Independent Schools: Variety and Diversity

Lord Lexden Excerpts

Wednesday 4th March 2015 Grand Committee

Asked by

[Lord Lexden]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the variety and diversity of schools within the independent education sector.

[Lord Lexden (Con)]

My Lords, I begin by declaring my interests as president of both the Independent Schools Association and of the Council for Independent Education.

The association provides a range of excellent services to its expanding membership—up from 300 thriving, mainly smaller schools, averaging under 400 pupils a few years ago to some 360 today. The council brings together 18 independent colleges, helping them to enhance their already high standards, which will be on display in your Lordships’ House next week when I present annual awards to the most successful students drawn from all manner of backgrounds within this country and overseas. They look to the Government for one thing above all—the removal of unnecessary obstacles to student visas. Many independent schools feel equally strongly about that.

There are a number of other highly regarded professional organisations working on behalf of the 1,250 schools which have chosen to join them on terms that include regular inspection and published reports under Ofsted’s watchful oversight. I encountered an array of those well-established bodies during my time as general secretary of the Independent Schools Council between 1997 and 2004. With misplaced radicalism at the beginning of my tenure, I urged them to coalesce so they could speak with a united voice—not least to the Government of Mr Blair. I had no success. The organisations that represent independent schools reflect the innate diversity and variety, which are the hallmarks of the schools themselves, where 80% of the 625,000 pupils in the independent sector are educated. Yet those long-standing characteristics go almost entirely unremarked, and it is my object in this debate to underline their importance.

I am grateful to those noble Lords who will be taking part. This is a short debate. I regard it as opening salvo, and I hope to have other opportunities to carry forward and enlarge the discussion of issues relating to independent schools. It is in the national interest to do this.

I am sorry that my noble friend Lord Nash, who has taken a deep and constructive interest in these issues, cannot reply to this debate on behalf of the Government because of duties in Birmingham. I am very grateful to my noble friend Lady Williams of Trafford for speaking in his stead.

My starting point is the extraordinary collection of misconceptions that dominate discussion of independent schools—in the media, in politics and over the dinner tables of the chattering classes. It is a long-standing national habit to view all independent schools as aloof, expensive and exclusive, barred to almost everyone in the land. The impression is now gaining ground that the cost has become so great—around £30,000 a year is the widely quoted figure—that soon only Russian oligarchs will be able to afford them. This takes to extreme lengths a misapprehension that has a cause as simple as it is difficult to dispel: a stubborn determination to regard all independent schools, of which there are more than 2,500 in total, as having been created in the image of a handful of famous public schools, which for some 150 years have been accused of occupying central and malign roles in creating and sustaining deep social division in our country. The famous picture taken of the Eton-Harrow cricket match in 1937 of two Harrovians in top hats being stared at derisively by three urchins is still used to illustrate innumerable articles about independent schools, despite being totally out of date and wholly unrepresentative.

I will not in this debate enter into the tempting historical argument as to whether the grave charge laid against the major public schools is true but I emphasise it as the factor that has done most to create the wholly misleading impression that is so rife today. An imaginary uniformity is attributed to independent schools. The variety and diversity that are their actual attributes have been lost to sight. Consider the question of fees—understandably, everybody does. It is perfectly true that places in boarding schools can be costly. Superb facilities are provided in return. But boarders represent only one in eight pupils. Far from being typical, very expensive schools are the exception. In some day schools in the Independent Schools Association, fees are at a level similar to the average cost of a place in the maintained sector, which makes many heads yearn for the introduction of an open-access scheme to their schools at every level of ability.

More than half of independent schools are not academically selective. Every year, means-tested bursaries increase. Over a third of pupils now receive help with their fees. Every year more pupils from ethnic minority families begin their education at independent schools. A higher proportion of ethnic minority pupils are in independent schools in England than in maintained schools. Many teachers seek to reach out as fully as possible to the communities around them. I think of a remarkable little school outside Lichfield where I presented prizes last summer. Maple Hayes Hall School has a superb track record of helping children with learning difficulties. The chairman of the local council described it last week as a jewel in the district’s crown, yet the local education authorities go to considerable lengths to try to prevent parents of statemented children from sending them to Maple Hayes, precipitating lengthy and expensive cases before tribunals. Such behaviour, inimical to the interests of the children of this country, really should end.

The independent sector has in this generation committed itself fully to partnership with state schools. The further development of partnership is the theme of the manifesto that the Independent Schools Council has published for the coming election. A proper understanding of what independent schools have to offer by way of full partnership can be achieved only by recognising and relishing the diversity and variety that exists within the sector. How can this be done? One way would be through a careful survey of members of the Independent Schools Association by an impartial education expert or an education journalist or two. The idea was enthusiastically received by many of the heads of the schools when I put it to them last week.

Emails have poured in, giving a foretaste of what those carrying out such a survey might expect. I will give a few examples.

At Gosfield School in Essex,

“we halved our prep school fees three years ago and provide substantial bursary support to families in the local community”.

At Babington House School in Chislehurst,

“we accept pupils from a variety of backgrounds, some of whom have very significant and particular needs. We are not a rich school and have no large endowments, but nevertheless we provide a number of means-tested bursaries”.

At Moon Hall College in Reigate,

“virtually all our pupils come to us having failed to achieve their potential in a mainstream school despite additional support. Many are still virtually illiterate when they arrive but they leave us full of confidence, having taken their GCSEs and been admitted to sixth-form colleges”.

At Claires Court School in Maidenhead, academic selection is totally rejected as,

“harmful to social mobility and the long term development of all children”.

At Thorpe Hall School in Southend,

“operating in a highly selective 11+ area with four huge grammar schools, we educate many pupils who did not get through that filter but would not thrive in a large comprehensive”.

At Brockwood Park School, in Bramdean,

“young people from diverse nations and cultures share the adventure of growing and learning together, and will be less likely as adults to engage in discriminatory prejudice”.

At Tring Park School for the Performing Arts,

“awards in the region of £650,000 (10 per cent of turnover) are made each year for drama and musical theatre scholarships and bursaries”.

At Thames Christian College,

“the vast majority of pupils come from families who would never have thought they would ever send their children to a private school; around 40 per cent of our pupils do not pay the full fees”.

I have been sent many more such snapshots of the variety and diversity of life in independent schools today. I have not even mentioned the wide range of activities undertaken by schools in their local communities which show up as risible the patronising comment made by the head of Ofsted last year that they represent no more than “crumbs from the table”.

Finally, I will quote the outstanding head of the James Allen’s Girls School in south London,

“an inner-city school where 50 home languages are spoken and we currently have 126 students who hold means-tested bursaries. We regularly send girls from under-privileged backgrounds and other under-represented groups such as Afro-Caribbean heritage to top universities”,

where, she adds, poignantly,

“they are at once officially classified as coming from a privileged independent school background”.

No one knows more about partnership with state schools than this most successful head, who has taken part in a large variety of collaborative schemes in recent years. She concludes, wisely, that,

“both sectors have a wide range of schools within them and neither one has the exclusive right to excellence”.

To that, I hope we will all say, “Amen”.