Learning lessons

Each year’s publication of A/AS level and GCSE results usually guarantees two things: pass numbers will be up; and there will be charges, hotly denied, that standards are coming down. Not a tradition yet, perhaps, but becoming more than just a routine. This year the A/AS level curriculum, shortages of teachers, and poor morale have also been added to the debate.

However you judge the exam results each year, it has to be acknowledged that demands on education change. What are important are recognising what change is taking place, and the ability to adapt to it quickly, which is not always as easy as it seems.

The situation becomes confused because the louder the debate becomes, the greater the wish by governments to be seen to be ‘doing something’. Some have more success than others, although liberal use of spin and the generation of much red tape give an impression of activity even if nothing much is actually happening. In the meantime schools can only stand by and watch, although independent schools have an advantage over their maintained contemporaries.

Each year, as we prepare Which School?, a snapshot appears of the state of the UK’s independent schools. From the 1557 schools that registered changes to their entries in 2001, we can see that pupil numbers are up by 3.4% over the previous year. So are fees, by up to 9.5%. One in five schools will have had a new Head this year. Just fewer than 8% of schools closed their doors for the last time.

Schools with a website now number 43% and over half have email. Following the demise of the government’s assisted places scheme, 14% of schools now have their own schemes in place.

Figures are of course open to interpretation. Increasing pupil numbers may reflect a vote of confidence in the independent sector, or they may be the result of a booming economy, or intensive marketing by schools. Nobody knows better than the Head of an independent school the need to keep the roll up, or the high academic and pastoral standards required to attract increasingly demanding parents.

But read some of the school descriptions that appear in this book, and one thing becomes clear: many have been around for a very long time indeed. Most have existed for decades, several for centuries and some for more than 1000 years – this year The King’s School, Canterbury, celebrated its 1404th anniversary.

Throughout this time they have been major contributors to the nation’s progress and well being. Some may have survived as a result of continuous high standards or generous endowments; others may not have had to face competition from other local schools. But none would continue to exist without a thorough understanding of how to teach each generation of pupils, or what to teach them.

But this point becomes obscured with a lack of political consensus. Independent schools however, free of diktat and governmental restraint, and with the confidence to experiment and adapt, can concentrate on the education issues.
Contrary to popular imagination, independent schools do not exist in isolation of each other. Most belong to representative organisations – for boys’ only, girls’ only, coeducational, senior or preparatory schools – which represent their own particular interests but to which there are strict criteria for joining and continued membership.

In turn these organisations work closely together on matters of common concern. These ensure rigorous inspection and maintenance of standards; codes of conduct; and a continuing review of education itself. Few aspects of schooling are not examined, and it is not perhaps surprising that it was a Headmasters’ and Headmistresses’ Conference initiative that lead to the government’s speedy review of the new AS level arrangements this summer.

The benefits are twofold. The system maintains standards and parents can be reassured that they are being given the best possible return for what is, after all, a major financial investment. And governments, understandably preoccupied with a bigger picture, can also learn some lessons.

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