Tight margins and misconceptions are daily lessons
IN A YouGov survey in June, many parents said that their children’s school was being affected by under-funding.
There are insufficient teachers to ensure a specialist subject teacher for every class; there is no longer funding for school trips and extra-curricular activities; the lessons are, too often, covered by supply staff or non-specialist teachers.
In the state sector, funding has not kept pace with rising costs, therefore incredibly tough decisions have needed to be made.
This is not the case in independent schools which charge more per pupil than state schools receive. Over the last decade or more, independent school fees have risen more than the funding given to state schools.
Driven by spiralling food and fuel prices, independent schools are not immune from the cost of living crisis that has hit the whole country.
Almost every school runs on tight margins so when teachers’ pension costs more than double there is a knock-on effect on fees. Independent schools also cost more to run. About 80% of a school’s running costs are down to the staff pay so if there are only half the number of pupils in a classroom as in the academy down the road, staff costs per pupil must be twice as high.
A lot of that funding gap is down to chronic under-funding by successive governments for decades. However, you don’t build a worldleading education system by pushing everything down to the lowest level.
Boosting the per pupil funding for state schools would allow them to invest in their teachers, pupils and buildings. Even if the VAT take was as high as the government believe, it would only pay for an increase of around 17 pence per state school pupil – not really sufficient to make an impact on the school funding gap!
There has been a lot of talk about the burden falling on the ‘broadest shoulders’ recently; although this is followed by the confusing assumption that pensioners are some of those broad-shouldered members of the population. But let us stick to education and consider the lazy preconceptions of independent schools. Almost without fail, newspapers accompany stories of independent schools with photographs of Eton, Harrow or Cheltenham Ladies College pupils.
Just for a moment I want to look at those misconceptions about the independent school sector. There are just under 2,500 independent schools in England (compared with well over 21,600 state schools).
More than half of independent schools are small – with fewer than 150 pupils – and only 4% of independent schools have more than 1,000 pupils. Most independent schools in England are day schools; there are only eight full boarding schools and just 4% of schools offer any boarding. The average cost of an independent day school education in England last year was around £18,000 – all of the local independent schools charge less than the national average.
Pupils in independent schools are a wide mix. Some schools are very exclusive so their pupils are rich; mostly though, local schools draw their students from the local area. Parents at independent schools are equally mixed.
Think of a job in Newcastle and probably you will find an independent school parent doing that job. I know that we have taxi-drivers, chip shop owners, care home workers, nurses and police officers, amongst others, as our parents.
A source tells me that there is currently no spare capacity in secondary education within Newcastle. So far, around 70 parents from across independent schools have been enquiring about places, and there are likely to be more as the reality of budgeting for this new tax bites into family finances.
The Local Authority have a legal duty to provide a place in a school, in or out of the city, which means that the Council may have to pay tens of thousands of pounds per pupil to transport these children to a suitable state school out of the city. It may even be cheaper to pay their current school to keep them. Where is the logic in that?
Neil Walker is headmaster at Westfield School in Gosforth, Newcastle