Are we alone?

[jaspersmum]

in reply to the question about waiting lists, there are several empty spaces in my daughters house.

[lonelymom]

This doesn't make sense at all, does it? So there are unfilled places, from which the school is getting NO income, because some parents can't afford to pay increased fees? The variables such as food, laundry and uniform obviously aren't there if the place isn't filled, but the fixed costs such as teaching, heating and repairs remain, so isn't any income better than no income? Or am I missing something here?

[fasttrack]

I find it disheartening that parents have to withdraw their children from CH after they have already settled down. It is going to be so unsettling for the child especially if the child is been removed to a lesser school.i do sympathise with both parents and children. It seems as if the withdrawal of students due to parents inability to pay for the fees has been going on for quite sometime now and i doubt whether the foundation is going to do something about that not with the current credit crunch. My Ds has been offered a place at CH to start sept , however although we have accepted the place in principlel the quote for fees we receive will determine whether or not he will end up there. we already have a schorlarship place for another indie school which we are also holding onto. Although CH intheir letter has stated that if we turned down the offer after 20 april we will be liable to a full terms fees, that in itself is funny cos in the first place if i can afford that first terms fee i will definately not be turning down the offer. I called the school office to find out if they take in children other than year 7 and the lady said no that apart from the sixth form entry there is no in between offer. so i wonder what happens to the empty places. I guess we will all have to wait and see what happens!!

[lonelymom]

I called the school office to find out if they take in children other than year 7 and the lady said no that apart from the sixth form entry there is no in between offer.

Not true. I know of cases where this has happened, however, they may be exceptional circumstances.

[MaryB]

I have a good friend whose son is currently happily settled at CH, partly on my suggestion as he seemed, and has proved, to be precisely the kind of person the school is intended for. However, I have watched with growing disbelief and distress as my friend has struggled with ever increasing fees exacerbated by the apparent lack of sympathy from all those with whom she has been dealing. For all my reservations about life at Hertford in the 60s, what I'm seeing now is quite shockingly different from the CH I knew, and had I known a few years ago what I know now I doubt I would have suggested it for J.
Admittedly, when girls left during my time we often didn't know why, but I would be surprised if money was the problem in many cases - with hindsight it was more likely to have been the somewhat bizarre nature of the regime (see many of the Hertford subthreads for more details!)
I wonder what it will take to make the Foundation realise that it is endangering its purpose and principles - and ultimately the viability of the school itself. The refusal to engage properly with concerned and stressed parents seems shortsighted in the extreme. Even government departments consider themselvs bound to respond to complaints and concerns, but there is a lack of accountability here that doesn't sit well with charitable status.

[fasttrack]

i find it strange that the school denied taking anyone in other than yesr 7 or sixth form. when actually they seem too. well maybe in exceptional cases.

[lonelymom]

Me too. But it does seem to be the right thing to do, after all, how is an empty place any use to anyone? It's not generating an income, nor is it benefitting a child who may be 'in need'.

[fra828]

I have a good friend whose son is currently happily settled at CH, partly on my suggestion as he seemed, and has proved, to be precisely the kind of person the school is intended for. However, I have watched with growing disbelief and distress as my friend has struggled with ever increasing fees exacerbated by the apparent lack of sympathy from all those with whom she has been dealing. For all my reservations about life at Hertford in the 60s, what I'm seeing now is quite shockingly different from the CH I knew, and had I known a few years ago what I know now I doubt I would have suggested it for J.
Admittedly, when girls left during my time we often didn't know why, but I would be surprised if money was the problem in many cases - with hindsight it was more likely to have been the somewhat bizarre nature of the regime (see many of the Hertford subthreads for more details!)
I wonder what it will take to make the Foundation realise that it is endangering its purpose and principles - and ultimately the viability of the school itself. The refusal to engage properly with concerned and stressed parents seems shortsighted in the extreme. Even government departments consider themselvs bound to respond to complaints and concerns, but there is a lack of accountability here that doesn't sit well with charitable status.

.

I agree about that, there seemed to be a much more personal feel about it then, and whatever opinion you had of 'DR' West, I cannot imagine, she would have let pupils leave because of financial problems. Other problems...well I know personally of 2 girls who left at 14, both pregnant.

[ailurophile]

Ajarn Philip wrote

I have no evidence whatsoever to back this up, but it seems to me that 30 years ago the school bent over backwards to help parents in financial difficulty. Judging by the comments on this forum, they seem to have reversed this policy by encouraging (or at least not discouraging) parents to remove their children.

I have no 'business sense' whatsoever, but that doesn't seem like good practice to me. I would love to hear some recent examples of compassion and generosity. Are there any? This is obviously not about the day-to-day standard of care and education provided by the staff, but the strategy of the 'powers that be'.

I do hope things work out for you and your children.

Thanks for your kind wishes. I think the real problem for us is not simply that the school are not trying to help parents in financial difficulty, but that they refuse to recognise that they have created this difficulty! Before accepting a place at CH for our older son we thought long and hard about whether we could afford to do so, particularly bearing in mind that we have a second very able child - we would not have considered offering an opportunity to one which could not be afforded for the other. We calculated that by using all of our modest savings it could just be managed (although this has always left us anxious about university costs, for which there will be nothing left in the pot!), but we were not prepared for the fact that the fees would rise out of all proportion to our income, and that the definition of what constituted income would be subject to change. As a result of this, all our careful calculations have been blown out of the water and we simply can't manage to make our income stretch to pay the fees now being demanded.

Maybe we have been naive. I was certainly rather taken aback by the suggestion on another forum thread that in the current financial crisis publicity about CH's charitable mission is "PR spin", and that they are in fact needing to change the pupil profile and compete with other top public schools for full fee-paying parents. Perhaps this refers only to the new sixth form 'awards', but I am concerned that if the underlying ethos of the school is changing this message should be made more clear, particularly to prospective parents who may otherwise find themselves in the same unhappy situation as my own 'average family' a few years down the line!

[matthew]

Maybe some of the OBs can comment on this? Certainly it is only within the last year or so that my children seem to have been aware that some of their peers are having to leave school for financial reasons.

Almost 20 years ago (was it really that long?), my parents found the contributions difficult. Anyone here who knows me may remember that I spent a term at a well-known public school. With the scholarship available to me, it was actually cheaper for my parents to send me there than to CH. I didn't settle, and was back at CH after that term.

I've no idea how usual or exceptional this situation was. Certainly, it wasn't something you heard about very often -- but then I don't remember discussing the reasons with anyone at the time. And, many parents probably didn't share the details with their kids, either.

I believe the Foundation changed the way it treated mortgage payments shortly after I started at CH, and that hit my parents hard. Whether they made a 'mistake' as in the OP's case, or actually changed their policy, I'm not sure.

[ailurophile]

Almost 20 years ago (was it really that long?), my parents found the contributions difficult. Anyone here who knows me may remember that I spent a term at a well-known public school. With the scholarship available to me, it was actually cheaper for my parents to send me there than to CH. I didn't settle, and was back at CH after that term.

I've no idea how usual or exceptional this situation was. Certainly, it wasn't something you heard about very often -- but then I don't remember discussing the reasons with anyone at the time. And, many parents probably didn't share the details with their kids, either.

I believe the Foundation changed the way it treated mortgage payments shortly after I started at CH, and that hit my parents hard. Whether they made a 'mistake' as in the OP's case, or actually changed their policy, I'm not sure.

Thanks for this Matthew. Looking around, I think it very likely that we could get more financial support from other independent schools than we now do from CH; but we didn't know this when we accepted offers from the school, and we really don't believe that it would be in our childrens' best interests to move school at this stage (particularly for the eldest who is half way through his GCSE studies). It sounds as though this was fairly traumatic for you.

I really think that the Foundation need to take more responsibility for considering the impact of any fee increases - whether due to policy changes or to 'mistakes' - on families with children already in the school. Surely even one child forced to leave CH because of such changes is one too many.

[AKAP]

Surely even one child forced to leave CH because of such changes is one too many.

Yes.

[HowardH]

The school's policy on spaces remains the same. We will attempt to fill these places at the next convenient moment in the school year. We try to avoid topping up at Easter, so our main energies are directed towards September and January for Alternative Points of Entry.

For information and accuracy the Admissions Officer and I spent over 4 hours on this very subject on Monday going through 50+ applications. The implication behind some of the earlier comments on this subject on this thread have caused me some disquiet.

[NEILL THE NOTORIOUS]

Here is one Old Blue who would like to comment ---
I only chanced upon this Topic and I am absolutely DISGUSTED !
What the Blue Blazes has happened to the Christ's Hospital which we knew and loved ?
I was upset when "Full Fees" were announced--- which seem to contradict the essence of a "Charitable School"
There used to be a "Glass Ceiling" of Parents Income, which, if the figure was exceeded, prevented a place being offered.
This prevented CH from becoming a cheap option for those who could afford other (Not Better !) schools, and looked on CH as a useful Tax Haven.
The principle used to be -- if a child was bright enough, and passed the competitive examination, they were offered a place ! Competitive, because there were NEVER enough places, and I am talking of the 30s and 40s.
We cannot.now, ask how many Pupils' Parents pay NO FEES, but I do hope there are still some, if not WHY NOT ?

Sorry to rattle on, but this does seem to be fundamental to the Ethos of Christ's Hospital

[midget]

I'm with you on this, Neill. Surely Eddy 6 is turning in his grave.