Hence OP's concern.

Surely there's going to be a high level of embarrassment/humility involved in applying for a bursary - I doubt very many hospital consultants (or similar) would want their finances scrutinised by a bursary committee - not for a £2k pa discount. I am assuming that the example of the 10% fee reduction (only 10%) advertised at St. Paul's was rather to put off those with high incomes from applying for a bursary.

On the contrary, Clavinova, by describing the parents as "NHS workers", the school was clearly seeking to encourage those of modest means to apply. It's the crazy level of the school's fees that means that 10% off still requires you to find £20k, so you have to be a consultant or similar.

Reduce costs and fees and the school, and others like it, could return to the real world.

Uriah
income held in trust is taken into account
You have just utterly proved my point that bursaries are going to the rich.

How many people really on under £30k a year have even heard of such a thing ?
Only families with significant assets pay out the thousands to lawyers to write trust deeds.

If any bursaries go to such families then the schools are covertly maintaining their exclusivity while keeping taking the tax breaks of charitable status.

I've tried to post but original got lost, may yet appear in which case sorry for double post.

, Talkin, you appear to be deliberately misunderstanding, to the school's disadvantage, although perhaps I wasn't clear enough. So, in simple words

The school is well aware that while some people appear to be limited in cash, they have other sources of wealth to call on. If the school gave bursaries to these people they would be disadvantaging those without such access. So you are asked to declare such things as your rent/mortgage levels, income , any support, any assets, and you need to use your assets before having a chance of a bursary. Obv there is some discretion, they don't insist that you sell the family home outright or take on huge liabilities in mortgage interest, or that the mother goes out to work if she has v difficult caring responsibilities. But they try to avoid doing what you suggest. Another v famous school has a v similar system, so it is quite possible that it may be widespread.

This is also supported by the two examples I gave, where one family with two earners is prob about at the average income, no assets, the other refugee family substantially below.

( on trusts, completely agree most people will not have one nor understand them nor "need" them. But you can't pick up the Sun or mirror or watch Made in Chelsea without bring aware of them. Just saying...)

Life is complicated enough without assuming conspiracy..

And huge is a relative word here, before you assume plutocrat towers..

Finally, another eg. Took a taxi yo hospital recently. Like many taxi drivers he'd had a range of jobs before this one. But he, brother and dad had all been educated on this bursary scheme, from the local estate ( not country estate).

But he, brother and dad had all been educated on this bursary scheme, from the local estate ( not country estate).
So once the dad sussed it he kept the money coming in to his family rather than giving another family the opportunity.

There is no "conspiracy"
there is a lack of enforcement of Charity legislation because the CC has had its budget emasculated since the eejit Broon brought in "lighter touch"

Schools should be forced to be transparent.
That is all.