Do you think the current fee system will collapse?

[Amber]

But it isn't cheeky is it? Businesses headhunt good people in this fashion - or were you concerned because you felt you would not have been a good appointment?

That's a bit nasty.

I was concerned as the incumbent had neither resigned nor expressed a desire to do so. I would have hated the job but I don't think it would have been beyond me, since you ask.

[scary mum]

Couldn't agree more, Rob, hence my original question.

[mystery]

But it isn't cheeky is it? Businesses headhunt good people in this fashion - or were you concerned because you felt you would not have been a good appointment?

That's a bit nasty.

I was concerned as the incumbent had neither resigned nor expressed a desire to do so. I would have hated the job but I don't think it would have been beyond me, since you ask.

It was a joke amber! I would think you were asked because they knew you would have been very good at it. Yes, very awkward if the current incumbent had not left ..... Happens in the state sector too though behind the scenes.

[Amber]

It was a joke amber! I would think you were asked because they knew you would have been very good at it. Yes, very awkward if the current incumbent had not left ..... Happens in the state sector too though behind the scenes.

Ok sorry. Bit sleep-deprived ATM, sense of humour tends to drop off a bit.

He probably asked because he thought I was cheap.

[Yamin151]

It was a joke amber! I would think you were asked because they knew you would have been very good at it. Yes, very awkward if the current incumbent had not left ..... Happens in the state sector too though behind the scenes.

Ok sorry. Bit sleep-deprived ATM, sense of humour tends to drop off a bit.

He probably asked because he thought I was cheap.

Yes, I'd heard that Amber........

Never!!!

Why you sleep deprived? Self inflicted (you fit in a real social life??) or are you a victim?

[moved]

The large independent schools do not suffer from the financial ups and downs - Eton doesn't need to charge fees to make money due to land, property and endowments. The smaller independents are, however, suffering in this climate; I know of two that closed last year and another that is struggling, one in Essex and one in the West Country. Neither is in what I would call a poor area. The increase in the school contribution for teacher pensions is also a major cost for both sectors - it is now 25-27% (can't remember the exact details from the last governors finance meeting).

In answer to the OP some smaller ones will/are/have closed. The larger ones will continue to provide an education to those who can afford it.

I think our national education system would be better if we closed down the independent schools, but as they are there I have used them for both my children's education when necessary and also my own employment when convenient.

IMHO there is less training and less monitoring in independent schools. The cost of training is expensive and when working in the private sector I used far more online research to keep myself up to date than when working in the state where I have been on courses provided by the government at little or no cost to the schools. INSET is also better in the state in my experience (but that is entirely anecdotal). I have worked in both sectors over too many years.

[Moderators]

This topic has been moderated - we have been asked to step in and prevent a personal disagreement from ruining an interesting thread.

No further comments on this matter, please.

[Catseye]

I read this article on The Sunday Times today, which seems to indicate the worry that the independent schools now rely on wealthy parents overseas. According to Andrew Halls, the head of King’s College School in Wimbledon, this system is not sustainable.

Below are some extracts:

http://www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/sto/new ... 487310.ece" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

" FEE-PAYING schools have become so expensive that lawyers, doctors and teachers can no longer afford to educate their children privately, with some becoming little more than “finishing schools for the children of oligarchs”, according to a headmaster at one of the country’s top independent schools.

Andrew Halls, the head of King’s College School in Wimbledon, southwest London, where fees for a day pupil cost £20,000 a year, said some private schools had become so reliant on pupils from overseas that they were at risk of a banking-style crash. The wealth of such families had pushed fees to stratospheric levels.

“We have allowed the apparently endless queue of wealthy families from across the world knocking at our doors to blind us to a simple truth: we charge too much,” said Halls, whose school is today named as The Sunday Times independent school of the year.

“The most prestigious schools in the world teach the children of the very wealthiest families in the world. A typical boarding school now requires a parent to have a spare £30,000 in taxed income to pay for just one child — every year.

“We are in danger of coming across as greedy, because we can charge what appears to be limitless fees but in truth there is a fees timebomb ticking away. It feels like the build-up to the banking crisis. For the first time in my career, I feel that the shifts over the next 10 years could prove seismic.”

Fees in private schools have risen nearly twice as fast as inflation in the past 10 years and quadrupled in the past 20, said Halls, who warned the increases were unsustainable and that soon the system would collapse as the supply of overseas families dried up or turned to schools being built in their own countries.

In addition, state schools are improving so rapidly because more Oxbridge graduates are becoming teachers, warned Halls, that British families who might have scrimped and saved to send their child to a private school were opting for academies or grammar schools instead.

“In the past few years about 50 private schools have already closed, merged, or turned into state schools. That number will only rise,” he warned.

“If independent schools don’t read the writing on the wall, they will surely perish, one by one. Of course, I realise that my own school must look to itself as well.""

Do you think the current fee system will be unsustainable and may collapse soon? By 'collapse', I mean the UK independent schools will have to reduce their fees so that more people in the UK can afford them?

The simple answer is no the international appetite for Tradition Public Schools is huge , less prestigious schools like my son' school The Grange School Cheshire will continue to provide good value added education for us mere middle class mortals and also provide good value for money .

but sooner or latter there will be backless against such elitism the middle classes are the most powerful group in this country and the Government will step in and slap down such institutions -no Government dare go against the middle classes- don't you know we are all middle class now

[Amber]

I have linked a census report detailing exactly who is in Independent Schools and who isn't. It is produced by the Independent Schools Council (so not independent!) and contains some interesting figures but needs to be read carefully as it is littered with an excess of sometimes rather dodgy graphs as well as some overtly biased comments, e.g

These figures are further testimony to the diversity of ISC schools.

and

This highlights the attraction of an education at an ISC school to a global market and reflects the PISA findings from the OECD which rank UK independent schools as among the best in the world.

But if you unpick the facts from the glossy hype and the pretty but often misleading graphical representations, it has a lot of information that parents might find interesting about ethnicity, foreign students, teacher recruitment (but interestingly not teacher qualifications) and SEN.

http://tinyurl.com/indiefigs" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[hermanmunster]

fascinating document!