Private schools should do more

By Anthony Seldon

Labour’s announcement a week ago that it may strip private schools of their charitable status when the party is returned to power quickened the heart rate of many across British education. Steven Twigg, the shadow education secretary, described private schools as “a major barrier to achieving a more just society and greater social mobility”. The next Labour government, which becomes ever closer with each passing week, will legislate to remove charitable status from private schools that do not justify this concession.

Should this happen, private schools will have only themselves to blame. They have been advised for years to play a more engaged and responsible part in society and to work alongside state schools. But many have turned a deaf ear.

The moral case for private schools becoming more involved in charitable activity with the state sector should be motivated by far more than the threat of legislation. Private schools, many of which are Christian bodies, were founded with charitable and high-minded ideals. Yet over the years, they have increasingly become the preserve of the better off in society and have been formidably successful at securing a wholly disproportionate number of places at top universities and top jobs. Despite unprecedented levels of spending by Labour after 1997, the gulf in performance between private and state schools appears to have grown. Britain is becoming a more unequal society and the success of private schools is blamed for it.

We must remember, however, that private schools are already significantly involved in charitable deeds. They do so principally through the awarding of bursaries, with Rugby and Eton best in class, or through “partnerships”, with more than 1,000 independent schools, themselves paying for activities to benefit local state schools. Private school parents, many of whom are not in fact well-off, are also paying through their taxes for state schools, often attended by children from families better off than their own. Many private schools are operating close to the margin and have little spare capacity, above all during the current recession, which is forcing several each year into administration.

The best way for private schools to behave responsibly, however, is to sponsor academies, which are independent state schools. This path has been open to them for several years and has already been pursued with success by several, including Dulwich College, Canford School in Dorset and the Girls’ Day School Trust. The prime minister weighed in himself last autumn, inviting school heads and governors to a meeting in which he asked them to sponsor academies or to start free schools. The result has been disappointing. None of the eight independent schools associations and few individual schools have shown any enthusiasm in response.

Starting academies, I believe, is a better response than bursaries, invaluable though they are, because bursaries will always pluck the brightest and best out of the state sector and not build bridges. Partnerships are excellent, as far as they go, but too few involve meaningful exchanges between pupils and teachers in both sectors. Both routes, however, are infinitely preferable to doing nothing.

All private schools should go further and sponsor academies, making it a major policy priority to do so. Senior schools should sponsor secondaries and prep schools should sponsor primaries. The academies, moreover, should carry their name, as this will ensure that an organic bond is formed in perpetuity. Otherwise there is always a risk that the academy relationship will cease when the current head or governing body changes and adopts different priorities.

The benefits to the private schools will be considerable. It will morally reground them in the 21st century and make their legitimacy unassailable. It will offer unrivalled opportunities for pupils and teachers to befriend others across the social and educational divide, to the enormous benefit of both. It will flood the private schools with a wealth of ideas from the state sector and rejuvenate the entire body. It will not jeopardise the independence of private schools, which is what they fear: rather, it will underwrite it. For the state school, becoming part of a wider group and sharing in the history and success of the private school will be equally transformative. Their exam results will improve.

Government needs to step in to provide the money for this to happen. The Independent Schools Council, which oversees the private sector, needs to step up to the plate and provide the expertise and leadership to facilitate academy sponsorship.

Many of you reading this paper – quite possibly a majority – will have attended, or send your children to private schools, or you will govern them. Very well. Contact your school and ask what plans it has to sponsor an academy or start a free school.

I have been pushing private schools in this direction myself for 10 years. My stance has provoked hostility and worse from my sector. I say to them: stop being angry and start planning to sponsor an academy. It will be easier than you think; your parents and teachers will applaud you if you lead them properly; and the benefits to your school and its children, as well as to the country, will be profound. If you are the head that makes this happen you will find, as have I, that it proves to be the most rewarding move of your entire career.

The writer is Master of Wellington College, which set up Wellington Academy in 2008

Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2012.