Whitehall “braced for private schools collapse”

[ICouldBeVioletSky]

Whitehall ‘braced for private schools collapse’ due to fee rises

Worth reading the whole article, it’s not quite as alarmist as the headline suggests. But as you’d expect, gov sources are talking it all down while the ISC is ringing the alarm bell.

https://www.thetimes.com/article/e6465c9e-d462-48cb-a73e-74480059a1f3?shareToken=05bf599cd4a2376fe3ce83cdce607100

I’d be quite surprised if some of the schools near us don't fold tbh. There will definitely be a contraction in the sector, I just hope those that hold on can remain a viable concern.

Yeah. You see, you can quote as much as you like. But it's only a 'charity' if you can afford it. Most people tend to take a dim view of a charity that only serves the wealthy.

One of the many reasons why this thread is so distasteful.

For example, an Oxbridge college may well have charitable statutes approved by the Privy Council of centuries ago with explicit founding aims of “education, learning, scholarship and research”. These fall under both public benefit and the above thirteen charitable aims. Their funding may rely on endowed funds given for these purposes, plus fees and other income, but they do not make a profit, have no shareholders, and any surplus is put back into the core aims of the charity.

A charity running an air ambulance service may well have several contracts with the NHS, as well as relying on public donations and endowments from a charitable foundation. That still makes it a charity because the different funding streams go towards the core purpose.

Etc etc. with different kinds of charities. A charity is not just what you think it should be. There are lots of different kinds of charities which rely on all sorts of funding models. And, as I mentioned above, technically state schools are also charities (though called “exempt charities” under the direction of the DfE rather than the Charity Commission).

Many think tanks are also charities - mainly falling under educational.

It's a very wide definition, not just what people think of automatically as charities.

Let’s take the sports and arts ones, then. By your definition a charity supporting amateur football is a proper charity, but one supporting amateur opera isn’t? Do you define the public benefit purely by whether “wealthy” people use it or not? How do you define “wealthy”?

How wealthy does a cause have to be before you think it isn’t worthy? What about a charity for preserving stained glass in old church buildings that only a few people attend - too elitist? Retired clergy? Musicians who have fallen on hard times? Sanctuaries for thoroughbred racehorses? Oxbridge colleges? Medieval manuscripts originally owned by monarchs that can’t be touched because they’re too fragile? Dolphins? Research into rare medical diseases?

I'm not blaming anyone, I just answered your question :)

My child is in PS on bursary, I'm a single mum and can't afford fees. Quite a few other children are on part or full bursaries, including Ukrainian refugees. Please can you stop repeating your nonsense about PS only serving the wealthy? Your posts are distasteful indeed.

And I am telling you, in a small state school we reviewed the risk register, including financial aspects, far more regularly than what you claim as good practice. A successful EHCP could make a material difference to our financial position, and those definitely happened more than once a year. A successful local planning application for a dozen houses would make us more optimistic about our 3 year projections. All of those scenarios would feed into our risk evaluation and mitigation strategy.

I also sit on the board of a small charity and there again, the risk register is reviewed by the board at every board meeting.

Not sure my friend who teaches in an independent school would agree with that having gone through a gruelling inspection a couple of weeks before Christmas. I think your assumption of what happens couldn't be further from reality.

Oh come on @Ubertomusic, they do serve the wealthy. They offer a very very limited number of bursaries, assisted places and sessions for state schooled children only in order to meet targets which entitle them to charitable status.

Why do you think you can lecture me on my living experience? Don't you see how weird this is?

It’s not unusual for schools to have around 20% of pupils on means tested bursaries. Schools without charitable status also provide bursary support.

I think your charities aren’t being very well run if risk registers aren’t looked at more frequently than once a year. Budgeting should be updated when there is a major change. Outturn analysis is easily done at a minimum as is scenario analysis.

@Ubertomusic I didn't intend to deny your lived experience. I apologise. I understand that your DC befits greatly from the bursary that they receive and that the other young people that you mention also benefit.

I've no doubt that the system benefits those who receive the places.

But this help is given only because the schools have to offer assistance at a certain level. They have to manage an increasingly precarious financial situation and understandably don't offer assistance out of the kindness of their hearts- they do as little of it as possible because it affects their bottom line.

Schools that are not charities offer fee assistance though. Why are they doing it? It has nothing to do with charitable status in those cases.

It's 80% in our school - of course not all are on full or substantial financial support but many are.

There are a lot of reasons. It could be to do with conditions written into endowments. It could be because they want someone for the first XV. It could be that they want to bump up their academic achievements to appeal to paying customers. It's very unlikely to be out of the goodness of their hearts.

Many schools which aren’t charities offered places to Ukrainian children for example (primary and secondary level). That had absolutely nothing to do with sporting or academic achievements of the children.

Do you suggest that 80% of pupils is "as little of it as possible"?

Tbf I don't care much if they do it "out of the kindness of their hearts" or out of some sinister motives as long as children benefit from their bursaries. But what I'm saying is that the statement "private schools only serve the wealthy" is factually incorrect. Just as simple as that.

Look at this stats for example (this is not our school) https://www.christs-hospital.org.uk/admissions/fees/ 72% are on financial support.

The NGA.org.uk (the national governance association) explicitly states: Risks should be reviewed regularly to ensure the risk register/log … is up to date. High level risks should be reviewed at least on a termly basis and lower level risks reviewed at least annually.

As a former governor in a state school, this was what I remember us doing. A quick check of the minutes of the private school my kids attended would suggest they similarly follow this schedule. This does not mean that either school blithely ignored issues that might have a financial impact in between meetings, however, as the bursars would have been monitoring and obtaining financial/legal advice on as as needed basis of course.

Yes, my kids’ school was approx 30% I think, but there is a specialist boys’ private school half a mile down the road with a high number of ND/SEN kids on LEA funded places as well as bursaries.

As becomes glaringly obvious on these threads, many people think all ‘independent’ schools are Eton and Marlborough; and the undisguised and bone deep hatred of the middle and upper classes is so rancid that they’d happily spit on their children if it got them a one-up. No recognition of the fact that as many as 20% of children are in small independent schools because they have SEN needs that were not being met in the state sector and where the SLT of prior state schools could not/would not support assessment referrals or ECHP applications.

And they wonder why we’d rather take our chances overseas?

@Ubertomusic your opinion is from an "I'm alright Jack" angle. Understandably so TBF given that your DC benefit, but it is hardly an objective opinion.

I said nothing about any "sinister motive" and your comment is very telling.

Private schools have to be run as businesses as well as educational establishments. Only those which operate on a successful financial footing will continue to survive. So whatever assistance they give to the less wealthy is only offered in order to allow them to continue to serve the more wealthy.

I wish them well and I am ever mindful that a great deal of the distress around the risk of them closing is driven by the appalling situation that state school system is in. People understandably don't want their DC to join that system.

To be clear my experience of the state school sector is that most teachers are fabulous and doing their best in incredibly difficult circumstances. They too know the system is broken but are powerless to fix it.

I’m a member of a send support group that runs play sessions for send children. They charge to attend sessions, but a proportion (10-20%) are given to families in need. Like my child’s private school, they need to collect fees from users in order to fund the service and both aim to accommodate as many as possible but have limits on the number of unfunded places they can afford. Both put 100% of their revenue back into the service (no profit taking), and both have to operate ‘like a business’ in order to stay afloat.

The two are run on the same principles, but the difference is that a one hour play session is affordable to most, but a full time school placement is not. Proportionally they deliver the same amount of charity (actually school probably delivers a higher proportion at no cost), but attitude are different. No one would claim the send charity of mercenary intent, but they have books to balance just like our private school. The attitude towards private schools is not rationale in that we do not hold other charitable organisations to the same standard.

No skin in the game any longer my son received a large bursary prep and public. I am so sad and incredulous this vat decision has been pushed through in 3 months when other vat additions is years - eg vat on vapes. This government is dreadful alienating every body without considering the fallout it’s not going to raise any money and the cost to the state will be large. What is this judicial review Reeves may or may not answer

Let’s just clarify

it’s a private school. Never public.

How can I be "I'm alright Jack" if we have been massively affected by VAT? 🤔