Just wondering... how do you think the financial turmoil will affect private school applications this year?

[PrincessPeaHead]

It was difficult enough to see who the hell could afford boarding fees of £8800 per term in a boom economy... now? Do you think there will be a big move from boarding to private day options (cheaper) or in fact also a big fall in private day applications as people try for grammars/use the good local comp ?

Just musing really.

So how do the Fiona Millar's of this world always get their kids into schools like Camden School for Girls? I know someone whose daughter currently commutes from Teddington to Camden School for Girls. There are a number of comprehensives (say Coopers in Upminster) that have a pretty fluid admissions policy that seems to benefit middle class parents.

I have no idea about the specific situations you mention, but if there's anything dodgy going on, the Local Authority will investigate. What is the admissions policy of Coopers, then, that means it favours middle class parents? And what do you mean by 'middle class' anyway? I'm a little confused.

Yes, chocolatedot, I have wondered that, too. Strange, isn't it?

UQD: 19.5% of children in Edinburgh go to independent schools. What a lot of luxury-mad parents there must be up there!

Camden Girls admissions policy says that for 2009 they have 8 places for girls with special music ability, irrespective of distance from the school. so it may be that Fiona Millar's daughter was admitted pursuant to a similar scheme.

What I mean is that the admissions policy is sometimes not very clear i.e. while distance is a parameter, it is not the only one. By middle class I guess I broadly mean university educated parents with an income level well above average but I just mean it in a general sense.

But chocolate... the admissions policy is a published document! Of course distance won't be the only criterion, but the other criteria will be in the public domain.

I have never seen a state school admissions policy which states that university educated parents with an income above x amount will be favoured - sorry, I just don't buy what you're saying.

Re: the class thing, it's just a bit of a bugbear with me.. I just don't really know what 'working' class and 'middle' class mean. DH and I have both worked all our lives - does that make us working class? - oh but hang on... we both went to University - does that makes us middle class? - But on the other hand we both went to state comps so we're not from privileged backgrounds... And then of course there's the couple on benefits along the street who have barely any education and I don't think would define themselves as middle class, but on the other hand have never done day's work between them, so working class seems like a poor description!! You see, it doesn't really mean anything these days.

BTW, I'm perfectly prepared to believe that schools might be flouting their own admissions policy, but no one has yet come up with any proof that they have! Hearsay and conjecture is not the same thing.

Of course the admissions policy would never say anything of the sort. My point is that admissions policies are often vague and it seems that well heeled, articulate and ambitious parents without siblings at a particular school and living further away often get their children into good schools at the expense of children who live closer. I'm not making any statement about "middle class" or "working class", it's just a lazy, quick, convenient way of making a point.

Ok... but I still think there's a big step between saying that 'well heeled, articulate parents' often get their kids into 'better' schools, and actually knowing that a school has not followed its own policy correctly.

As someone else pointed out, there may be all sorts of 'special' cases like the one mentioned above, where children with high musical ability may be given priority over others. That's the kind of situation where without inside knowledge, other people just aren't going to know - so it may look from the outside as though someone has got a place unfairly.
Also, some schools definitely used to give priority to children of staff - don't know whether this still happens, though seems fair enough to me, perk of the job and all that.

"Being School Governors, being close friends with the heads, getting involved with fundraising, daily harassment for a place." ?! I'm amazed at what chocolatedot has cited here. This is not how admissions for state schools work. If this is happening, it should be investigated. This would be in clear breach of a LA's admissions policy.

If there appears to be a bias towards "middle-class" parents going out of catchment to "better" schools - which I'm not necessarily denying - there could be all kinds of reasons for this. For one thing, middle-class parents are, broadly, more likely to be "bothered" and to make the active effort to indulge in "choice". They'll also know what to say at a school appeal, having done all the reading-up and, possibly, even hired a lawyer. And so on.

I'm not at all surprised that the private figures are higher in Edinburgh than the national average. I bet they are as well in Oxford, Cheltenham, Kensington and other places with a strong presence of well-heeled clientele. Doesn't really prove anything, except that where people are richer they can afford more luxuries. Which, let's be honest, it a bit of a "no shit, Sherlock" thing.

Agree with that UQD. It ain't rocket science.

fio, on private schools not admitting children with disabilities etc, there are some private schools especially for children with specific disabilities aren't there.

findthe river, you said, 'BTW, I'm perfectly prepared to believe that schools might be flouting their own admissions policy, but no one has yet come up with any proof that they have!'

There's plenty of evidence that suggests that there's a lot of covert selection going on. The recent research by The Sutton Trust is very interesting re faith schools being more socially exclusive than grammar schools and the uneven distribution of students with free school meals etc.

news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/4640064.stm

And this. So you could argue that going to the top state schools is a 'luxury'

'The research follows a similar study by the Sutton Trust last October which showed that the proportion of children entitled to free school meals at the top 200 state schools (161 of which were grammar schools) was only 3%.
Sir Peter Lampl, Chairman of the Sutton Trust, said: "These findings starkly underline the extent of the social divide in our education system. The top fifth of schools - independents, grammars and leading comprehensives - are effectively closed to those from less privileged backgrounds. To access them, parents must pay for fees, pay for coaching or prep school for their children to pass the 11 plus, live in an affluent area or prove a religious commitment combined with strong parental support. For less privileged families these are not realistic options.'

www.suttontrust.com/news.asp#a052

There's no such thing as 'objective value'. There are things that are necessary for survival and then there's everything else.

Something that is not essential for survival is not automatically a luxury. What is considered a 'luxury' is entirely down to individual and social perception. Diamonds don't mean much on an unpopulated desert island. While my children were little a night's sleep was a luxury. A £5 chocolate box of chocolates is always a luxury for me.

And is the education of the child who gets a full scholarship a luxury?

I guess this topic has moved on since the OP, but to answer that question, I think there will be a small effect for most independent schools.

Families who struggle already will be put over the edge with inflation, and will not feel comfortable borrowing on their house.

Obviously families who suffer job loss will not be able to afford fees - I think this will be a very localised thing.

Not many families will feel happy getting grandparents to pay because they are a demographic most affected by the downturn in shares.

For most private school families/prospective families, they will soldier on and weather the storm.

Schools with an uncomfortable number of empty seats will find ways to contract, eg cutting out a form in a year group, and letting go part-time teachers accordingly.

We've just had our school open day and it was better than last year's in terms of the number of visitors, and the number of realistic hopefuls.

fivecandles - I was really asking chocolate about the specifics of her situation - how does she KNOW that there is unfair advantage given to specific parents? She was quoting specific schools. I was simply making the point that unless you have specific evidence of HOW someone has flouted an admissions policy, then it's not very reasonable to state it as fact.

Statistics and uneven distributions of particular social groupings doesn't prove anything in itself! If a particular school has academic selection as part of its process, then yes, this may make it more accessible to intelligent higher earning parents who may prioritise private tuition for their kids. But that doesn't mean they are flouting an admissions policy.

Coopers used to interview parents! Think that practice has been banned now but only recently. Other schools can select by 'aptitude' and it's pretty obvious how that can be advantageous to the middle classes. And then there's the faith schools which require parents to be motivated enough to go through the whole going to church and getting a letter from the Vicar process (regardless of whether they are actually religious). And then there's the schools which weed out parents who can't afford the uniform. And then there's selection by catchment area. Some of the selection is not intentional but it's pretty obvious how you can manipulate the admissions criteria of an over-subscribed school.

The point I keep making is that state schools can be socially exclusive as well as private schools. At least private schools are not using taxpayers money to educate the privileged few and at least they offer bursaries to the disadvantaged. As with grammar schools and faith schools though the parents have to be informed enough and motivated enough to acess these which rules a lot out. Arguably private schools should be doing a lot more to publicise their bursaries and scholarships to people who don't know about them and would most benefit from them rather than waiting for the pushy parents who may have fallen on hard times or whatever to exploit them.

Why is interviewing parents divisive? As long as the opportunity is available to all parents? And yes, in a faith school, church attendance may be a criterion.

I'm not commenting on whether I agree with these selection procedures btw. I'm just saying there's a big difference what you describe and actually FLOUTING an admissions policy. At the end of the day, it's not cheating to go to church, or to buy some private tuition for your child, or indeed to be articulate at interview. It may make a school more accessible to your child, but that's not cheating the system.

I love the way Camden School for Girls has chosen music for aptitude. Loathe to fall into stereotypes here but I imagine that the majority of kids UQD has been talking about and the majority that I teach do not grow up with pianos in their living room! So Fiona Millar and co can bang on about how terrible and hypocritical us parents are who send our kids to private school while being clever enough to exploit league tables and admissions systems to ensure they get their kids into the state school of their choice thus getting a relatively exclusive education for free or rather paid for by the tax payer.

You really are only in a position to lecture other people about their choice of school if you send your kids to your nearest school and you don't live in an area which is a middle class preserve. And TBH I've never met a middle class parent who has done this.

Oh, how naive you are findtheriver. Can you really not see how interviewing parents will be advantagous to university educated X and Y and disadvantageous to A and B where A is in prison and B has got better things to do than go and talk to those snooty teachers? There's clear evidence of how this works.

I agree that it's not necessarily flouting the system or cheating but it is wrong that there is a system which allows some parents to access better schools more easily than others.

There was a newspaper article a while back about a faith school in Bolton which accepts only a handful of children from its own catchment. Parents who live on the same road have been quoted saying it's not for the likes of us.

It's not necessariyl the case that some of the obstacles have been deliberately placed in the way of disadvantaged parents but there are very clearly obstacles there and it is well known that some schools have manipulated these for their own purposes.

You could very easily argue that it IS cheating to pretend you have a faith when you don't.

Some people on Mumsnet regularly argue that tutoring gives an unfair advantage to grammar school entrants.

However, I personally don't blame those people who exploit the system (though I couldn't do it myself hence one reason why I've opted out) I blame the inequalities and divisions in the education system itself.

Err - I never said there wasn't an advantage fivecandles - so you are being a little naive if you assumed I was!

Of course, if you have educated, articulate parents you have an advantage over someone who is born into a family with an illiterate mother and a father in prison. Isn't that stating the obvious?

I was saying that it is NOT cheating. It's following the admissions policy as set down by the school. Call it manipulating if you like, but it's really just using the system that's there.

No, the system isn't perfect, but I have more respect for someone who uses the state system and knows it isn't perfect than someone who opts out of it and harps on about 'unfairness'.

Here:

www.guardian.co.uk/education/2006/jan/31/schools.schooladmissions

Scary!

You said you couldn't understand why interviewing parents was divisive. Well I consider this to be naive.

Ah, I feel the opposite way. Because essentially you are using taxpayers money to give your already relatively privileged child an advantage over a child who may live nearer the school and be more in need of that school place. Exactly what's happening in the article above.

I think it would be more hypocritical and selfish of me to get my kids into a faith school or other top state school by moving house or whatever thus using taxpayers money to compound my kids' privilege and take up a place which another child would need more.