Are we alone?

[fra828]

It all seems to be about business now. Can't speak for Horsham, but Hertford in the 60s and 70s may have been outdated, but I am sure that the school had the pupils at its heart first and foremost. With respect to HowardH, it was not all about money as it seems to be now. I strongly believe that NO pupil should have to leave because of financial difficulties, and there should be no exceptions to this.

[KenHo]

The trouble with "financial difficulties" is that this means different things to different people. It isn't that many years ago that a fridge was considered a luxury. Now we have people who might worry that they are so poor they can't afford to buy their children a new playstation for Christmas. In my own family we have no TV and go camping for the odd holiday, However, there are people, you would argue that holidays of any kind are a luxury, so it is all relative.

So the people who have to decide how much we need to live on have a fairly hard task as they need to make these sorts of judgements. However .....

I think there are two issues.

1. When people have a problem then they seem unhappy with the communication. If this is the case, then it needs looking at.

2. The way that calculations are done needs some tweaking to bring it uptodate. For example, it would be stupid for someone who is offered a subsidised pension not to take it (even assuming it is optional) and some allowance should be made for this. Another example might be someone who is offered a much better job 50 miles away but can't take it because all the extra expense (perhaps even a car and all the fuel) won't be allowed, but all the income will. Someone on the dole being offered a wonderful job 50 miles away with a compulsory pension might actually be better off on the dole!

[Mid A 15]

It all seems to be about business now. Can't speak for Horsham, but Hertford in the 60s and 70s may have been outdated, but I am sure that the school had the pupils at its heart first and foremost. With respect to HowardH, it was not all about money as it seems to be now. I strongly believe that NO pupil should have to leave because of financial difficulties, and there should be no exceptions to this.

Howard H is an Old Blue himself and arguably has more understanding than any of us having been on "both sides of the fence."

I suspect that it is difficult for him to say too much on a public forum.

[midget]

Would writing to the HM be of any use?

[huggermugger]

Does the HM have much influence on these matters? Am I right in thinking that all financial matters are dealt with by the Foundation and academic matters by the School? (forgive me, I know there have been some changes recently & I'm not sure if that is still the case).

[fra828]

[/quote]

Howard H is an Old Blue himself and arguably has more understanding than any of us having been on "both sides of the fence."

I suspect that it is difficult for him to say too much on a public forum.[/quote]

Didnt realise that, sorry HowardH! I was really just trying to make the point that no pupil should have to leave because of financial reasons and, as KenHo pointed out, communication is all important to get things sorted out if there are problems.

[J.R.]

I was pleased to see HowardH's previous reply on this matter.

I appreciate the School's need to balance the books, but as all older OB's will, (and have), already said, the whole School's ethos is CHARITABLE !! (or, at least it used to be.)

Given this fact, should I advise my daughter to TRY and contact the school again regarding my Grand-Son ?? After all - SHE has gone to all the trouble of arranging first-year reports on Eddie's progress at his secondary school, as asked for by CH.

Will CH take the trouble to contact HER ??

To be totally open and honest, (as most of you know I am), it doesn't do much for the School's image if they can't even be bothered to return a phone call - (two, actually !)

[J.R.]

In light of various comments on this thread, I have just popped round to see my daughter and I've advised her to attempt to re-contact the School Office, AND keep me advised of any progress.

'Watch this Space ???'

[TrueBlue]

Extremely interesting topic, and one I find pertinent to my own profession, though not directly applicable. I am a bursar at a 500 pupil day school, which has no legacies or foundation behind it, but which diverts about 7% of its income to Bursaries. In other words we charge about 9% more than parents actually need to pay, in order to provide up to about the equvalent of 35 full free places. We award bursaries of between 16%-110%. My own experience at CH was that, as the last of the 9 year old entry, my parents had b****r all before finding the 10-20% of the actual cost of the education, and substantially less afterwards, for 10 years whilst they put me and my sister through the school - and never begrudged us or the school a penny of it.

Outwith CH there has been a strong and timely shift away from financial scholarship awards to means tested bursaries, and my own experience as a child has positively affected my approach to this so that our Governors abolished financial scholarships, sibling discounts and staff discounts 3 years ago and put all the money in bursary awards. Even Winchester College I note has committed to having all bursaries means tested by 2012. In the field of Independent Education, CH is held up as the finest example of educational charity anywhere in the world, and as a model to which we all aspire (after a few centuries of good financial management and benificent old pupils).

The answers to many of the questions posed on this topic can be found in the accounts of the Foundation (I am NOT an accountant) and perhaps one of the most telling is from the last accounts:

Including the value of the facilities provided to the School by Christ's Hospital Foundation, the annual cost of
providing a boarding education was approximately £23,500 per child. However, from the total of 833 pupils, 112
paid no contribution to the costs of their education, 22 paid the highest level of annual contribution of £19,752
and the average annual amount paid by parents was £3,429.

Before we get too tied down in criticism, and I really do feel for the parents speaking on this forum, let us acknowledge that CH is STILL achieving fantastic things. Their costs per pupil (2007/8) of £23.5K are £5K less than other large Public Boarding Schools, and with AVERAGE fees of £3,429 they are providing fantastic opportunities for large numbers of pupils and families - and those families SHOULD BE (in accordance with the stated aims) principally in social, financial or other specific need.

I look forward to more discussion and will try to assist where the technicalities or general reasoning behind bursaries seem obtuse.

[HowardH]

Dear TrueBlue

I couldn't have (or should I say "wouldn't have") put it any better myself.

Noel, thank you.

[J.R.]

As far as I'm concerned regarding Eddie, he is NOT being allowed to use his full intelligence at his secondary school, consequently he gets bored being able to complete work and not being encouraged or allowed to progress more quickly.

It seems to me that State schools are not allowed to, or do not wish to push their brighter pupils forward thereby denting their confidence.

I am in NO WAY knocking the achievements or benefits of CH. It's just the present financial criteria that worry me somewhat, along with a lack of communication within the office and prospective parents.

[ailurophile]

KenHo wrote

The trouble with "financial difficulties" is that this means different things to different people. It isn't that many years ago that a fridge was considered a luxury. Now we have people who might worry that they are so poor they can't afford to buy their children a new playstation for Christmas. In my own family we have no TV and go camping for the odd holiday, However, there are people, you would argue that holidays of any kind are a luxury, so it is all relative.

So the people who have to decide how much we need to live on have a fairly hard task as they need to make these sorts of judgements. However .....

I think there are two issues.

1. When people have a problem then they seem unhappy with the communication. If this is the case, then it needs looking at.

2. The way that calculations are done needs some tweaking to bring it uptodate. For example, it would be stupid for someone who is offered a subsidised pension not to take it (even assuming it is optional) and some allowance should be made for this. Another example might be someone who is offered a much better job 50 miles away but can't take it because all the extra expense (perhaps even a car and all the fuel) won't be allowed, but all the income will. Someone on the dole being offered a wonderful job 50 miles away with a compulsory pension might actually be better off on the dole!

It need not be an impossible task for the Foundation to calculate how much we need to live on; the work has already been done! I have pointed out in a post elsewhere on this thread that The Joseph Rowntree Foundation have published a 2008 report 'A Minimum Income Standard for Britain' illustrating in detail exactly how much families require to live on in modern Britain. (A great deal of thought has been given to what constitutes 'essentials', and interestingly a one-week self catering holiday in the UK is included, although the cost of running a car - which for many working families is an essential - is not). The report's intention is to highlight inadequacies of benefit levels, but the findings could equally be applied to means testing of income for bursaries. Once our CH assessed fees have been deducted, our own disposable family income falls well below the minimum level of income identified as adequate in the Rowntree report - and I can certainly vouch for them having got this right!

I am certain that, as TrueBlue says, CH serves as a model to other independent schools, and he makes an interesting point about the move from scholarships to means-tested bursaries (although I suspect that in some cases this may be driven as much by the desire of schools to qualify for charitable status for tax purposes as by pure philanthropy). I would be interested to know the range of income levels to which bursaries apply at TrueBlue's school, as it has been suggested by other posters that CH is less generous than other schools in this respect.

However laudable and venerable the charitable ethos of CH is, the Foundation should not simply rest on its laurels. It is clear that there are families for whom the current level of assessed fees is proving unaffordable, and someone needs to be looking into this very seriously, and soon. It is not good enough just to allow increasing numbers of pupils to leave the school.

[Fjgrogan]

I was very interested to hear of the Joseph Rowntree report - I wish it had existed a few years ago. When I turned 60 I had been living apart from my husband and on income support with a disability supplement and assumed that even though my pension was going to be low because of gaps in my contribution it would be increased to the minimum deemed possible to live on, by pension credit. This was not to be! Even though my sole income was a pension of about £39 a week and the acknowledged required minimum was about £107 a week, I was told that I did not qualify because I was joint owner of the house in which my husband was living, which was deemed to be the equivalent of a weekly income putting me above the limit. My husband refused to sell, and in any case needed to stay within reach of his work and could not afford to buy or rent locally on half the proceeds of the sale. I obviously could not buy or rent on my pension, so was eventually forced to move back to the marital home. I was then still not eligible for pension credit because we were actually still legally married and assumed therefore to be co-habiting, and that he was responsible for supporting me. So I tend to feel 'put-out' when I read of whole families who live entirely on benefits to which they have never contributed. There seems little point in reports such as Rowntree, or the government's own ruling on how much we need to live on, if they then find ways to flout their own rules.

[Fjgrogan]

PS - Nobody has ever been able to explain to me how I can buy food with roof slates!

[ailurophile]

Fjgrogan wrote

I was very interested to hear of the Joseph Rowntree report - I wish it had existed a few years ago. When I turned 60 I had been living apart from my husband and on income support with a disability supplement and assumed that even though my pension was going to be low because of gaps in my contribution it would be increased to the minimum deemed possible to live on, by pension credit. This was not to be! Even though my sole income was a pension of about £39 a week and the acknowledged required minimum was about £107 a week, I was told that I did not qualify because I was joint owner of the house in which my husband was living, which was deemed to be the equivalent of a weekly income putting me above the limit. My husband refused to sell, and in any case needed to stay within reach of his work and could not afford to buy or rent locally on half the proceeds of the sale. I obviously could not buy or rent on my pension, so was eventually forced to move back to the marital home. I was then still not eligible for pension credit because we were actually still legally married and assumed therefore to be co-habiting, and that he was responsible for supporting me. So I tend to feel 'put-out' when I read of whole families who live entirely on benefits to which they have never contributed. There seems little point in reports such as Rowntree, or the government's own ruling on how much we need to live on, if they then find ways to flout their own rules.

A very distressing story; but surely an illustration, if one were needed, of why the CH Foundation should not be making it impossible for working parents to keep up their occupational pension contributions. My own widowed mother is living (or rather subsisting) on pension credit; she can't help us out with our children's school fees but she can give us the benefit of her experience, and exhorts us to keep up our pension contributions at all costs!!