Will private senior schools struggle with admissions?

[Jetset78]

Given the current recession and poor economic outlook, what are your thoughts on whether independent schools are going struggle getting sufficient pupil numbers?

So many parents, who run their own business or earn a decent salary, must be heavily impacted by the current situation. Do you think that the numbers of children in independence schools will significantly reduce over the next few years?

Will the big oversubscribed schools start loosening their admissions criteria to make up the numbers?

What about the traditional boarding schools like Wellington, Radley, Eton etc that heavily rely on overseas money to fill their boarding houses. What will they do to plug the numbers if the boarders don’t return?

Will it become a buyers market for parents?

I imagine that the impact on the most popular schools will be limited. The big name schools will, I suspect, have lost relatively few children, including international boarders (based on what's happening at DS's school). They have long waiting lists and can easily fill any places that do come up with 'high quality' applicants, without really loosening their admissions criteria at all. However, there will probably be a trickle down effect. Some children will 'shift up' to fill these places at more popular schools, leaving more places in less popular schools, so these less popular schools might either struggle to stay open or relax their entrance requirements. I do think there's been a shift in recent months though. At the start of the pandemic, there was lots of chat where parents were questioning whether it was worth paying their fees (and demanding discounts) given that the schools were closed. Now, however, because of perceptions about home learning provision (whether accurate or not), there seem to be lots of parents considering a move into private. Overall, the pandemic recession is surely going to have a bit of an effect on the sector, but I can't see it having a major impact on admissions criteria at the top end.

DS is going from Prep to year 7 in all through private, virtual school was outstanding, numbers are up, they have had a surge in the last month, extra entrance exam days and are now creating an extra firm for the year. We had a sensible discount too despite the excellent alternative provision

It’s obviously early days but DH and I teach at different independent schools. His is a small town mix of day and boarding and mine a big city academic day school. Both have given 10% discount to parents. In both cases it has been clear that the divide between what we’ve offered, full time live leaning with feedback and pastoral care, has been significantly better than what was offered by local state schools and numbers are looking healthy. There may we’ll be a longer term impact and less well managed schools may suffer.

There are also people looking to move TO the private sector due to the better remote schooling offering.

Doubt it. DD starts yr 7 next month at an oversubscribed independent senior school.
Their waiting list hasn't shifted.
One of DDs friends who wasn't offered has been on waiting list since Xmas and hasn't moved up on that.

I'd be surprised certainly for the top and better schools that there would be less demand.

And I'd be surprised if there were fee reductions. Sadly we can live in hope on that one.

Our school is actually now expecting higher numbers than we were predicting before the pandemic and most of the overseas boarders are returning. Everybody was expecting the worst, but so far that hasn't happened.

The failure of many state schools to provide decent teaching means people are moving to indies. I doubt the good ones will struggle. The ones that were failing may have a reprieve

The one I work at is oversubscribed for the first time in years, although online provision wasn't amazing, it was still better than that of local state schools.

Worried parents want to make sure their DCs aren't disadvantaged with the time they've had off.

I was surprised, I thought numbers would have dropped due to economic reasons.

I work at at independent school and our numbers are up with an increase in enquiries from home and overseas. Our online provision was excellent, a full curriculum and fee remissions. Very few pupils leaving, less than in a normal year. Unfortunately, the industries most impacted by coronavirus tend to be those non-professional jobs and there have been few job losses or redundancies in our very large parent body. It remains to be seen if there is a longer term impact. I do think smaller private schools with less resources and differential between them and state will suffer.

If anything, independents will benefit because eduction has continued with as little disruption as possible.

Ds goes to a small independent. During lockdown he had 5 live zoom lessons plus a class pastoral session per day. Teachers have been available for 1:1 chats. He's cheerful and up to date with work.

Holiday club was available in the summer.

School returns next week with wrap round care, school transport and the (small) boarding houses are open. Class (bubble) sizes are 16. The school has added extra eating spaces, one way system, extra washing facilities for staff and children etc

It feels safe, calm, well planned.

I think it totally depends on the type of parents. We used to live in Kent there were many little “prep” schools or otherwise known as “crammers for the grammars” parents were often self employed or on “decent” money and prepared to pay the considerably cheaper fees at these school on the assumption that there child would get into to local grammar and the education would be free. These parents may be wondering if they can or want to pay school fees.
On the other end of the spectrum are parents cheerfully stumping is £44K+ PA per child and often with 3/4 children. Allthe evidence says that people with that kind of money are not badly hit in recessions.
I think the overseas market is an interesting one, we’ve very good friends in South Asia with one child at a boarding school they are hesitating as to whether or not to send her back in Sept they feel we’re not taking COVID-19 seriously enough, their country is taking it very seriously and has few cases. I get the impression that their media is not painting the situation in a very positive way. If other overseas parents feel the same this will undoubtedly have an impact on many boarding schools even we’ll know ones who rely on overseas students fees. I can’t see them reducing their fees but they may be more lenient with their admissions policy although many are already just not admitting it. But the likes of Eton et. al who are oversubscribed are IMO unlikely to be seriously affected. So what if there are 3.5 instead of 4 applicants for every place it’s still oversubscribed.

Our school is full, with a waiting list.

The big name schools have huge endowments and are very resilient. They can pull back on expenses to weather a storm.

The schools that struggle are those who are living hand to mouth, often with disproportionate number of students on bursaries, and high levels of debt.

In London there seem to be a number of expats returning from Singapore and the Emirates who are snapping up any last minute places. Our school is not back yet so hard to work out if this is balanced by international workers heading home, but anecdotally demand seems at least as high as normal. I appreciate London is a bit of a bubble though.

I work in a indie and we are increasing numbers due to demand but cannot scarify the whole demand. There has been a 'flight to quality' because of the provision we made in lockdown and the spreading of info among local parents who had a poor experience with lack of provision in the state schools.

(And our Head yesterday announced a higher pay rise that he usual percentage in recognition of our efforts in lockdown 😀

Our school has a fund for students who would otherwise need to leave. I don’t think there will be lots of those - but I can imagine a few would be that situation of the jobs dried up.

When the last recession hit kids were dropping like flies as people lost their jobs or were recalled (lots of expats) or had the school fees dropped from relocation packages.

Lifeafter50 - I do hope you work at my son’s school. His teachers went above and beyond throughout and thoroughly deserve a pay rise

I have a child in an indie and a child in a state school going in to Yr11 and Yr10 respectively. We have had many conversations about moving the pupil about to start Yr10 in to an indie for all the reasons given above. The difference in remote provision was stark and shocking! We have decided against it but looking to potentially fill gaps with tutoring instead of needed. I’m sure there are quite a few considering the move to indie rather than away from at the moment.

It will be a polarising experience.
Small schools, especially small Preps which were struggling anyway, may well be pushed over the edge. In lots if areas there are too many small Preps for the market, so in free market terms,msome need to close down and Covid may well be the push that makes it happen or causes some schools to merge.

Some smaller schools which also depend on boarders quite heavily might also struggle. It depends if they can fill their paces with UK based students who want to boar and not just be day pupils, becaue boarding is expensive to run unless you achieve a critical mass of numbers to share the not-insubstantial running costs between.

Lots of schools have seen an increase in interest due to disappointment with state school offerings. Whether these translate into higher numbers long term remains to be seen.

Most recession based impacts (and there will be some) tend to be delayed. Most redundancies probably haven't happened yet and are still to come. Most families don't instantly pull their children out but can struggle on for a while and often prioritise educationa nd stability over lots of other expenditures, but this can only go on for so long. Some areas are more subject to such redundancies - places near airports which have lots of pilots etc might struggle a bit with redundancies this time. What you also see is that there is less interest in admissions at the bottom of the school - people are cautious who haven't yet committed to perhaps 7 years of fees and consider more carefully and look more carefully at state options. So competition for places might be a bit less fierce this coming year or two. B this won't really impact schools which are heavily oversubscribed, but feeds down into the less popular schools, which again are often the smaller ones.

I'd expect numbers overall to contract a bit over the next 3 years with a reduction in the number of schools. Some schools won't lose numbers at all, but the number of schools will reduce. In areas of less affluence in particular, independent schools which struggled for numbers (secondary needs a big number to be financially viable and prep schools can be smaller but still need a critical mass of students) will struggle.

Least impacted = big day schools in London and the south-east which were already highly sought after and competitive.

The more features a school has from this list of characteristics, the more tricky it will find things; significant proportion of boarders from overseas, significant numbers boarding form anywhere, low applications per place (or low acceptances in response to offers) previously, areas of lower proportions of professionals, high income, smaller schools, single sex.

I suppose it depends on the area. As PP have said, in some areas people are looking to move to private because they were not satisfied with state online provision. In others, like ours, the local states provided better than some of the privates, and Plan B communication has been excellent, so those private school parents are looking to leave for state as they felt let down by their private.

in our area of south west London, I have seen several families living state schools for independent primaries as very disappointed with the poor provisions during lockdown (no online teaching, no exchanges with the teachers, no return to school in July etc)
we have not seen (yet) kids leaving independent schools to go to state

I am at a small indie and so I genuinely thought that there would be a fall. In fact, the school has grown.

Year 7 full with a waiting list, largest ever intake into Year 9 and the largest Year 12 cohort we have had in 10 years.

(Year 9 and 12 are definitely a result of students coming out of the state system)

It's too soon to know the impacts. The redundancies haven't come yet and there is always a lag between them happening and people biting the bullet and withdrawing their children anyway. We need to look at this in 2 or 3 years to get a picture of the impacts.

from what i've heard numbers are up. Parents being unimpressed with some of the local schools, which were previously thought to be "amazing" - were nothing but lazy during lockdown with a couple of worksheets sent to the kids and NO remote learning at all!