W: www.ie-today.co.uk


£ = How often have I searched a


website and not been able to find the head’s name? Or the school phone number? Or a message from the head – and when I do, how often is it very, very long and considered to the point of boring, and not actually welcoming? And the news? How recent? I have even gone to websites where I know there has been a change of head, but it’s not on the website. Ah. Photographs of staff? Even the head? Not always. More particularly these days, film clips? Something of the life and vitality of a school? A peephole into what it’s really like? A daily shot of today’s lunch? How many children with phones that could take film every day – great lesson, great match, great production??? The question marks are me thinking, come on! So much more is possible


– and it’s your front window, your chance to say, “Come on in, it’s really great here – look!” Or listen. Start with a phone


call. I’m the head who once walked into her school’s hectic morning break reception area, much milling at the desk, and heard the receptionist lift a shrill phone and bark “What!” Might that have been a prospective parent, considering sending a child to board at £X per year for, perhaps five years? Yes, it might. At least it was a human voice.


It is less common in independent schools, but even they now sometimes confront the casual caller – maybe with triplets aged 12, with a combined IQ of 500 and already Grade 8 in six instruments – with a recording which drones, “Thank you for calling Bloggs’ Academy. If you


wish to report an absence…” You know the rest. Listening to it will steal three minutes of your life, and to prevent such loss you may decide to call a different school at once. Why start with absence? Are those calls so frequent they get priority? If so, what’s wrong with your school? Why don’t pupils just love to be there, come hell or high water?? I have even heard “Press six for lockers and pastoral care.” What? What?? Never mind the bizarre combination, what lunacy made you tell the world that the most important thing you do – look after the welfare of children – is way down there with the lockers? What madness is this? So – an independent education,


possibly with boarding, is it worth it? Yes. But don’t take it for granted: to make it so, you may have to work very hard indeed. iE


Hilary Moriarty is national director of the Boarding Schools’ Association W: www.boarding.org.uk


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