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By Warwick Mansell

To many, it may seem like a paradox. Private boarding schools are the most expensive form of schooling in the UK. This country has been facing straitened economic times since 2008. And yet the number of pupils enrolled in boarding schools has actually risen over this period. Why?

 

To start with the figures, data from the most extensive regular survey of the sector, the Independent Schools Council’s annual census, show that in 2010-11, boarding schools were the most buoyant part of the fee-paying market.

 

While pupil numbers in UK independent schools as a whole fell slightly – by 0.2 per cent – there was a 1.7 per cent rise in the number of boarders, with the total of boarding girls growing particularly strongly, at three per cent.

 

Nor was this a case of boarding numbers rebounding after a slump brought on by the 2007-8 international economic downturn. In fact, these had remained broadly constant in the years 2008 to 2010, the survey shows. This means that the boarding headcount overall is higher than it was in September 2008, when the collapse of Lehman Brothers bank triggered that multi-national financial tailspin.

 

As Hilary Moriarty, National Director of the Boarding Schools Association, said: “Everyone said boarding could be hit by the economic downturn, but the numbers are holding up very well.”

 

 

For Janette Wallis, senior editor of theGood Schools Guide, which runs a directory of more than 30,000 UK schools, the key may have been good planning as the recession started to bite in 2008.

 

Boarding schools, she said, realised that parental budgets might face a squeeze, so many responded by enlarging their entry numbers for their younger age groups, expecting some pupils to have to leave as they got older and their parents struggled to pay the fees. In fact, she said, many schools have found that children have not left as expected, meaning that numbers have stayed healthy, and even risen in some cases.

 

She said: “What the ISC census numbers seem to indicate is that parents who started with the school did stick with it, but this forward planning [in expecting that some might drop out] was important, because it gave the schools a cushion in the face of the tough economic climate.”

 

Fees at UK boarding schools are not cheap, with the average annual charge, as of last January, now running at £25,152, according to the ISC census, and the most expensive institutions having recently pushed through the £30,000 barrier.

 

However, even at this level, and counter-intuitively perhaps, the economic downturn in the UK may have brought some benefits to boarding schools. That, at least, is the view of David Hanson, chief executive of the Independent Association of Prep Schools. 

He has argued that independent education represents good value compared to other childcare options for busy parents, with both mothers and fathers in many cases having found themselves under pressure in recent years to work to pay the bills. A full-time nanny, for example, in parts of south-east England has been estimated as costing up to £40,000 after tax.

 

Mr Hanson recently told The Telegraph: “Busy professionals are realising the benefits of sending their children to these schools, which offer excellent facilities, healthcare, education and social environments, that can give them complete peace of mind, rather than paying for a nanny of uncertain quality.”

 

Boarding school numbers for seven- to 13-year-olds grew by more than five per cent in 2010-11. Much of the rise has been attributed to the growth of “flexi-boarding”, which allows pupils to stay a few nights a week at school if their parents choose this option, rather than having necessarily to commit to full-time boarding.

 

There also seems consensus among leading voices in independent education that the increasingly international reach of boarding schools is proving an advantage.

 

The numbers from the ISC’s annual census appear to bear this out. These show that, across the independent sector as a whole (including day pupils as well as boarders), the number of pupils whose parents currently live outside the UK rose by 5.5 per cent in 2010-11.

 

Janette Wallis believes that internationally-based families can provide an insurance policy for British boarding schools when economic times are tough at home. For example, the many children from British diplomatic families based abroad who board in the UK seem unlikely to be affected by the recession. In addition, the countries providing the largest numbers of overseas pupils for UK independent schools – currently Hong Kong, China and Germany – all seem to have been less affected by the recession than Britain, with China booming through some of the bad years.

 

Ms Wallis added: “The overseas pupil market is a huge, seemingly bottomless pit of potential pupils for these schools. There’s a ready supply of pupils from China and Russia in particular looking to come to UK boarding schools.

 

“They do offer something that is a good package, and it’s unique, so it’s not just a national market, it’s international, and the schools have got better and better at addressing the international market, whether it’s by having a website that’s translated or by getting out to lots of other countries.”

 

In 2009, a survey of more than 100 British independent schools found more than half increasing their marketing efforts abroad, with some taking part in overseas recruitment fairs organised by the British Council.

 

What has struck William Richardson, who started work in September as the general secretary of the Headmasters’ and Headmistresses’ Conference, has been the strength of demand for places at the most well-established boarding schools, despite the £30,000-plus annual price tags.

 

He said: “These schools, despite those fairly high fees, have waiting lists and are thriving.” This suggests that there may be no shortage of funds, among the wealthiest at least, despite the downturn. Mr Richardson added that UK boarding schools as a whole had a very attractive “product” to sell internationally.

 

He said: “The top schools are offering something which is genuinely desirable, with an international flavour. There are people around the world who think the British do this incredibly well.”

 

Hilary Moriarty believes that UK boarding schools have courted students whose families are based overseas partly for economic reasons but also because an international mix of pupils is increasingly seen as attractive in itself.

 

Mr Richardson said: “Schools are seeking a more diverse range of pupil nationalities because one of the perceptions is that there’s an exciting international world out there.

 

“People who go into schools which are quite international, and then go on to higher education which is also increasingly international, are going to be well-placed: this kind of education is the new gold standard of the international labour market.”

 

Of course, however, the picture is not uniformly sunny. Janette Wallis said a new trend had emerged last summer.

 

She said: “This year, we found an unprecedented situation at some blue chip schools: boarding schools that had places available at the end of August. These are schools that normally would have been full. They were full in July, but a family, for whatever reason, would have dropped out over the summer.

 

“In the past, they would either have filled the place immediately or not have advertised the fact. Now they are being quite open about it. It is the first sign, I think, of a less-than-completely rosy picture.”

 

Ms Wallis said it might not be the case that a family had pulled out of sending their child to a school simply for financial reasons, as some wealthy parents now were prepared to book places at more than one school, knowing they could withdraw from one at the last moment, even if this meant incurring a fine. But in some cases, finance could be the reason, and schools seemed keener, now, to make sure all their places were full.

 

Ms Wallis added that few independent schools have had to close because of the financial crash, and that very few boarding schools have been affected in this way, although there had been a few “that have come close”.

 

Ian McNeilly is an English teacher who has first-hand experience of the effects of the downturn, having worked at Brantwood, a small independent girls’ school in Sheffield, which was forced to close in February 2010.

 

Though a day school, he said it was the victim of trends to which smaller, less well-known boarding schools could also be prey. He said: “It seems like ever tougher times for certain schools in the independent sector.

 

“I think there are misconceptions about the independent sector: that is entirely full of privileged and wealthy parents. My experience was not like that: we had some working class children and some from ordinary middle class families, making huge sacrifices in order to try to get what they feel is a good education for their children.

 

“In times of austerity, then, some parents do drop out. We certainly felt that, and I’m sure other schools have been feeling it, too.”

 

The picture, then, is not uniform. Though the position overall certainly seems more optimistic than it did three years ago, many boarding schools need to remain alive to the challenges of the current economic situation.

 

This article was originally published in The Telegraph Weekly World Edition/Telegraph