When I reached the school, my older son was waiting for me outside his
boarding house. He rushed towards our 1988 Fiat Uno and, like a demented
airport ground controller, flapped his arms wildly to the right. I turned as
instructed, then he ran ahead, shooing me towards the catering block. He
made a throat-slitting gesture and I turned the whirring engine off. There
was a sign by the space he had parked me in: REFUSE VEHICLES ONLY.
We collected his brother, and an hour later we were home. “Welcome back to
this dump,” said my younger son.
Only three months earlier, my sons (then 13 and 14) had been at a London
comprehensive. Now they were at a well-known boarding school - bursary boys
in a privileged world - and some of the aspirations of their privileged
peers were beginning to rub off on them. “Daddy,” said the younger one that
evening, “can we go to Heston Blumenthal's restaurant? I'd love to try
nitrogen-frozen egg ice-cream.”
Over Christmas dinner, some weeks later, the talk was of winter holidays. “How
much does heli-skiing cost?” said my older boy. “I was speaking to a friend
today on Messenger and he's heli-skiing in Russia.”
As the year progressed, some of their aspirations became insane (“I know
you're not rich, Daddy, but couldn't we sell our house and buy a yacht?”)
and they began to wrestle with their new social identity. “What I find
weird,” said my older son, “is that at my state school I was called posh,
and at this school people think I'm a chav. Some even think I'm in a gang at
home.”
They've now been at public school for more than a year but I am still making
mistakes. For parents' day last year, I dressed as if for a wedding, only to
find that many dads were casually dressed in jeans. Then, in the summer
term, I went to a chapel service wearing jeans - only to find other dads
dressed for a wedding.
It's been a steep learning curve for everyone. And there are soon to be more
families in our position. This month, the Charity Commission launched its
first wave of “public benefit” tests. Twelve charities and five independent
schools - among them Manchester Grammar School, Highfield Priory School in
Lancashire and Pangbourne College in Berkshire - became the first fee-paying
institutions to undergo a test to prove that they provide enough community
support to justify charging “fees”. The Charity Commission will, among other
measures, encourage private schools to provide more means-tested bursaries
(“social engineering”, say the critics).
The Commission may think that providing more bursaries will make private
education more equitable, but as is so often the case in politics, this is
about more than just money. These pupils will also need social and academic
bridging to help them to cross the divide between the state and the private
sector.
Will Evans, 60, is a former welder. His 16-year-old daughter attends a top
London girls' day school. “We are very lucky,” he says. “She's on a bursary
and the school is right for her. She's academic, she's pushed and she's
thriving. But there are pressures. She mixes with daughters from some of
Britain's wealthiest families, she goes to country houses, and I can't
reciprocate at all. She understands but sometimes she says, ‘Why can't you
afford that? Why can't you afford this? Do you really have to wear those
shoes?'”
And it has become harder in recent years. Mary English, 38, a doctor, went to
Ipswich High School on Margaret Thatcher's assisted places scheme (abolished
by Tony Blair in 1997). “When I was at school consumerism wasn't as crazy as
it is now. I was aware that most kids were better off than me but when I was
11 my only aspiration was to have some Green Flash plimsolls for PE and not
the Woolies specials my mum bought.”
In the past, private schools were full of children from normal middle-class
families. “Now, especially in London, they are full of children of the very
rich. And because most of us walked to school, there weren't the differences
in the school-run thing. No Porsches outside the gates. I wasn't interested
in shopping or clothes, so I just got my head down and worked. Through the
opportunities my assisted place gave me, I went to Cambridge. But I don't
know how I would cope today.”
I phoned the Independent Schools Council and asked if it issued guidance to
parents of children going into private education on a bursary. “No,” said a
spokesman. “No one's ever asked. Maybe we should raise it at our next
meeting.”
Maybe indeed, because, as the number of pupils on bursaries increases, private
schools (which must fund these means-tested bursaries) could find even more
challenges ahead. Susan Lee-Kelland, an educational psychologist, says that
head teachers will be unable to have intimate knowledge of all the children
on bursaries if there are large numbers of them. “Bursary children will have
to fit in, and if there are too many they could form a clique - and heads
certainly don't want a sub-group in school. Parents and schools are
sometimes unaware of the different expectations that children have to adjust
to in a new school - how they work, think, and even speak.”
In private schools the differences can be extreme, so if a child comes from
the state sector the seismic shift of the move should not be underestimated.
“A large part of how a child fits in depends on the child's personality. If
parents are confident, the child will be too,” says Lee-Kelland.
So how should I cope with my boys' new expectations? “You, as the parent, must
have confidence in yourself,” she says. “Volunteer for something at school
so your child can see that the school values you. A sense of humour also
helps. Turn the embarrassment over the car into a joke. But remember also
that children of rich parents can have their own disadvantages. They often
live in big houses - sometimes with staff. That can mean that these children
lack intimacy. A well-rooted child from a family in a small house has
something to offer them, so the child shouldn't be afraid of inviting a rich
child home.”
If it all sounds daunting for the family in a small house - it most definitely
is. Apart from the child's unreal aspirations and a schizophrenic home and
school life, there is the parents' financial challenge. Although I receive
generous bursaries, I still have fees to pay. School bills pour in. And it's
not just fees but extras - books, excursions, kit. When my younger son
needed a cricket bat he bought some cricket whites from the school shop too
- and cost me £300. And when I tried to get the shop to take them back, I
was unsuccessful because he had used his whites - which by now had turned
green. (Having said that, when it comes to uniform, their boarding school
sells second-hand stuff - something their state school did not do.)
There is also the pressure of justifying your subsidised place. My older son
got into the school on a music scholarship. At home he was a genuinely
wonderful musician, practising the piano for up to three hours a day and
filling the air with such beautiful music that I would open windows so that
the whole street could hear it. But at boarding school he found new
interests and hit a phase of not practising enough. “Listen,” I said,
anxiously, “if you don't practise, you're out.” Meanwhile, my younger son is
still learning the self-discipline required to work at boarding school
without his father nagging him.
But going to a private school on a bur- sary is an enormous privilege. I
sometimes feel as if we've won the lottery. Apart from the space and superb
facilities (“I still can't believe I can play football on a floodlit pitch
every night,” says my younger boy), the smaller classes and generally
wonderful teachers, my kids have benefited from being in an environment in
which civility, respect, community spirit and a preparedness to help others
are simply expected from pupils.
It might not be all plain sailing, and my sons and I still have some way to
travel before we are truly acclimatised to the private school world - my two
are not quite resigned to the fact that I will never collect them in a
Maserati - but at least they are less embarrassed about my old car.
Some names have been changed. The author can be contacted on
jimbishop321@aol.com
Bursaries: the facts
Independent school fees in England range from £1,000 to £9,000 a term, which
puts them well beyond the reach of most families. A recent survey by Halifax
Financial Services suggested that only those in 18 occupations, including
doctors, lawyers and accountants, can now reasonably afford the fees if they
are the sole household earner.
But help is at hand in the form of bursaries and scholarships. More than
150,000 pupils at private schools, belonging to the Independent Schools
Council (ISC) receive some form of assistance with fees. This represents
nearly a third of ISC pupils. Most of these pupils - 125,000 (or 24 per cent
of all pupils) - received scholarships or bursaries from their school; the
rest will have had help from charitable trusts or foundations. The value of
this assistance this year is about £350 million.
The increasing number of children receiving help with fees from schools is a
trend that began in the recession of the early 1990s. It has been boosted in
recent years as schools have provided more financial help to compensate for
the loss of government-assisted places and as the schools have come under
pressure from the Charities Commission to demonstrate that they provide a
wider “public benefit” in return for the tax breaks they receive as
charities.
Scholarships are there to attract the academically bright to talented (in the
arts or sport) and vary in amount. The largest scholarships available cover
50 per cent of the full fee, but not all are so generous.
The Good Schools Guide suggests that parents look out for esoteric
scholarships, directed at specific groups, such as the sons and daughters of
clergy, medics or single mothers.
Bursaries are usually for helping out families on modest incomes. They are
means-tested and are designed to ensure that every child with the right
potential can attend, regardless of their parents' income. A number of
schools are shifting money away from scholarships (which often go to heavily
coached well-off families) to bursaries, aimed at the poor.
Details of which schools offer bursaries and scholarships can be found in The
Good Schools Guide, published by Lucas Publications, £35, and in the
Independent Schools Yearbook, published by A&C Black, £35.
Alexandra Frean, Education Editor
