Lately, I’ve been recalling conversations I had during my first post with a man named Nick Mort. Though I was really disappointed to lose the guidance of one of my first mentors in the profession, and this only a few months into me taking on the role, I could completely understand his decision.
To provide some context, he was a very popular Head of History at the time, and was undergoing a lengthy commute each day. He also had a young family to contend with, and so, he decided that the time was right to leave the school.
His vote of confidence in me, letting me know that he felt that the department was in a secure enough place for him to move on, was highly valued, and I can see that he has gone on to bigger, more influential roles in his career.
He made it clear to me that, no matter how much it seemed like the students appreciated you as a teacher, and no matter how important it felt like you were to a school, you are replaceable. It is, he said, at the end of the day, just a job.
Teaching is one profession where the lines become rather blurred between job and lifestyle. The role can seem ‘24/7’, and one can take on roles beyond classroom practitioner in order to perform well in post, from counsellor and advisor to policeman and investigator. Nonetheless, Nick was right – it is just a job. An all consuming one at times, and an incredibly fulfilling one at that, but a job in spite of those important considerations.
It has been difficult lately to focus my attention away from the new challenges in the sector – namely the imposition of VAT on independent schools. I have accepted the changes and am of the opinion that it is time to move on from them, which has been reflected in the last few blogs I’ve written. The day to day management of the College has not been any less dull.
However, it has also been incredibly interesting to look carefully at the impact of the directive.
Anecdotally at the weekend, I heard of a huge number of Year 11 students, currently enrolled at prestigious private schools in my local area attending oversubscribed open evenings at grammar schools and high performing secondaries for sixth form with parents feeling that the support for students at A Levels is less pronounced than at lower ages, and making decisions that it is not worth the additional financial outlay.
I’ve seen schools around us, who I’d never thought would need to advertise their offering as we do, given their long-standing reputations, on advertising hoardings and billboards, clearly needing to shout a little louder in order to be heard by parents they are looking to, who may have never considered them before.
I also saw an advert on Facebook at the weekend from a school of our type offering multiple scholarships and bursaries to Year 10, 11 and GCSE Intensive students for immediate starts. Another substantial attempt to entice new parents to the sector – a ‘special offer’ so to speak..
From my experience, the parents who are committed to having their children experience the benefits of an independent school education have remained, largely, loyal to it.
On the other hand, those who were unsure about the big step of moving to the private sector are the ones who are now of the opinion that the move is off the table, or that they would need to be convinced that it is a necessity for a secure future for their child.
I read an interesting set of survey results at the weekend, which asked what the public thought about private schools.
In amongst some predictable points around expectations that the standard of teaching and extra-curricular provision being of a higher standard, I saw one question, and the responses which accompanied it, which truly made me sit up and take notice:
I expected entirely the first four results.
They are a stereotypical view of schools within the sector – and they struggle to appreciate the nuances of the range of different types of independent school.
What troubled me is the low percentages of respondents for the next four (if I’m being honest, I don’t really put much weight on the importance of a school being ‘trendy’).
As far as I’m concerned, the future of independent schools depends entirely on their ability to stand out from the crowd – to be truly unique.
To have only 15% of respondents to the survey seeing independent schools as aspirational is quite concerning. They have the means to truly strive for something better, educationally, for their students – whether that is in the improvement of results, or in self-confidence for students. Generally speaking, classes are smaller, and a higher percentage of parents are ‘on board’ with what a school is trying to do. In my experience, I have not met a Principal or Headteacher of a school who is not aspirational for his or her students, and nor have I met parents during an interview who have not said that they plan on enrolling at Ealing Independent College because they want to get the best from their sons or daughters.
That this is not being recognised by the ‘outside world’ is a touch disconcerting.
The next three words, to my mind, are particularly vital for the future of the sector.
If independent schools are to survive, and indeed thrive, then they must be, in some way, valuable – in fact they need to be invaluable – where the contribution to local communities, or education as a whole, is utterly vital to moving things forward. To be this kind of school, it must be truly exceptional, and the expertise which it shows in a particular area must truly stand out – whether that be in Special Educational Needs, in Careers Guidance, in Sports or other performance opportunities, in successfully raising attendance by integrating students who have become school refusers.
It is vital that they perform a leading role in this – in supporting local schools where possible by becoming beacons of good practice, offering training and leadership to neighbouring schools to create a united, common approach in tackling the areas which need to be overcome within education – and those are many, and growing at present – from a teacher recruitment and retention crisis, to the challenges around student self-esteem, to attendance, to AI. They are all clear and present issues which the sector as a whole needs to come together to find solutions to.
By showing the way through such support, perhaps this will change the perception of the purpose of independent schools – from elitist, snobbish and entitled to valuable, collaborative and altruistic.
That would make the sector truly irreplaceable – something which I certainly think, but a view, it seems, not echoed amongst the public.