The private schools getting top marks in lockdown
Some are thriving, others are closing down as parents struggle with fees. By Eleanor Steafel
Twelve years ago, while the country was in the grip of a financial crisis that was gathering speed, the education landscape in Britain shifted. The economic crash had plunged independent schools into a battle for survival, as parents suffering sudden losses of income cancelled direct debits and pulled children out. It triggered a surge in applications to state schools in that first year or two after 2008 from parents abandoning fee-paying schools.
Meanwhile, a number of independent schools were forced to close their doors. Now, over a decade on and facing a new crisis, British private schools once again have a cashflow problem. The Sunday Telegraph learnt last week that as many as 30 private schools are preparing to close due to the impact of the pandemic, as parents struggle to pay fees.
Neil Roskilly, chief executive of the Independent Schools Association, told The Telegraph that as most private schools “haven’t got deep pockets”, the current crisis has pushed dozens of institutions over the edge. Nine such schools have already formally announced they intend to shut down, but Mr Roskilly said closer to 30 look to be in a similar position.
“It is very worrying for the pupils and their families,” he said. “Some will resurrect themselves. Sometimes they go into administration, then they will be bought up and reopened under different leadership.”
Of the schools that have announced their closure, half are preparatory schools. This week, the Minster School in York, a prep school that provides choristers for the city’s cathedral and can trace its origins back to the
7th century, announced it planned to close due to a cash shortfall caused by the Covid-19 crisis. York Minster’s Dean, the Rt Rev Dr Jonathan Frost, said the Chapter of York was no longer able to keep up its investment in the school, adding that in recent months “a number of families indicated they would be unable to keep their children at the Minster School”.
Boris Johnson’s former prep school, Ashdown House Preparatory in Sussex, is another that has been forced to close, informing parents it planned to shut after 180 years due to the “harsh reality” of coronavirus, which had prompted a sharp fall in demand for places. But while many private schools are already in dire straits, there are others that have fared better. Larger secondary schools may be in a better position, as a drop-off in pupil numbers has less of an effect on cash flow than it might on smaller preps.
Magnus Bashaarat, headmaster of Bedales School, says schools that can demonstrate they’re offering “something distinctive and of value” will emerge from the crisis well. “But those that were on rocky ground going into it, I think will find it extremely hard, especially those who hadn’t yet started their consultation on the teachers pension scheme.”
The scheme was, he says, “a huge extra cost that came out of nowhere 18 months ago”. “Lots of schools are still working out how to meet the extra cost of teachers pensions, which the Government passed on to independent schools. We were able to get a consultation done with all the staff well ahead of the Covid shutdown, but schools trying to work out a way of meeting that extra cost at the same time as maintaining their income are struggling. I think that would be a very challenging combination of circumstances.”
Many schools, of course, may simply have more robust reserves, or perhaps have managed to persuade parents to stay on by lowering the fees for the third term of this year. Many are offering fee discounts of anything from 10 per cent to 50 per cent for the summer term, to take into account the fact that schools are only able to offer an online education for most.
Eton College, which normally costs £42,000 a year, has reduced its fees by a third for the summer term. “We have invited parents to contribute the balance to support our various community initiatives if they are able to and would like to, and (very) many have,” a spokesman told The Guardian.
“We have also increased our financial aid fund, and many parents have donated to this.”
The school, which counts Princes William and Harry and 20 British prime ministers among its alumni, has been offering free self-study courses to secondary school-age children throughout the pandemic.
Its Etonx courses, created for those who were due to take their GCSES and A-levels, have been made available to all UK state secondary schools.
One private school recently announced new bursary places for the children of NHS staff. Reigate Grammar School said they would fund bursaries for 10 students whose parents work in the NHS, including nurses, paramedics, porters and cleaners.
Bedales in Hampshire is one of many institutions that has been able to use this time to innovate and find ways to support the local community. The catering teams, which no longer have an enormous student body of borders to cook for, have been making meals for locals shielding, which students who live nearby have been delivering. Epsom College in Surrey has launched a “hardship fund” for families financially affected by the pandemic. Headmaster Jay Piggot says they have had “a really generous response” from current parents and former pupils.
The school, which sits on an 85-acre estate, has been sharing many of its new online resources with nearby state schools, as well as opening its doors to the children of key workers.
“We’ve carried on academic lessons, activities, free meals, for children not just with parents in the school but in the wider Surrey community,” says Mr Piggot. “We are lucky and we know we’re very privileged to have an 85-acre estate here”; one in which pupils can “spill out on to our tennis courts and on to the grounds and pursue a range of activities observing a social distance, as well as being in the classroom... our setting lends itself more easily to that”. Staff have fashioned and donated more than 3,000 full-face visors to be used for PPE, with the help of a 3D printer.
The college has also opened its boarding houses to NHS workers, offering 117 beds free of charge, with food and supplies provided by local businesses and parents. “They’ve been living like kings, which is rather lovely,” says Mr Piggot.
The past 11 weeks haven’t always, he says, been “plain sailing”, but adds: “One of the things this pandemic has done is test every sinew of your school, the nature of your structures, the relationships between staff and pupils and parents and governors.
“We’ve been more fortunate than other schools out there. We’ve had key members of staff in the right positions who have been ready to step up.”
Julie Robinson, chief executive of the Independent Schools Council, told
The Telegraph it was “impossible to predict” the full impact this pandemic will have. “Of course, it is already affecting independent schools like all small businesses and also the livelihoods of fee-paying parents.”
But independent schools, she said, are by and large “highly adaptable to a change in the market”.
As many wait to see if their students will be permitted to return in full come September, the future of Britain’s 2,600-odd independent schools hangs in the balance.