Independent Schools - private equity ownership vs charitable trust

[ImAMinion]

This question has come up amongst my friends / colleagues and I would be interested to hear views from those experienced in this area.

I currently work in a private school which has charitable status. I’ll be perfectly blunt - I don’t really understand how the business side and charitable status works. That’s for management and the bursar - what I do know though is that at my school, the buck stops with the Head and the governors - it doesn’t go any further. I’m happy at my school.

A good friend and colleague is looking to change jobs for a variety of reasons (think commute, childcare timings, wanting part time) and a job has appeared at a school owned by a huge private equity firm which owns multiple schools in London, around the country and internationally.

She asked if I knew what it was like to work for such a large firm ultimately but in an educational setting as I used to work in a nation wide chain of nurseries. Well the truth is that experience wasn’t great. But I doubt I can compare it.

One view from the staffroom at school is that working for one of these schools is a safer option now with Labour’s plans as there is more capital behind and less likely to go bust than a charitable status school. There’s a mix of both types of school around us, one under a much smaller group.

Some say it surely comes down to each school and its Head as to how nice it is to work.

Lots of colleagues said avoid a school owned by a PE at all costs.

I would be interested in those who currently work for a school owned by a private equity or have done previously (and switched to charitable / state school / academy) and what the differences were, if any? I’m thinking about my future too and like I say I’m in an area with a mix of schools owned by companies and those running on their own. I would be interested to hear.

If the company is Inspired Education then I would avoid at all costs. They are not interested in education, only in profits, and are utterly ruthless. They are also incompetent. This is from personal experience. I would choose a school owned by a trust over private equity any day. You can check the finances of the trust and see how healthy its position is but I don’t think the fact that a school has the PE backing makes a job more secure. I would say that a trust is a better bet as companies like Inspired Education have stated quite openly that their intention is to cut jobs and slash costs.

Thank you for your reply @Bettymouse. I thought it was Alpha - is that now Inspired?

Like I say it’s not for me directly but there’s some of these schools owned by what I thought was Alpha but I’m also in an area where there’s some smaller firms owning some (for now - I wonder if they’ll be bought out?!) so for the future it’s interesting to know.
You’ve confirmed what many of us suspect in terms of how they are to work for. Interesting. This is what happens when education becomes business. I’ll avoid personally!

Yes, the Alpha Plus schools are now owned by Inspired. There are other PE firms out there but Inspired seem particularly bad unfortunately.

I’ve worked for both private (I.e. charitable status) schools and PE schools and there is a big difference in culture. @Bettymouse is completely right! With the PE school, there was a massive turn over in staff and SMT, mainly because the pay and conditions were significantly lower than other private schools. Plus it was obvious that teaching and learning was very low on the agenda and the high turn over of staff meant grades suffered.

On the other hand, the private school I currently work in has really high staff morale, no problems with student recruitment and a great leadership team. Obviously look at each school individually and get local information but definitely look at Private Equity schools carefully.