Bring back direct grant to get poorer pupils into private schools, says head

MINISTERS should restore the direct grant scheme rather than tax private schools more, a former head of Harrow has suggested.

Barnaby Lenon said Labour’s plan to add VAT to fees will only make them more expensive and the ‘preserve of the rich’.

Instead, he wants the Government to help private schools take poorer students, at ‘zero’ cost to the taxpayer.

It would mean handing over some of the per-pupil amount normally given to state secondaries – currently around £5,600 – with school resources and parents topping up the rest.

The plan was proposed by Britain’s most prolific philanthropist, Sir Peter Lampl, who has lobbied the Department for Education (DfE) to commit to the scheme, and has convinced 80 schools to sign up.

Direct grant schools were active between 1945 and 1976 and had a proportion of statefunded places for the most academically gifted while everyone else paid fees. They were abolished by Labour, with many becoming fully private and closed to disadvantaged pupils.

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak is likely to be receptive to the idea since he already backed more grammar school places for poor pupils. Mr Lenon, who was on the direct grant scheme in the 1970s, was head of Harrow for 12 years and is now chairman of the Independent Schools Council (ISC), which represents 1,300 schools. He said: ‘One way of dealing with independent schools is applying tax so they become the preserve of the rich.

‘Another, very different way, is enabling independent schools to take more pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds. Independent schools, many of which used to be direct grant schools, are keen to take more pupils from low income homes in the neighbourhood of the school. The cost to the taxpayer of the Lampl scheme would be zero.’

Sir Peter wants private schools to take up to 70 per cent of pupils purely on merit.

The most deprived children would get their place free, while everyone else would pay fees on a sliding scale depending on what they could afford.

Sir Peter set up and partfunded a similar project at the formerly independent Belvedere School in Liverpool. He said: ‘What we are focusing on is opening up private day schools based on merit, not money.

‘Who pays for it? Well, the Government does, but it costs them no more than it does to fund a state school place.’

Sir Peter believes the move would reduce the need for controversial initiatives at universities, where poor students are let in with lower grades. Admission to the scheme would involve an entrance exam that would be designed to be ‘tutor-proof’.

The Department for Education has declined to comment.

‘Cost to taxpayer would be zero’