School à la carte

My daughter has another two years before she applies for a place at an LEA-run school or is assessed for a fee-paying school.  There are other possibilities too, including foreign government schools in London and alternative (but relatively cheap) fee-paying schools. And, of course, there’s home schooling. The more I look at the stress of the independent schools admission process and the fees (count on £11,000 per year for prep and probably more at the secondary level) and the more I despair at the small catchment areas (read: my house is beyond it) for the few decent state schools nearby and the wouldn’t-touch-them-with-a-bargepole primaries that are within my catchment area, the more I begin to think about home schooling and about what I call school à la carte.  

On 5 November, I talked about the trend towards afterschooling in The afterschooling imperative. Home schooling, or home education, goes a bit further: it leaves out the formal school altogether.  The motivations of home schoolers are many. You get all types — from nutbars to middle class people who just want a good solid education.  I would consider home schooling if it could adequately address a few needs: (1) exposure to the thoughts and views and areas of interest of people other than me (2) social interaction and the opportunity to form friendships (3) exposure to some elements of formal education (ie not everything gets done at the kitchen table) and (4) a little bit of time off of mother-cum-teacher (which would otherwise be a 24/7 job).  A school à la carte would address all of these concerns.  Parents could volunteer to teach modules to the children of others, or parents could club together to hire specialists (such as language teachers) to offer modules.  There would be a physical place where children would congregate and, critically, see familiar faces several times per week (rather than the once per week they might otherwise see another child at Brownies or football practice.)  Parents could still home school, but their children would be exposed to a whole plethora of interesting modules, many of which one might expect to go well beyond the confines of the National Curriculum.  (The unbridled ability to provide modules of any type are what would distinguish an à la carte school from “flexi-schooling”, a legal loophole which permits parents to combine home schooling with part-time attendance at a local school with the school head’s permission.  After all, if, like me, one of your big concerns is getting away from teaching to the all-too-many-standardised tests , why would you want your kid attending a school which will inevitably spend much of its time preparing for those very same tests?)

Topics which are in high demand can be scheduled after the normal school day in an à la carte school in order to pull in the afterschooling parents looking for that extra enrichment or remedial help.  I see no reason why the financial aspects can’t be viable, especially when one considers the availability of school space which heads are only too willing to rent out to buttress school budgets.

I am a traditionalist at heart, yet even I would be open to considering an à la carte education for my daughter.  Your thoughts are appreciated, but please post them quickly; I imagine that as soon as Mr Snowdon reads this post, it will be pulled…

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.