An affordable private school alternative in London: the New Model School

Looking at the keywords people are using to hit my blog, I see that affordable education is at the fore of most of their minds. Not surprising given the number of parents who have taken their children out of independent schools already in response to the credit crunch and the anticipated exodus from those schools at the beginning of the next academic year once the credit crunch has had longer to make lives more miserable.  I’ve already discussed some affordable options earlier this month and last month, but today I have another for you.

You’re in luck if your child is high ability scholarship material (although full or even sizeable scholarships are few and far between), or you’re so poor as to qualify your child (of even average ability) for a full bursary at the local prep or public school.  You’re really lucky, though,  if you don’t have to worry about the price tag and can send your child to any school in the country.  The one group left out of all of this is that of middle class parents of non-scholarship level children. What options do they have?  GEMS and Cognita, the private companies I looked at on Sunday in Would you like fries with your education? professed to be focused on providing affordable no-frills schools targeted at just this group.  But as we discovered, many of those schools charge fees that rival those at the top of the fee bracket, and certainly none in London was anywhere near more affordable than the average fee-paying school that made no pretension of being affordable.

The New Model School Company may fill part of the gap in this market.  Created by social think tank, Civitas, it aims to provide another choice for parents who feel the state system is not providing the education that it should.  Its model is based on three premises: providing a top quality education, keeping fees as low as possible (fees in 2009 will be £5,250 per year, under half of the fees charged by most London day schools) while providing that top quality education, and establishing a model that can be replicated elsewhere.

The first New Model School, Maple Walk,  was established in Kensal Green, Northwest London in 2004.  Its facilities aren’t fancy: it is principally housed in a church hall, although new premises have been bought near Roundwood Park in Brent a few miles away.  The school will relocate in September 2009.  It had two pupils in 2004 and currently has almost 100; there are over 100 pupils registered for entry in each of 2010 and 2011.

I attended the launch in Docklands this week of the New Model School Company’s second school, Faraday School,  which will serve the Docklands, North Greenwich and the East London neighbourhoods.  (This school will be located on Trinity Buoy Wharf, next to the free ferry that goes to North Greenwich.)

Faraday School is expected to follow a curriculum very similar to that of Maple Walk: a strong emphasis on the basics (numeracy and literacy) with science, French, Latin (in the higher primary years), PE, PSHE, history, geography and the other usual suspects all included.  The head teacher at Maple Walk, Sarah Knollys, addressed parents at the Faraday launch. Some of the points which caught my attention were the use by the school of a phonics reading system (rather than whole language which disappointed a whole generation) and the teaching of history in a chronological order.  (It seems obvious, but you’d be surprised how many schools like to teach in “themes”, something that drives me bonkers and inevitably produces a cohort of kids who don’t know that the Pyramids preceded the Protestant Reformation.)  Specialist teachers are brought in where needed.  Despite the absence of fancy facilities, Maple Walk participates in what I would call many “rich” activities: song, dance and poetry reading competitions, yoga (as part of PE), and Latin.  Maple Walk’s head said she is open to any enriching experiences that are affordable.  One immediately thinks that English Speaking Union speech and debate or maths competitions could easily be integrated into the curriculum, for example.

We’ll have to see how the kids from Maple Walk stack up when they participate in standardised tests and/or apply to competitive secondary schools.  But on the surface, Maple Walk and Faraday seem to be two schools worth keeping tabs on.  And of course, if the New Model School opens a school in South London, I may be among the first to fill out a free registration form…

For more information on the New Model Schools, see http://www.newmodelschool.co.uk/

From London day school to…boarding school? Are you outta your mind??

Can’t afford fees at your London day school any longer? Well, have you thought about sending your child to boarding school? “What?”  You ask.  “Are you a complete moron, Snowdon? That’s like saying ‘Let them eat cake’ when they can’t afford bread!”  Hear me out, folks… Sometimes, solutions aren’t always intuitive.

The average London day school costs approximately £10,000 per year in fees with uniform, lunches, clubs and other add-ons often extra.  There are some examples where a boarding education could come in under this amount.  If you live in an LEA with good local schools, you may just want to explore those options (but then again, if that were the case, you probably would have sent your child to that good local school in the first place, wouldn’t you have?)  If, however, you don’t have that kind of good fortune, there are boarding options which will bring you in under the mark that you’re currently paying. Plus, as I mentioned in yesterday’s post on state boarding schools (which come in at around £10,000 per annum), there may be further hidden savings in that your child won’t be eating at home, making the water meter spin, or using toilet paper for that matter. 

Here are a few of the options I’ve come across over the years:

• Christ’s Hospital School in Horsham, West Sussex is an all-boarding school for 11-18 year olds. I’ve heard it said that it is among the richest schools in the country, which I guess it needs to be when you consider that most of its students are on some level of bursary; only 4% of parents pay the full fees. You may have seen them in their curious uniforms on television, and every year their band leads the Lord Mayor of London’s parade. It is now too late to apply for admission for Year 7 in September 2009, but if your child is currently in Year 5, you may want to consider thinking ahead about this gem of a school for Year 7 in September 2010. Those applying for admission to the Sixth Form have until Monday 3 November to get their applications in. Although the school does not advertise it, applications are considered for other years, but there is usually a waiting list. Fees are determined on a sliding scale, but as a guideline, a family with an income of £30,000 per year can expect to pay approximately £4,000 for a year’s tuition and boarding. It’s worth checking out: www.christs-hospital.org.uk/allaboutmoney2007-08.pdf
• Welbeck — The Defence Sixth Form College in Leicestershire is a sixth form boarding school for medically fit UK, Commonwealth (hmm…I should let my Canadian friends know) or Irish citizens. It really is for those who’d like to pursue a career in the Forces; I’m not really sure what happens if you change your mind mid-course. Since 2005, the school has been sited at a new, state-of-the-art campus in Leicestershire. Its focus on the sciences is not for those who are not strong in this area. As with Christ’s Hospital, parents make a contribution, but it’s on a sliding scale. Children from families with incomes under £17,000 per year get a free ride, while a family income of £100,000 will mean annual fees (tuition and boarding) of just over £6,000. For more information, including application deadlines, check out: www.welbeck.mod.uk
• United World Colleges are part of a global education movement founded in the 1950’s based on the ideas of Kurt Hahn, a German Jew who founded Salem, a school in Germany, and later, when the Nazis rose to power, Gordounston. He was also instrumental in the establishment of the Duke of Edinburgh Award scheme and the Outward Bound movement. The first United World College, Atlantic College in Wales, was founded in 1962. The United World Colleges are rooted in the philosophy that conflict and hostility can be overcome if young people of different races, nationalities and religions can be brought together to learn from each other. There are now 12 such colleges around the world and all offer the International Baccalaureate diploma programme. Admission is based on merit, and there is a generous scholarship programme which dishes out money on a combined basis of merit and need (bearing in mind that dummies don’t make it in in the first place.) Interested pupils must apply through the UK arm and are assigned to one of the 11 schools outside the UK or to Atlantic College. The deadline for applications is in February. I had friends who attended United World Colleges back in the 1980’s. They were very much the Guardian-reading, furry armpitted, Birkenstock-wearing, panpipe-music playing, Students-Against-Global-Nuclear-Extermination type (you get the idea…) that I didn’t have much in common with back then. I also did not think much of the IB back then. Now, however, I’m a big proponent of the IB (well, you don’t have much choice when faced with A-Level inflation) and, having lived in three countries and travelled even more extensively for business and pleasure, I regret not applying myself and forced my younger stepson to apply a few years ago. For a well-rounded, socially conscious, academically strong pupil, I highly recommend applying. Check it out: www.uwc.org.uk 
• The Duke of York’s Royal Military School in Dover provides an education for the children (11-18) of military personnel. Fees per year range from £1,650 for those with parents serving, to £3,900 per year for those whose parents leave the services during the child’s stay at the school, to £7,500 per year for those whose parents were no longer serving on entry. I actually don’t know much about this school and would welcome feedback from those with children there. Check it out: http://www.army.mod.uk/welfare-support/education/1161.aspx

 That’s it for today.  I’ve got a few more ideas up my sleeve which I’ll share with you in the coming days.