Private schools to go bust in the coming recession

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The mother of all recessions is coming in my view. The world economy is pushing towards a large scale and deep debt crises. This follows the explosion of government deficits, borrowing, and leverage in recent decades and now that debt is growing due to high interests. Governments are in eye watering debt, individuals are in debt and so are private schools.
In the last 5 years private schools have been on spending sprees with new builds and new facilities mostly for marketing appeal rather than need. But it’s all been funded on debt. I work for a building service solution company and the number of private schools in the last 5 years have exploded on our books all funded by debt.

I know of one boarding school now in trouble and they have sold off their build and it will be converted to flats.

Be careful folks out there. Times are not as good as these schools portray.

Well don’t be fooled, there is a whole lot of cheating going on. Most of it is about home life, suppprt and discipline- oh and inherited genetics

Many schools go to great lengths to apply their rules. Many Dc are tutored. Is that cheating? Many move to better catchments? Is that cheating? Many find religion. Is that cheating? Or are they, like parents who pay, just doing their best?

All private schools will take money from parents via their foundations to improve facilities. From buying a brick to paying for the whole building! So would state schools by the way. Plenty raise money for projects. We have chipped in in the past! It’s more difficult where parents have less but that’s where a great SLT and teaching come in. It levels up the quality of education.

do 3 A levels where one is effectively a language that's mother tongue although you're not that nationality & it's far from obvious, and you're hugely advantaged.

User14March I’m sorry, I don’t understand this sentence.

I think it means the international school pupil speaks say Russian (or Spanish, or Mandarin, or Arabic etc) and English equally well, and has been brought up speaking both.

Go to a prestigious U.K. boarding school, do Russian (or whatever language) as one of your A levels, automatic A* for you, so you can really focus on just two A levels - you are at an advantage.

@Barbadossunset Many children with bi lingual parents take the A level in their other language. I’ve seen Dc of MFL teachers do this when one parent is from the country of the language. It’s mostly European languages of the mums. The family name doesn’t lead anyone to think there’s a huge advantage. It’s one reason why non advantaged Dc aren’t taking MFLs. The others get the top grades more readily.

Thank you for the explanations.

Not cheating in how you are defining it, cheating in the coursework and grades. Changing and over0aiding in exams. It's happening all over the place- in state schools. Don't know about private schools.

I teach at several private schools. It's a good, flexible job, when you have other things going on. However, to claim that their closure would cause massive overflow to the state sector is simply a mistaken view of someone who has not placed a foot in private education since the pandemic. These schools rely exclusively on Russian and Chinese students (both of whom will now stop coming due to the geopolitical situation, and would never be admitted to the UK state sector as they do not have UK residency status), and council-funded EHCP and SEND places. For these students the local councils pay £45k to £65k per year to educate them privately as they cannot follow mainstream schools. This is the only group that would suffer if the private schools are closed down. Councils would pay up the VAT for them. However, despite this I have seen siphoning of funds to offshore locations such as Dubai and Monaco. One of the private colleges where I teach has not filed company accounts and their group companies are in compulsory liquidation, hence these school places are not secure, which will be a problem for the local council who sends EHCP and SEND pupils there. Really, the government should end this farce. I would not send my kids to these schools even if they paid me - and sometimes they indeed pay for students to have some good British students to show off on their marketing material. As for the bigger, traditional private schools, I believe with every recession the UK gov simply comes up with some scheme to incorporate them into the state sector, such as Free Schools under Michael Gove. In any case, the argument that there would not be enough school places if private schools closed is a misleading argument of those on the right who wish to preserve anachronistic British traditions. On the contrary, as with the free school conversions post 2008 global financial crisis, these schools would no longer be open to international students coming to study on a student visa, and as such there would be more school places available for state-funded education. The schools would convert as otherwise they would not survive as institutions, and under the academy status they have the freedom to set their own curricula, hence no more difference between them and independent schools. All UK schools will eventually become academies.

I teach French, and I must tell you it is not an automatic A*. You have to study two books or one book and a film for A-level. If a French-born child is not interested in French literature or film, they will get a C at best. With GCSE it's another matter, however, I have to tell you that no child learns a language automatically, you actually have to teach them yourself at home quite a lot, go to a Saturday school every week and make sure they study. Sure there is an advantage of being connected to the culture and knowing people who live in it, but with all the online resources, YouTube, films etc, any child can access this culture if they want to - and especially if they are encouraged at home. This is often the missing element of British parents compared to Europeans who spend personally educating their children after school and on weekends in my experience.

Belmont went bust a few weeks ago.

@Cass505 How many private schools converted to free schools in the state system? Hardly any! How many private schools rely on Russians and Chinese? Some but not all by any means. Also few private schools are special schools. Some are and fees are massive and mostly paid by LAs.

There are certainly some small private schools that are day schools and don’t have foreign students because they aren’t boarding schools. Others do because their parents are working here. These small rural schools are more vulnerable if there’s vat to pay. They don’t have access to foreign dc or a bigger market.

Actually quite a few as numerous scientific studies show. I suspect you do not work in education?

We've been told lots of prep schools will close. These are not typically dominated by foreign students..

I suppose it depends on the location. In our area, one girls school is so dominated by the Chinese girls that they offer Chinese from Reception as part of their main curriculum. Another boys prep school is 90% Middle Eastern. Hence based on my experience, they are dominated by foreign students. All of them get students visas for the UK, including kids in Reception, which is fine, but there goes the myth that if they go bust there would not be enough school places. This is simply not true, as these students would not and could not join the UK state school system due to the lack of pre-existing UK permanent residency status.

In the private secondaries where I teach, I hardly come across any British students nowadays. They are exceptions to the rule. Last year I had three British students at two different schools, one of them was on a local authority plan, with fees paid for by the local council. This year I have had two British students so far, at two different schools, one of whom is on a local authority plan with fees paid for by the local council.

Brighton College have higher fees, isn’t that solution? Also tiered donations coming into play at some of well known public schools & international students being charged more/double. Running a boarding school on what they generally charge per pupil increasingly not really viable.

These schools rely exclusively on Russian and Chinese students (both of whom will now stop coming due to the geopolitical situation, and would never be admitted to the UK state sector as they do not have UK residency status),

That’s not representative of the sector as a whole. The majority of private schools do not rely on international students. It might be representative of the tiny number of private schools you have experience of, but certainly is not the case generally.

As an example, in ISC schools, around 4.6% of pupils have parents who live overseas. More than half of those are in sixth form. Around 6.6% of pupils are non-British pupils whose parents live in the UK. A lot of the pupils who have parents abroad will be attending successful boarding schools which aren’t at the risk of closure.

@Another76543 I think the poster
is looking at extremely expensive SEN private schools where fees are immense. They may attract overseas students with extremely rich parents and some dc funded by LAs. As you say, this is not a universal picture. Most of our prep schools don’t rely on overseas students and plenty of senior schools don’t either. The figures don’t support this assertion.

No the poster is not looking at SEN schools but independent schools. Here’s an article pre pandemic stating 33% overseas students at UK independent schools. Now if the figures of ISC are accurate, that suggests a massive drop since this article was published, explaining why independent schools are struggling. I note that UK state system has not seen the transfer of these students for the reasons I explained above.

https://amp.theguardian.com/education/2016/sep/01/third-of-students-at-many-british-boarding-schools-come-from-overseas

That article refers to boarding schools, not independent schools in general. A lot of independent schools are not boarding schools. The article even states that “Overall the numbers of foreign students are still small, and make up just 5% of the independent school student body”.

The reason boarding schools are struggling is that bright Indian, African and Asian kids don’t tend to go to them (parents of UK resident students almost always prefer private day schools in the UK) so the draw for all but the biggest names is reducing. Nobody wants to pay £40k a year for boarding if a local day / selective is £20k and gets better results

It largely depends on the school. Not all parents have the brightest dc and results are not all they look for. They went a broad education and a boarding way of life for dc.Flexi boarding helps working parents too. Lots of schools have a niche for themselves that isn’t necessarily the best exam results, eg Millfield. It will be hard for some schools though, I have no doubt.

Certainly people from East and South Africa will find South African boarding schools much cheaper and more in line with their cultures. Ditto India. University is a different matter though as immigration reveals.

Our experience is outside of London /SE. Prep schools are small - less than 250 students. Number of boarders is low and foreign students is less than 10%. We have 1 Chinese and no Russians.
Senior schools are largely non selective and max 20% foreign students. The senior schools will survive (especially the Cheltenham Ladies College / Eton) as they have plenty of Russians etc. but the less famous day schools (outside London /SE) and prep schools are less certain with the addition of VAT.
We are moving 1 child to state education in September. I suspect families will hold out til logical breakpoints eg year 7 and year 12 to move. The Uber wealthy won't feel any difference in any case..

Regarding foreign students in British boarding schools, world affairs have changed massively in the last 5 years. I would expect a higher number of Hong Kong and Chinese students and far less Russians due to the war in Ukraine. Britain isn’t Russia friendly right now so why would a rich connected Russian in Moscow want to send their DC to the U.K. right now? Different for those already out of Russia but those in Russia, surely it wouldn’t be the done thing?

I agree that it is the smaller day schools and prep schools which are more likely to close. They also tend to be the schools which are more likely to cater for educational needs; schools which parents may have chosen because the state system has failed them. Like you, people are choosing to switch to state at natural break points.

I’m also in the SE and quite a few small preps for 11 plus purposes in a grammar county. Plus a few who just don’t want state even if state is excellent! However the most successful and largest preps are quite old and well established and hugely successful. They have many dc whose parents have money and are 400dc plus. The rural ones are the most vulnerable I think as more parents scraping the money and are clearly not looking at Eton or Wycombe Abbey. When DD was at the bigger prep, no Russians. No Chinese but Koreans. Nearly everyone was uk based but some Nigerians too.