Don’t sneer at private schools says headmaster

‘Wasting time on needless battles’

A PRIVATE schools chief will today demand a ‘cessation of hostilities’ against the independent sector.

Chris King, chairman of the Headmasters’ and Headmistresses’ Conference, will claim fee-paying schools are sneered at despite their success.

He will tell the organisation’s annual meeting in Belfast the attacks must end ‘so we can all stop wasting time on needless battles’.

He will also highlight figures showing that private schools have enrolled 31,773 pupils in satellite campuses abroad. That exceeds the 27,281 overseas pupils being educated here.

Mr King will say the political attacks on independent schools were a case of ‘cutting off your nose to spite your face’. And he will add: ‘Our Scottish schools are facing the possibility of losing their business rates relief; an act with unwarranted implications – not least given all our Scottish schools have done to meet a charity test.

‘It would only serve to harm the state education sector and the economy. A similar threat waits in the wings in England and Wales.

‘When the Labour Party suggested putting VAT on school fees south of the border in their election manifesto, we were obliged to explain such a policy would cost the taxpayer billions, as many pupils being educated independently would then have to be paid for by the state.

‘ This would require building expensive new schools or accommodating the new pupils in larger classes.

‘With greater costs and fewer par brandies ents able to afford higher fees, our schools would have no option but to rebalance the books – including withdrawing public service education which costs them money to provide.

‘The hardest hit would be the less well- off, whose fees are paid by the school.’

He will say closures of private schools would see the loss of community resources, employment, economic opportunities, overseas trade and international influence.

Mr King, who is headmaster of the private Leicester Grammar School, will say the private sector contributes significantly to the economy at a time when the state sector is facing a funding crisis.

Any attempts to undermine private schools can ‘only harm the Exchequer and thereby have a detrimental effect on already cashstrapped state schools’.

‘Threaten our schools and Britain would be the poorer – in income, ideas, innovation and international influence,’ he will add.

Independent schools, he will say, are experiencing an ‘unparalleled period of international expansion’, which is helping to build the ‘UK’s economic strength and soft power’.

Mr King will add: ‘We have just crossed a symbolic threshold – there are now more HMC pupils studying abroad in offshoots of British-based schools than international students coming to our schools in Britain.

‘It is endlessly ironic that UK independent education, one of the most valued and enduring global brands, should be so sneered at in its country of origin.’

British private schools operate 59 campuses abroad including in China, India, Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Thailand. The total is up from 46 last year.