Charitable status of independent schools

[midget]

Interesting, particularly the bit about social services helping out. Many years ago i worked with someone who had a "difficult" daughter who couldn't/wouldn't settle at any of the local schools (it was either Barnet or Harrow council). They paid for the daughter to go to Millfield!

Maggie

[Happy]

Mmm. We're the recipient of one of these means-tested bursaries - my daughter is at a well-known school in Berkshire, where the fees are over £8k a term. (This figure is normal, incidentally.) The bursary level is 50% of the fees which still leaves a nasty sizeable chunk to be paid by friends, family, begging and borrowing. I got the help because I'm studying and we live on Income Support, but there is no way I could raise the remaining £4k if I had no generous friends. I'd be lucky if I could raise £400! I can't help feeling we're being used in some way and grateful though I am, there seems to have been no thought by the school as to how financially-challenged famillies would meet the remainder, pay for the hiddeously expensive uniform or try to keep up with the extras and trips which are considered normal additional items every term.

I feel as though they think all they have to do is merely offer the bursary: if the pupil has to leave because the low income family can't pay for the extra financial demands, its not the school's fault per se, and the Charitable status is retained. Maybe I'm being cynical. I admit to being jaded but I have been shocked by the insensitive attitude.

Someone mentioned the issue of CH still standing apart from the rest - and yes, it does. It provides an implicit understanding of the effect of financial assistance on the whole family unit, not just the child. By providing uniform, subsidising trips and making fees proportional to means, from one perspective it offers an education for the child devoid of money constraint at every turn and every activity, and gives the family peace of mind when it comes to cost: I am getting constant calls from my daughter asking if I can afford for her to join a drama class, a dance class, or an extra music lesson. At CH, the children get on with their experience and are free to make the most of what is on offer without worrying that Mum can't pay for it, and Mum can get on, confident that the child has the same opportunities as the rest of the pupil body. That's worth more than a chunk of money being knocked off the fees just to meet some notional tax criteria.

So, their attitude makes me feel as though her school puts its tax status above the educational experience of a child, and places unnecessary stress on the family, i.e. Me. As far as CH is concerned, I know there has been some heated debate about the back asphalt, and some fiery comments which raise a staff/pupil priority concern. But as I have suggested, on a more basic level, CH is very definitely about the pupils and their famillies, something which I think we should not lose sight of.

Sorry - it's late and my soapbox is a tad wobbly.

[Ajarn Philip]

Terrific post, Happy, and a timely reminder.


(Sorry about your soapbox...)

[englishangel]

Hear hear

[blondie95]

i totally agree

[sejintenej]

Whatever the school may have always done and will continue to do to ensure that education is available to those whose parents cannot afford it, we must remember that it is just one of many schools whose assets the Chancellor is determined to swipe however he can.
It's a bit like pensions - its there so grab it and to h**l with those little people who lose out. All the talk of helping the underling is a load of cr** - mere electioneering. Remenber that CH (and presumably other public school) masters are not presenting the Labour manifesto in the way it is being done in some state schools so therefore the schools must be "controlled" - or closed

[onewestguncopse]

I agree with points made above but do still think that the expansion of means tested fee discounts rather than just scholarships will take the shine off CH. We will always (probably) be able to help the most but as anyone can see from the number of parents who send their child to the CH exam aswell as many more too, parents are shopping around more than ever looking for the best deal. This year I interviewed a child who was sitting 11 (yes 11) seperate entrance exams. Parents are also employing good accountants to secure the best deals possible. I know this for a fact as a friend of mine is one such parent who is creative with this accounts when it comes to school bursars! He does not send his children to CH I hasten to add and i think that he is very far from the only parent to do this.

[Happy]

Mmm. I can vouch for creative accounting going on when I was at CH both with accounts themselves and property ownership, not with my parents tho!
I don't suppose CH searches the Land Registry, does it? Now that most of it is computerised, it would seem rather easy to check.

How awful for the poor lad sitting 11 exams. I think for many of us, it was CH or local school, so when we came for the exams, we were rather more invested in the idea than it being some kind of educational fishing trip. Shopping about was limited as no other school offered the level of assistance required. I don't think the availability of assistance has changed enormously: when I looked around extensively for a school for my daughter, I found only one school that offered 100% help in addition to CH.

That being the case, it brings us around again to the idea of "need". If parents can afford to shop around, surely this fact would exclude them CH consideration? And I know, when money is tight, deals are king. But I am deeply uncomfortable with a CH education being reduced to a financial deal.

Sorry. A bit off-topic.

[Katharine]

Mmm. I can vouch for creative accounting going on when I was at CH both with accounts themselves and property ownership, not with my parents tho!
I don't suppose CH searches the Land Registry, does it? Now that most of it is computerised, it would seem rather easy to check.

How awful for the poor lad sitting 11 exams. I think for many of us, it was CH or local school, so when we came for the exams, we were rather more invested in the idea than it being some kind of educational fishing trip. Shopping about was limited as no other school offered the level of assistance required. I don't think the availability of assistance has changed enormously: when I looked around extensively for a school for my daughter, I found only one school that offered 100% help in addition to CH.

That being the case, it brings us around again to the idea of "need". If parents can afford to shop around, surely this fact would exclude them CH consideration? And I know, when money is tight, deals are king. But I am deeply uncomfortable with a CH education being reduced to a financial deal.

Sorry. A bit off-topic.

You are not the only one to feel uncomfortable with it, Happy. For me, it goes right against the ethos of the school - but then when I stop to think about my own family's case it was finance rather than other need. My father was an OB country parson, who never had two pennies to rub together - if he had he would have given one to someone in greater need of money. There was no shopping around for schools, it was CH or local.

[gma]

You are not the only one to feel uncomfortable with it, Happy. For me, it goes right against the ethos of the school - but then when I stop to think about my own family's case it was finance rather than other need. My father was an OB country parson, who never had two pennies to rub together - if he had he would have given one to someone in greater need of money. There was no shopping around for schools, it was CH or local.

Same here, although no country parson I was one of six and without the input of the tiny village school Headmistress (the school not the Headmistress!) I would never had gone, I was scholarship girl and the only time within school I ever really knew about it was when it came to things like tennis racquets and your own watches! (Although if my Mum hadn't conjured up the dosh I know the school would have given one to me). It's a very freeing thing although at the time that I was there 'peer pressure' was unnamed, it's only now when helping out my nephews with 'must have' stuff I recognise what an enormous pressure it places on them before they even take one step onto the school grounds let alone the financial presure on their parents.

Whilst I am a great believer in everyone getting a shot, I believe that you absolutely cannot hold down the brightest in society to compensate for those not on that level. The reality is in making a level playing field for everyone, the education system has created an environment where everyone can be a winner, and the brightest with usually the lowest boredom threshhold end up being those marked as trouble!! As an employer, to bring young people into the business world is an horrendous effort as they seem to believe that 'fair', or more precisely 'not fair' has a place in the business and the edcation system is doing them no favours in dumbing down as they are. I had to spend a good proportion of last week explaining to an employee that someone elses promotion was not 'not fair', her argument was that she got there on time and didn't take extra time at lunch and therefore 'worked as hard' as everyone else'! In the current state school system you are rewarded for turning up, life is not like that, it is generally competitive and it can be damn hard to make your mark and improve your circumstances and unfortuantely the one's who are bright and/or well educated seem to be coming from the 'private' sector.

Please forgive the sweeping generalisation in here, I know there are always going to be the exceptions to the rule, but I can only tell you my expeerience over 30 years in business. The only way any school in the current environment is going to one that turns out pupils achieving their best is to remove them from mainstream funding and cut the school model to suit the society it serves. Oh look, CH!!

[Mid A 15]

What is "need?" Is it exclusively financial or are there emotional elements?

I would accept that it is PROBABLE that those "in need" struggle financially but would suggest that there could be exceptions.

A family with divorced or separated parents where a child is neglected because one parent is estranged and the other, although well paid, has to work excessive hours. A case could be argued for that child having "need" emotionally.

Evaluation of finances is an excellent start point and will prove sufficient in many cases. However just as Happy is uncomfortable with a CH education being reduced to a financial deal via dodgy accounting if I've understood her correctly, I'm concerned that "needy" children who would benefit from a CH education could be excluded because of an inflexible yes or no purely on financial grounds.

[Happy]

I think we're now straying into 2 separate issues: academic benefit and emotional benefit, a distinction that has led those outside CH to brand the school as being that for "Damaged Children". The generalisation that children are damaged by virtue of being poor or parents being divorced is shocking.

I knew of a couple of children whom CH helped on account of care issues but it was not the norm. The fact that CH helps those famillies with trouble, over and above those who have low income and that would cope with and benefit from a CH education is just another facet of its charitable ethos. And I mean charity in the non fiscal sense, obv.

I think "Need" was discussed some time ago...?

[Mid A 15]

I think we probably agree with each other.

I took the academic side as understood since it is well- established that children have to be of a certain academic standard / potential to attend the School.

I certainly did not mean to imply that all children from poor or divorced /separated parents are damaged!

I just wanted to make the point that there will be a minority of cases where need exists for non- financial reasons and express the view that CH should (as it certainly did and may still do) take account of those.

I think you've said more or less the same thing.

I also thought there was a thread on "need."

[Happy]

[sejintenej]

Oh what a load of posts, counter posts and counter counter posts.

OK so we have the poor kid sitting 11 different entrance exams. IF we take the (unlikely) scenario nthat the parents are really poor we have to remember that other public schools are already getting on the scolarship bandwagon - Eton is one. therefore it is technically possible that the pushy parents are trying all the possibilities at the expense of the child's mental well-being. Had it occurred to anyone that this could be a ploy to suggest that the parents are so pushy that the child in in mental danger at home and should be got out of that environment.

Creative accounting - I consider that abusive not only to the school but also to the child. Perhaps the local social services should take him/her into care as an example.

I cannot accept that the bald fact that the parents are divorced is adequate reason for the child to be admitted as being in need of loving care and attention. As Huggermother will testify, CH is not and cannot be a supplier of 24 hour loving care. It can act as a safe house for children whose parents are demonstrably mentally or physically cruel and it can help them to have a place amongst peers

gma and dumbing down; it has been like this for some time and the first time I sacked someone because of it was in about 1972. Kids come out of school thinking they know it all when they know nothing. The kids coming out of Uni that I have dealt with were absolutely no better or competent than A level (even O level) holders from 1960

Mid A 15:

I just wanted to make the point that there will be a minority of cases where need exists for non- financial reasons and express the view that CH should (as it certainly did and may still do) take account of those.

Perhaps the demand exists from more than a minority of cases. However, in order to allow those to grow up in a "normal" society then the majority have to be not be in such need

gma: nothing in this life is "fair" and those who want a "fair" crack of the whip will get it completely only if they deserve it. Those who get it for other reasons will eventually be dropped painfully usually for cause.