Where is the iconic orange and black UNICEF box this Hallowe’en?

Today is Hallowe’en and I’m going to use that as an excuse to digress a wee bit from our main topic of schools although I think I can argue that there is at least a nexus with education…

In the almost ten years I have lived in England, I have seen Hallowe’en go from a mild curiosity to the industry it became long ago in North America.  Tesco Extra stores have multiple aisles of costumes, pumpkins and candy to hand out to trick-or-treaters.  The tradition has completed its migration across the Atlantic.  As I prepare to watch my daughter, aged 20 months, decked out as a pumpkin tonight, it occurred to me that something is missing.  One part of the tradition has not been imported. And it’s the part that actually ties in with the usual educational subject matter of this blog. 

My Hallowe’en as a child in North America was associated with some key traditions: choosing a costume (which parents dutifully made in the weeks leading up to Hallowe’en; I have clearly failed in that my daughter is wearing a Tesco-made-in-China get-up), carving the pumpkin, organising a bag for the goodies we hoped to gather door-to-door and last but not least, ensuring we’d assembled the iconic orange and black UNICEF boxes distributed through our schools, brownies and cubs or churches.  I have yet to see the familiar-from-childhood UNICEF box in England. 

I made enquiries locally and no one seemed to have heard of UNICEF boxes.  Collecting for UNICEF was as much associated with Hallowe’en as any of the other traditions in North America.  For many parents, the consumerist ethos of trick-or-treat culture was softened by its charitable aspects.  During World War II, Canadian children collected money for British counterparts who’d lost homes during the Blitz.  With the advent of the United Nations and its children’s fund (now UNICEF) in the 1950’s, UNICEF became the iconic charity associated with Hallowe’en trick-or-treaters.  As children, we collected with pride and came to understand that we were really quite privileged but that we could help children less fortunate than us through UNICEF, which provides children in developing countries with clean water, food, health care, education (the nexus with our usual topic), and a safe environment in which to grow up. For many of us, it was our first introduction to charitable giving.

 So how is it that we in England in the course of less than a decade have taken on board Hallowe’en almost as a job lot…but without the one aspect which infused the tradition with a broader sense of community?  Anyone with further insight is welcome to comment.

On a separate note, it seems that some less savoury fringe aspects of Hallowe’en have developed in England.  On the radio this morning, there were warnings of gang violence on Hallowe’en in South London (and my own genteel neighbourhood being singled out — wonderful for already plummeting house prices).  Tip lines are purportedly provided for teens to grass up peers with knives.  I recall stories of pins and razors in candies in the mid-1970’s putting a bit of a damper on Hallowe’en; many in North America  thought the 1982 cyanide-laced Tylenol scare (with ensuing Hallowe’en candy copycats) would be the end of Hallowe’en.  I haven’t heard of candy tampering in England, and I guess the gang violence is just the 2008 London version of the 1982 alarm of my own childhood.

Have fun tonight, but do be careful. Only take your children to the homes of neighbours you know and inspect all candy before allowing your children to eat it.  Be safe.

The best kept British school secret…

Over the next few days, I’m going to share with you a few affordable school gems if your current school has become unaffordable. Note that I am not defining “affordable”. We each have our own snack brackets. Some of you have kids at the likes of Eton or Benenden which you can’t afford as we continue to be increasingly credit-crunched. You may still be able to afford other public schools (yes, there are more affordable public schools!)  Some of you may have kids at boarding schools further down the foodchain (aka at “minor” public schools, as Mr. Snowdon corrects me.) There are still options for you. And some of you may have kids in public day schools. There are still, unbelievably, options for you, too, to explore. Today, I’m going to start with the more expensive options, and during the course of the next week, I’ll work through the various snack bracket options.

We’re unique in the UK in having a small, relatively unpublicised state boarding school system.  There are under three dozen such schools in the UK, most of which offer 11-18 schooling .  A small handful cater to the primary level — but don’t get me  going on that one; as a North American, when I hear people talk about little Peregrine going to Summer Fields or Sunningdale at age 7, I always think of that famous saying: “The English hate children. They keep their dogs at home and send their kids off to high class kennels called Eton and Harrow”.  Having spent ten years in this country now, however, I have begun to appreciate that boarding school for older children may offer something special or at the very least be a necessity in some circumstances.  But I just don’t get it for primary school. Seven is just too bloody young to get rid of your kids.

State boarding schools are open to children who are holders of EU passports.  You pay no tuition but you do pay for boarding — currently around £3000 per term.  You can see why state boarding schools are of limited interest to those who cannot afford London day school fees — you’d be swapping one £10k price tag for another of a similar amount.  (I suppose you could still see it as a saving when you take into account the food the average teenager consumes at home. Oh, and the long hot showers which the meter now registers and which you now pay for…)  But for someone currently paying £15-25000 per year for a boarding school in the private sector in the UK, there are substantial savings.  If you’re a snob, you can still brag to your friends that little Arthur is “away at school” and still talk about him coming home for an “exeat”.  Since the state boarding schools are so little known, very few in your social circle need to know that your stock portfolio is a fraction of what it once was and that little Arthur has actually “gone state!” 

 There are other advantages to state boarding schools.  Some, such as Cranbrook in Kent (one of my favourites) are grammar schools.  Local kids have to sit an entrance exam; only those in the top ability band are offered places.  I think many at Cranbrook would agree that the intake for boarding places is of a slightly lower ability level.  Slighty above average Atticus could therefore get into a “better” school (academically) than he would otherwise get into as a day student at his local grammar school (assuming there is one) by sitting the 11+ in a grammar school district.  Other schools, such as Hockerill Anglo-European College, offer the international baccalaureate and have average scores to give IB schools Sevenoaks and King’s College Wimbledon a run for their money.  (I also loved this school’s language focus: I heard groups of pupils speaking in German and across the courtyard, another group speaking in Spanish; it clearly attracts EU pupils from other countries.) Old Swinford Hospital School in the West Midlands is another one of my favourites.  Once a public school, it is still steeped in all the tradition and physical plant one would expect of a public school.  There are approximately 30 other state boarding schools. I must admit that there are some I would not send my child to as a day pupil if I lived in the catchment area, so I certainly wouldn’t consider paying to send my child to board at those. But there are some good ones (including my favourites above) and they are certainly worth exploring.  Plus, with the Russell Group universities increasingly discriminating in favour of state school applicants, why not enjoy bragging about little Jack being at boarding school and giving him the best shot ever of getting into Oxbridge?

 For more information on the state boarding schools, see:  http://www.sbsa.org.uk

Credit crunch: When they can’t afford the school fees any longer

The credit crunch has begun to hit my middle class circle recently in a very personal way.  When the last bubble burst (dot com, circa 2000), I was younger. No kids. No mortgage. Very few real responsibilities.  Most of my friends at the time were similarly situated. It was a blip for us.  We moved on.  This time, however, we are all older; many of our friends have kids in school, and a good handful have kids in fee-paying schools.  But the credit crunch has come down hard on many in our circle: redundancies and failing family businesses and the inevitable need to pull kids out of fee-paying schools.  

Some would say that a private education is a luxury to begin with.  So what if your kid has to “go state” with the masses now?  After all, Paul McCartney’s kids did it, Gordon Brown’s are doing it, and David Cameron’s are too.  Some of the state school registrars I have called up in the past few weeks asking for places for children of friends seemed to revel in the private sector families all of a sudden begging at their doorsteps. (Two registrars at London state secondary schools directed two high ability and achieving daughters of a friend to a local school which I am sure former education secretary Estelle Morris had in mind when she said there were some schools she wouldn’t touch with a bargepole.)  The reality is, we have kids being forced to leave the school environments they know and are nurtured by in circumstances which add further to the sense of insecurity such a move (especially mid-year) brings.  More often than not, the children affected are not from the moneyed established classes for whom the credit crunch is but a credit pinch but rather from families who have prioritised education over other discretionary spending in the family budget.  And let’s not forget that while they’ve been paying fees to the independent sector, their parents have continued to contribute to the state sector through their taxes. 

I have come to the conclusion that transferring from the private sector to the state sector outside of the usual transfer points (ie Reception, Year 7 and Sixth Form) requires more than perseverance: it requires good letter-writing, good follow-up, good kids to brag about who will help a recipient school’s league table position, and, ideally, a few good connections.  If your kid is having to change schools mid-year, replace “good” with “exceptional” in the previous sentence. And add lots of luck.

My friend’s daughters did manage to secure places for January in Years 7 and 8, respectively, at a highly sought after school in London which I won’t name in case it results in unwanted scrutiny by LEA authorities.  Two down, one to go.  Another friend has a son finishing off his GCSEs at a fee-paying school. He, like the girls, is a catch: scholarship material and high athletic ability.  It remains to be seen whether he, too, will be able to secure himself a coveted spot at the very same London state secondary.

These are clearly desperate times for people who, like my friends, would prefer not to take their kids out of their current fee-paying schools.  Alternatively, if they must take them out and no viable local state school options are available, what can they do? I’ll explore options for keeping your kids in their current schools and alternate arrangements in future posts.