Education Recession
Stowe School has been hiring out its grounds since 1978
counties – as long as you’re aged under 7, that is. And when it comes to forward planning,
schools don’t miss a trick, says Hilary Moriarty, national director of the Boarding Schools’ Association. “I would imagine that a lot of our boarding schools will be off ering their facilities for sports teams coming for the Olympics. They will be utilising every inch of space they have so that it works for a living on its own.” At the slightly less glamorous
One Surrey
end of the chalkface, there’s a concerted attempt by schools to break their estimated million- sheet-a-year-each paper addiction habit. An increasing number are turning reply slips into a parental DIY aff air. “With my daughter’s school, they email all the forms and we have to print them out,” says one mother with a child at a London prep school. But she’s not complaining. Like the best cost-cutting measures, this one is a 360-degree success, trimming both budgets and the school’s carbon footprint. Of course, there’s always a balance to strike.
pre-prep is rapidly acquiring a reputation as party capital of the home counties – as long as you’re aged under 7, that is
relatively modest. “Our USP is that we are
a family school…small enough to know everybody but not so small
we can’t off er the full range of subjects at GCSE and A level, and we want to stay like that.” While the move to co-ed schooling tends to
While it can be useful for teachers to get a feel for the bigger picture – presentations to academic staff by the fi nancial management team are common these days – you don’t want them to get so fi xated on the bottom line that you can see the pound signs hovering above their heads when a prospective new pupil hovers into view. And there are the parents’ views to take into
account. Given the emotional investment they make in their children’s education – as well as the fi nancial one – schools need to be good listeners when it comes to taking the parental perspective on board, especially when it comes to making the big decisions about a school’s future direction. Shrewsbury School and OLA (Our Lady’s
Abingdon) have both recently taken the decision to go co-ed. Shrewsbury already off ers a mixed sixth form and will take girls at 13 plus from 2014, while OLA, formerly girls only from age 11, started admitting boys through the school in 2009. While it’s proving a sound economic decision – “I don’t think the fi nances…have looked so robust,” says Robin Case, registrar at Shrewsbury – it’s been a move that has chimed with parents, who want to educate their boys and girls together, but in a way that stays true to the character of both schools. For Lynne Renwick, OLA principal, that means keeping the growth in numbers
nc
be a gradual process, some schools are opting for even bolder, one-off moves that, at a stroke, fundamentally change their educational off er. Until this autumn, the Hammond School,
Chester, one of eight highly regarded music and dance scheme specialists, which attracts government bursary funding, catered only for 11-18 year olds. Now, though, it’s got its very own brand new preparatory department complete with 30 pupils and teachers who came as a unit from an existing independent primary school which had to close at the end of the summer term. So why do it – especially in such challenging
times? Simple, says marketing manager Julia Edwards. Hammond’s wanted to help – and it had the resources to make it possible. “This school had its problems and needed help
from somewhere, so we went for it.” Everyone, she says, is happy. The new pupils – and
their teachers and parents – have the security of staying together. There’s also access to Hammond’s resources, including a 400-seat theatre. “It’s nice that we are able to share that with a new generation. They already feel part of the fabric of the school, part of the family and we hope they’ll come and carry on with us,” says Julia Edwards. With confi dence like this, it’s not surprising that, for now at least, the prevailing mood among independent schools is one of cautious optimism. After all, they’ve seen it all before, says Helen Fraser, chief executive of the Girls’ Day School Trust.
“Since our foundation in 1872
we have survived one great depression, two world wars, the three-day weeks of the 1970s and 3,000,000 unemployed in the 1980s, and in the process we have learned that even in the best of times it pays to plan for the worst.”
38 FirstEleven Michaelmas 2011
www.fi rsteleve
nmagazine.co.uk
St Cedd’s Chelmsford, Essex
Moving one school lock, stock and
barrel to new premises is never going to be easy. Make that two schools, factor in all the parents, pupils and staff and their assorted hopes, fears and traditions and you could be forgiven for wondering where on earth to start.
So you have to hand it to St Cedd’s,
which merged with another much- loved prep school, St Philip’s Priory, for managing their relocation, after 80 years on the same site – with aplomb! It was a bold move but one that
worked on every level. The sale of the old site - home to St Cedd’s - helped provide the funding for the stunning buildings and grounds. There was fresh thinking about everything from making the school as green as possible – recycling and energy effi ciency is now a way of life – to helping the increasing number of families where both parents work by off ering fl exible childcare running from 7.30am to 6.30pm. Even the tiniest details – helping parents park and unload their children at the beginning and end of the school day – wasn’t forgotten. But possibly the biggest benefi ts
was the way the move united the two communities. The key to success? Getting everyone involved. “It’s been a real team eff ort between the staff , pupils, parents and governors,” says principal Dr Pamela Edmonds. “As the children came into school,
they had smiles on their faces. By the end of the week, the parents were saying, ‘they didn’t know why they had been so concerned,’” she says.
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