As we head towards a general election in the second half of this year, there is a big question in the minds of all those associated with the independent schools sector: will the Labour Party be invited to form a government?
And, if so, how will we all be affected by the Labour Party policies to introduce VAT on independent school fees and to take away business rate cuts for independent schools?
Barnaby Lenon has an historical take on this question of the moment.
“Hugely significant?”, Barnaby muses. “Well, not as significant as the abolition of Direct Grant schools in 1976”. For those of us with shorter or less accurate memories, Direct Grant schools were selective and independently governed. They charged fees but received government grants to admit poorer pupils who were selected by local authorities.
In 1976, the Labour government of the day abolished the “direct grants” awarded to children from low income families, narrowing down access to those schools, which generally continued to operate as fully independent establishment in receipt of no government funding.
Barnaby continues: “There were hundreds of Direct Grant schools. Many of their pupils were on what we would now call bursaries. Suddenly, that vast raft of pupils, particularly in big cities like Manchester and Birmingham, disappeared.”
“The abolition of the Direct Grant, and the introduction of VAT on school fees, both limit social mobility.”
This situation is beginning to sound familiar to today. In his direct way, Barnaby makes the analogy crystal clear: “The abolition of Direct Grant schools hit the middle income families, who could no longer afford to access an independent education once the grants had been taken away. The same thing will happen with VAT, in that it will make our schools more exclusive, with less money to spend on bursaries and partnerships.
“The changes in independent schools brought about by the abolition of the Direct Grant, and the introduction of VAT on school fees, both limit social mobility, as they close down the access to an independent education to middle and low-income families.”
Independent schools have survived significant challenges in the past; they will do so again. But will social mobility and widening access once again be the casualties?
Spending cuts
In Barnaby’s opinion, these changes to VAT and business rates are “likely to come in next year”. So how might schools respond? In recent years, schools have looked to increase their bursaries and assisted places, in a commitment to widening access and supporting social mobility.
For example, Latymer Upper School, winner of the Independent Schools of the Year award 2023 for Contribution to Social Mobility, promises to have over 300 places supported by bursaries by 2024. However, with financial changes afoot, Barnaby believes “One thing schools will have to decide is whether or not they can increase the amount of bursary money. For many parents, this will be a painful experience. And now is the time when the call on bursaries is likely to grow – I’d be very surprised if it didn’t.”
Barnaby outlines some straightforward choices that individual schools may have to make. “Maybe this will involve introducing charges for extra-curricular activities. Cutting A-Level subjects that run on low numbers is another area to look at. Partnership work may suffer. Hard decisions will have to be made.”
“Barnaby practically embodies the educational cross-sector alliance”
Cutting partnership work would be a further blow to the independent sector’s commitment to social mobility and widening access. It’s through cross-sector partnerships with state schools that independent sector schools are able to offer opportunities, experiences and facilities to young people in their local communities.
Balanced, not boastful, cross-sector partnerships
A cross-sector partnership needs to add value to all participating schools. Barnaby is very clear that, without common benefits and a symbiotic relationship, “It’s just patronising”. Leaders in the state sector need to identify as stakeholders in the independent schools they partner, and vice verse: “So it’s not just the independent school bragging about how wonderful they are, but more importantly, the senior team of the local state school saying this is a great scheme which is mutually beneficial.”
Barnaby, who himself practically embodies the educational cross-sector alliance, believes that balanced, cross-sector relationships between schools negate the idea of elitism sometimes associated with independent schools in the wider press.
“It’s not just the independent school bragging about how wonderful they are.”
Partnerships in practice
What does a partnership project look like at the grass roots level within schools? Barnaby speaks plainly about the reality of partnerships, recognising that “It sounds straightforward when I describe it, but it’s actually a lot of work and quite difficult.” So, he goes on to explain how to make partnerships between state and independent sector schools work in practical terms with the following advice:
- Identify need by talking to local headteachers
- Do your research there are thousands of partnerships listed on the ISC website
- Be efficient by employing a full-time member of staff to take charge if feasible
- Measure impact through results, surveys and polls
The value of partnerships deserves to be widely celebrated and publicly recognised, and Barnaby’s advice to schools is to produce a special brochure, create a dedicated partnerships page on the school website, and invite the local MP or prospective parliamentary candidates into your school to see for themselves the impact of your cross-sector projects. “If you can’t demonstrate that the partnership has made a good impact, then it’s much less likely to survive.”
The economic impact of independent schools
Communicating the impact of independent schools in their local communities, and in the wider national arena, has been the recent focus of the ISC. In particular, the ISC’s Economic Impact Report, published in December 2022 by Oxford Economics, examines the economic footprint of all independent schools. It also highlights the savings to the tax payer brought about as a result of independently educated children not taking up the state-funded school places to which they would otherwise be entitled.
“The ISC is encouraging schools to produce their own individual economic impact reports.”
In that report, Barnaby notes, “The key finding is that the taxpayer saving made in 2021, as a result of pupils attending an ISC-affiliated school, was £3.8 billion, with the saving relating to all independent school pupils put at £4.4 billion”. It’s hard to argue with straightforward facts, and this report puts forward clear statistics in its economic analysis. In parallel, the ISC is encouraging schools to produce their own, individual economic impact reports, detailing the value of the school to its local economy.
Referring to the Economic Impact Report, Barnaby defines its primary purpose: “It’s to help us explain to politicians that our schools have a big economic footprint in the communities in which they lie. So, before you do something which is likely to damage the independent school, you need to bear in mind that this is not just about the pupils, but that it’s about hundreds of staff, most of whom rely heavily on this school for their family income.
“At Harrow, we were the biggest employer in the area, we had about five hundred people working there. Independent schools are often the biggest employer in any single town. It’s also about local shops, which often depend on these schools. It’s important that politicians understand, when they’re making decisions about the sector, that independent schools are not just about creating prime ministers or getting good A-Level results, but they’re also important to the local economy.”
“Independent schools are often the biggest employer in any single town.”
Barnaby’s advice about communicating the sector’s economic impact is to “talk about the report as much as possible.” Schools need to get the information out, to stakeholders, to politicians and parliamentary candidates, to the press and to the wider public.
Now, perhaps, is not the time to stay silent, but to be bold.
About Barnaby Lenon
In the independent schools’ sector, Barnaby Lenon is familiar to us all as chairman of the Independent Schools Council and former headmaster of Harrow School. He studied geography at the University of Oxford and education at the University of Cambridge and his first teaching post was at Eton.
What is perhaps less well-known is that, following his retirement, Barnaby went on to found the state-funded London Academy of Excellence, a sixth form college targeting academic excellence in Newham, East London. His research findings into how to generate academic success in schools with a significant proportion of under-privileged children are captured in his book Much Promise published in 2017.
As dean of education at the University of Buckingham, a post he has held since 2019, Barnaby trains teachers heading for both the state and independent sectors.
Barnaby Lenon – In his own words:
On being headmaster at Harrow: “My ambitions were to improve exam results, to increase the number of applicants to the school, and to ensure that all boys were making maximum use of being at a boarding school. Boarding schools can’t be day schools with hotels attached!”
On educating boys: “I discovered that if you gave boys a choice between the activities that I approved of, or watching television, or simply doing nothing, then they would always choose watching television or doing nothing. So I had to force them to do my activities and, having forced them, they very often fell in love with them, which may have had a big impact on their whole life.”
On choosing a career in education: “All teachers make a significant impact on the lives of the pupils they teach. Quite a lot of my contemporaries at university went on to do more highly paid jobs than mine, but when they look back on their lives, they’re not certain that their jobs had any great value for society. They may have made more money, but when you reach my age having made money isn’t the only basis for assessing your life.”
This article first appeared in the latest Spring 2024 edition of School Management Plus magazine, out now.