Future of"Master Plan"-where will money come from?

[Deb GP]

stock portfolio, yes. IIRC, the school was worst hit when the oil market went tits-up. now, i know that most things took a beating at this time, but had the school invested ethically (only seems logical given the much revered 'ch ethos') they would not have lost as much money (ethical investments seem to grow more slowly, but don't seem to crash as heinously).

And the pensions went with it! Piff paff poof... gone. My hard earned pennies (and many other peoples') all gone.

And as for ethical investments, we've been looking at this and you've got to be really, really commited. Some people justify it by saying they're "liberating" the unethical money by putting it to better use (c.f. church groups against gambling accepting lottery funding for their new parish halls!).

[Ian Stannard]

I thought I would respond to a few points made -

1. Yes Sixth Form students do pay for their own paper. It is provided at a low cost in the Tuck Shop and this will save the school some money. We did waste 1000's of pieces of A4 paper previously and since the introduction of this scheme most students provide their own paper without complaint. After all, many of the students in the Deps now 'earn' between £10 and £30 a week through the EMA scheme. The local pizza company is thrilled!

2. I am not in any way undermining the ethos of the school by suggesting that we might consider taking a small number of fee paying day pupils to offset some of the rising costs. If you object to the principal of day pupils at CH, that is different. I don't but completely understand why others do.

3. We do attract a huge number of applicants now, so competition is fierce. This is good for a host of reasons. However, it is not necessarily going to increase our income. In the final analysis good intentions don't pay bills. If we need more money to provide this quality of education then we need to address our income stream. This is basic house keeping. HOW we do it is a moot point but we do seem to NEED to do it and do it now!

Most staff at CH are loyal to the ethos of the school and would not want us to revert to a 'standard' public school ethos. That is never going to happen, but it is likely that in the next few decades the funding arrangements may need to change to keep pace with rising costs.

[Mrs C.]

I`d just like to add that there are already a number of pupils in the school whose homes are in Horsham and the surrounding area. I know of at least one, and therefore many more likely exist, who would be only too pleased to be here as a day pupil, but it is not allowed so he has to board.
There are also , of course, the numerous non-foundationers, who are not allowed to board except as Grecians.

[Great Plum]

I think having day pupils at CH would erode the ethos too much... I cannot see the school coping with day pupils - especially if they are more obiviously 'richer' than other children...

[ben ashton]

would you want to wear ch uniform to and from school?!

[Great Plum]

would you want to wear ch uniform to and from school?!

I think it would kill the uniform having day pupils...

More importantly though - the boarding ethos at the Horsham site would be lost...

[Ian Stannard]

If they had to, they either would or would not be allowed to join the school. After all, not so long ago pupils had to wear the uniform into Horsham to go shopping.

I attended a local comprehensive in London. Some of my friends were the sons of milkmen and others the sons of millionaires who chose not to send their children to a fee paying school. They were both my friends and the income of their parents did not change that. In the same way the child whose Dad is the Bank Manager in Horsham should be able to befriend the child who comes from a home with a low income. THAT is what makes CH so special.

After all, it is already true that children live in boarding houses where the income of the parents (declared or not!) varies enromously!!

This is a very emotive subject and will never to be easy to resolve.

[Ian Stannard]

If they were to introduce Day Places they would be filled in minutes! I know a number of families who would fall over themselves to get a place for their child. Many of these families are 'ordinary', middle income families who would scrimp and save to send their child to CH. We are not talking about hoards of the mega rich here!

Saying all this, I doubt day pupils will be admitted in the short term. In the medium term.....

[Deb GP]

Being a Horsham girl and from conversations with chums who are parent I agree that some parents would jump at the chance to send their children to CH on a day basis. Whilst the two state, single - sex schools and the college in Horsham have good local reputations, I gather that smaller class sizes et c are more desirable.

[Ian Stannard]

Day pupils would change the way we organise our day but remember this is not unusual. Most boarding schools admit day pupils. The day pupils are known as Day boarders and do what boarders do, except sleep in a boarding house. Many even do prep at school and go home in the evening.

This fear of loss of ethos is, to my mind, a touch overplayed.h

I support Mrs C's point. If you lived in a house 500 yards from the school, in what way would the fact that you did not sleep here change the ethos of the school? My son will do the same if he came here. Why is he different to the resident of a home on the new development near the train station?

[Mrs C.]

Theres also the fact that hardly anyone walks to school these days, so Ben`s point is perhaps a little irrelevant?
i`m not arguing one way or the other - just stating facts!!

[Hendrik]

"i`m not arguing one way or the other - just stating facts!!"
well hang on, what exactly are the facts here?
none of the points raised were met by that web page... http://www.publications.parliament.uk/p ... 7we159.htm
...or any other comments. we weren't disputing what was in the web page (it basically just outlined what the school was about). we were pointing at a few specific things that went most horrendously wrong. just the ones we knew, and what we could remember off the top of our heads during a quick coffee break.
sorry to hear about your pension debs, i didn't know that. which goes to show how much is likely to be wrong that most people aren't aware of.

from the web page:
"20% of places are free" - when i was one of those, it was 40%. has that quota really halved since then? typo surely?
"deprived areas in Sussex" -

i dunno, maybe the school was set up for a kind of proletariat/bourgeoisie reconciliation or something, to befriend the child of a poor man and that of the man who makes him poor
"...the child whose Dad is the Bank Manager in Horsham should be able to befriend the child who comes from a home with a low income. THAT is what makes CH so special."

but then again maybe CH was set up for "fatherless children and other poore men's children". at least some dude named Edward VI seemed to think so.

[Ian Stannard]

I take your point Hendrick, but times have moved on a bit! We can only recruit from the pupils that apply. Many more it appears are applying from families with more money than in the past. This is probably due to the fact that the decline of the assisted places scheme and better marketing has opened the school up to the middle income parent who aspires for a public education but cannot afford to pay for it.

My point was that if we need more money to continue our mission of offering a needs blind application process (something that I fully support) we do need to be aware of the fact that this may mean increasing our income. This is acheived by donations (from OB's), income from fees and money raised from our investments. All three should be explored openly and without predjudice.

To be fair, the original theme of this topic has been lost in a discussion about fee paying day pupils! Interesting discussion though.

[matthew]

Ian writes:

1. Yes Sixth Form students do pay for their own paper. It is provided at a low cost in the Tuck Shop and this will save the school some money. We did waste 1000's of pieces of A4 paper previously and since the introduction of this scheme most students provide their own paper without complaint. After all, many of the students in the Deps now 'earn' between £10 and £30 a week through the EMA scheme. The local pizza company is thrilled!

Fair point about about the EMA, at least for the students who get it. I'd heard murmurings about it before, but didn't realize it would apply to Deps and Grecians at CH. £10 a week sounds a rather sweet deal, but I guess they pay it all back once they reach university.

Charging for paper still seems petty but, as Eloise reminds me, it's not the same place any more.

2. I am not in any way undermining the ethos of the school by suggesting that we might consider taking a small number of fee paying day pupils to offset some of the rising costs. If you object to the principal of day pupils at CH, that is different. I don't but completely understand why others do.

Any significant number of day pupils would certainly change the character of the school. That said, I don't find talk of 'undermining the ethos' particularly helpful. There's an unspoken assumption in there that all change is bad. That's certainly not true -- go read some of the posts about corporal punishment if you're tempted to think otherwise. Any argument against day pupils must focus on the effects of that *particular* change.

When I was there (1987-1994), CH was somewhat separated from real life; talk of Internet access and cash grants from the government suggests that may have changed somewhat now. Introducing day pupils would bridge that gap still further; whether that's something to be encouraged is debatable, but we should move beyond 'undermining the ethos' versus 'needing the money'.

One thought does come to mind, however. If CH manages to erase distinctions of social class, that's probably because (almost) all pupils live in the same houses and under the same conditions. It may not achieve the same feat if the wealthier pupils don't share that experience.

[Lamma looker]

It's probably not appreciated that CH was, in effect, taking full-fee-paying pupils over 50 years ago. The 1944 Education Act introduced what was a forerunner of the assisted places scheme. Based on the results of the 11+, local education authorities were allowed to send children who, it was thought, would benefit, to fee-paying schools and, as far as I am aware, there was no income criterion. In my case it was Derbyshire who sent me to CH. There was a shortish list of schools for parents to choose from - the only other one I can remember now was St Bee's (who?, what?, where?, shudder). Parents paid a contribution according to income to the LEA who, in turn, paid the full whack to CH. Amongst the boys I don't think anyone ever knew - or cared- who had come to the school under this arrangement.

As an aside, I had to travel to and from school in uniform. It was mostly by train and on one occasion I had to finish my journey by local bus as a result of a cock-up in meeting me at the station in Nottingham. You can imagine the peculiar looks I got in an East Midlands mining village.