I can offer a private school education for £52 a week
James Tooley reveals the philosophy behind the creation of Independent Grammar School: Durham
Private schools in the UK have long had a negative reputation: they are elite, exclusive and, with fees at an average of £14,102 a year, far too expensive. Which is why I’m opening the first low-cost private school in the UK, to give students a top education at a rock-bottom price. Fees at the Independent Grammar School: Durham are just £52 a week, which adds up to £2,700 for the year.
We’re recruiting at the moment, and hope to have 65 mixed sex pupils, aged four to nine, in our classrooms when we open on Sept 17. So far, 150 parents have expressed interest, believing that a small independent school will be able to focus more on their individual children’s needs, whether it’s extending those who need to move more quickly, giving remedial attention to those moving less quickly, or focusing on discipline.
Simple things, but the parents coming to us feel that, for various reasons, they’re not being delivered by the local state schools. At the moment, private schools are closed off to ordinary parents, let alone poor ones. As professor of education policy at Newcastle University, I have spoken to hundreds who would love to send their children to a private school but could never afford it. The demand for a low-cost alternative is huge.
Our principle is that a good education is not dependent on luxury: you can enjoy London whether you’re in a five-star or two-star hotel. In the same way, pupils don’t need the five-star facilities of a posh private school. Our building – a spacious converted church in the centre of Durham with a magnificent hall and courtyard playground – is beautiful but has no frills. That means no Olympic-sized swimming pool, no manicured rugby pitch and no state-of-the-art IT suite.
But economising on the facilities means no scrimping on teachers. Alongside Chris Gray, our principal, we have three lined up already and more in the wings – a mix of excellent newly-qualified teachers and others with extensive experience working in the private sector.
We are offering an unashamedly traditional approach: making sure every child fully masters the basics of English and mathematics, with afternoons of project work and extra-curricular activities.
The goal at the moment is to get this school working well, but the ultimate aim is to have a chain of schools in the North, where I’m based, taking students from four-years-old to A-Level. We’re looking to open one next year in Sunderland which will do just that, with five to 10 more opening in the next few years.
This fresh new approach taps into calls from Chris King, chairman of the Headmasters’ & Headmistresses’ Conference (HMC), to end hostilities towards private schools. Independent and state school colleagues need to collaborate ever more closely if we’re to solve the most serious problems facing the education system today.
Ours is a very unusual model, but it is one that I have been researching globally for two decades. In recent years, I have taken unpaid leave from the university to co-found chains of low-cost private schools across Honduras, India and Ghana, where we have 20,000 students, and are hoping to expand across West Africa.
There, government schools are unable to meet basic needs in a way our state schools have already been doing for decades, and fees, which range from around £9 to £75 a month, are much lower than here in the UK, where we have to pay teachers a competitive wage. But my research – and the interest we have already garnered from parents – shows that there is untapped demand here as well.
People have asked me, why not focus on free schools or academies? I think they’re a good idea – they can certainly serve a community better than a bog-standard comprehensive – but they’re hampered by a slow bureaucratic process and, in my opinion, don’t go far enough.
IGS: Durham is, admittedly, a big personal risk. I have sunk all my savings into this project, alongside investors, and put my neck on the line. The National Union of Teachers has picketed our parents’ evenings – our fees are lower than the per capita cost of state education, so they see us as a threat, and question how we can claim to offer more for less.
I would remind our critics that we will focus on every child’s interests in a way current schools simply can’t. Our success is wholly contingent upon pupils’ enrolment and educational improvement. If we don’t deliver on our promises, we will fold.
The charges laid against my schools in developing countries focuses not on our – excellent – results, but on our existence as evidence of ideological failure. The answer there is, the state system clearly isn’t working, and children deserve a better education right now. The same argument is true here in the UK; it’s just not as extreme. Do parents want this, and if they do, why get in their way?
I know we will have interest from middle-class parents, who view this as a more affordable way of giving their child a high-quality education than moving to a better postcode, and I’m happy if some of them come to us instead. But if I had a dream, it would be for poorer communities to see the value of the education we’re offering.
Today, it grieves me deeply when I go into schools and see children who are very bright but bored because lessons are moving too slowly; or those who are completely lost and can’t get extra help. I want every child to have the opportunity to be exercised to the best of their abilities.
What we’re doing isn’t easy. If we are able to grow, we’ll be looking for commercial investors, ideally with patience as well as capital, to recognise this is a unique business that might need some time to get the model right.
But imagine if we get those 65 pupils in, are able to give them the education they and their parents have been looking for, and help them flourish and grow. That would make every sacrifice, every fight and every obstacle more than worth it.
It is a big personal risk. I have sunk all my savings into this project… and put my neck on the line
As told to Radhika Sanghani