'Buy my house and I'll pay half your school fees' says property developer

Alexandra Frean, Education Editor
Desperate times call for desperate measures. And it does not get much more desperate for this.
A property developer is offering to pay half the annual fees at a £14,000 a year private school for five years for families that buy one of his new neo-Georgian homes.

The highly unusual agreement struck between Taunton School in Somerset  and the local building firm StrongVox, provides compelling evidence, if any were needed, of just how inventive organisations can be when faced with recession.

For StrongVox’s managing director Toby Ballard, the deal offers an opportunity to off-load 19 three and four bedroom houses he has been trying to sell for six months and which have already been slashed in price.

He is offering to pay half the school’s £14,000 a year fees for one child from any family that buys one of the houses at the top of the range (£415,000) for up to five years. Less expensive houses (from £274,995) attract a slightly less generous ‘free gift’.
“Parents could ask for a discount on the house instead,” he says.

StrongVox’s offer is in line with the actions of desperate housebuilders throughout the country, which are trying pretty much anything in an effort to shift their stock. Developers are giving away holidays, kitchens and cars and offering to pay the stamp duty.
For Taunton School, which prides itself on recruiting pupils on potential, rather than test scores, the agreement provides an opportunity to market itself for free at a time when the sector is bracing itself for a downturn on pupil numbers.

All the same, it seems like a pretty odd way for parents to choose a school and for schools to select their pupils.
John Newton, headmaster of Taunton School, insists, however, that pupils benefiting from the StrongVox offer would have to go through the same admissions process as anyone else applying.
But why is he doing it? Although the school, which offers the International Baccalaureate as well as GCSEs and A levels, has not yet seen a fall in pupil numbers as a result of the economic downturn, it is expecting difficulties ahead.

“We anticipate that as the year goes on, some of our parents may find it difficult to continue and we wont necessarily be able to assist them all,” Mr Newton says.
  He is not alone. David Lyscom, head of the Independent Schools Council, said in an interview with The Times  this week that private schools would need to cut costs through measures such as improving energy efficiency and reducing food waste as the economic crisis deepens.

And only yesterday the headmaster of Brighton College, a leading independent school, wrote to staff urging them to switch out the lights when possible, and to trim their spending in all areas, so that fees can be kept as low as possible in the face of the downturn.

So, just how vulnerable are independent schools to the slump? Well, when Britain last plunged into recession in 1991, pupil numbers in private schools fell by 1,200 within 12 months and by a further 9,300 over the next six years.

Parents who fall on hard times should not panic though.
As Taunton School’s John Newton, says, heads of independent schools will usually do all they can to help parents and there are plenty of creative ways they can do this. “We can spread payments, we can take a charge on someone’s property so that when they do manage to sell it we get paid, or there can be a short-term bursary,” he says.

Comments

[whimsey]

I am very glad to hear of your positive experience (or rather your kiddy's!) which is great, and I'm sure your right that indeed it can work and not be traumatic. But I think the reverse is also true, and as I say, I would not lightly change the 'class' of school for children drastically, in either direction, if it could be avoided at all.

Pupil cultures within a school can be rough tough places, merciless and with no protection (whether from the poshies or the chavs!!!), and there is nothing that a grown up, whether parent or teacher, can really do, except move the child off. We all know that some children in some schools get bulled hideously, but put them in a different school and the classroom dynamics can be completely different, and everything is fine again.

Of course, if your child has had a ghastly time at primary school, then very probably the last thing they want is to go to secondary school with the same bunch of little sods that made their lives hell in primary! Far better to get a new school completely.

Mind you, often the tormenting and bullying from primary school can actually stop completely even in the local secondary school,as it gets so many children in from so many primaries, that the overall social pool is so much larger, and, again the 'incestuous' class dynamics of an individual primary are dissolved.

[j]

"Yes, for some children, as J says, (the confident, self-assured and, very probably, sporty, ie, physically fit/intimidating ones?) such a transfer, in either direction, probably wouldn't be a problem."

Oh Whimsey I shall show this to unsporting, unconfident Child A, it will cheer him up no end!

really, it isnt as bad as you fear. trust me, I have been there.

[whimsey]

I'm afraid the sneering class bias is not amongst the parents, but the children! That's what I worry about when you take a child from one 'class' of school, and put them into another (whether it's 'up' or 'down' the social scale). I would worry for a quiet, shy, studious child from a 'refained' prep school being dumped, with no chums or peers, into the local sink school left at the mercy of a bunch of street-wise chavs. Ditto I'd be worried about a child from a 'humble state primary' being dumped into some posho school with a lot of poshies whose idea of poverty is having to sell one of the ponies.

Yes, for some children, as J says, (the confident, self-assured and, very probably, sporty, ie, physically fit/intimidating ones?) such a transfer, in either direction, probably wouldn't be a problem.

But children feel their peer-group far more intensely than adults do, and a child bereft of their accustomed peer group may feel very exposed.

Changing schools can be difficult enough as it is, without having to cope with changing 'class' as well.

It certainly isn't something I'd do to mine lightly.

[Pdev]

I am fairly amazed at the snearing class envy and bias so obvious in many of these posts. What universe is Whimsey operating in. I can see why the Poms are still immigrating to OZ in huge numbers. A bit of a suggestion for all those poor souls trying to scrape together 10,000+ pa quid to send their Phillips/Philipa's to private schools. If you have even reasonably intelligent children they will perform in all but the worst of schools. -Invest the many 100,000 s in real estate and give them a house for a wedding present. Should be some good buying with UK financial system going down the gurgler.

Cheers from sunny OZ

[j]

"But I also think it would be hard to be the only state primary child going off to a private school, if they are the only child in their form/year doing so." sorry for double post, W but Child A did precisely that, if you mean being the only kid from his state primary to go off to a feepaying school. He wasn't the only state kid when he got there though, that was the point of having an 11 year entry stream. The prep school boys came in at 13.

[j]

Oh Dan wouldnt it be great to have £1,000 spare every month!

But you know it is easier to pay as you go, once they are bigger then you no longer have to pay for childcare, and you are both more senior so you earn more.

Whimsey, Child A just had six boys for a sleepover. Five are still with him in his feepaying school, now in the sixth form, one has left and gone to state school. He's just fine. Lets not turn this into class war, it just isnt true.

And I would also say that the world of posh prep schools is a universe away from the world of fee paying ex-grammars, 11-18 year olds, selecting on academic standards, run pretty cheaply, costing £10k per annum and having no snob agenda in either parents or children. I have used state, feepaying and special schools for the past 16 years and I dont recongnise this world you describe. How long have your kids been in school? I am wondering if they are pretty young, to be honest, but perhaps that's unfair.

[Snuffy]

This is the most insane thing I have every heard!

[whimsey]

A quarter of a million pounds to edcuate your child privately! Good grief - that should put everyone off for good!!

[Dan]

If you save £1,000 per month (not easy, I agree) every month from the birth of a child and keep doing so every month until the child reaches 18, it will cover the cost of private prep school fees and private senior school fees, (drawing down the first pre-school years accumulation as you go). Total of approx £260,000. This does not, however, account for school fees inflation, but this may be mitigated by a 'deal' with a school to pay upfront. It works!

[whimsey]

Well, on going state to private, I suppose it's always nicer to move upmarket than downmarket, in whatever sphere one is - whether it's from chain store to designer fashion, or brick terrace to stately home!

But I think the key factor for whether a child moves socially up or down in schools is whether their peers are too. In my neck of the woods it's fine for prep school children to go to the local grammars, but not to the non-grammars. None of them do. Can't think of one. They all just go private if they fail their 11+. And because none of the go, then none of them go....

I agree that some children might well adapt and survive successfully, but I would not like to take the risk with mine. That's why I think that the decision to opt for private education in the first place has to be made very, very carefully, and budgeted for. I don't think there's a graceful exit!

But I also think it would be hard to be the only state primary child going off to a private school, if they are the only child in their form/year doing so.

I think most children just want to do what is 'normal' for their peers, whatever that normal is (unless they were misfits in their school of course, and desperately want to get away from their tormentors!)

[j]

"Forget the swimming pools and sports halls and music blox - the real value of a private school is not in those luxuries. It's in good teaching."

I agree whimsey but we were already using this!

Our school is quite hot on making people take up school fees insurance to cover redundancy, and also has bursaries for families in sudden need.

That said, I am not sure I agree about the evil of yanking kids specifically from one system to another. Nobody argues that it's cruel to take a state school kid at 11 and send them private, do they? A good state school is not the hotbed of class resentment and mayhem that you imply- I think that's a bit unfair. I know kids who have moved, in both directions, and they have been treated as individuals by the kids in both systems.

I had to move schools quite a bit as a child and actually I think moving area as well as school- which I did- is worse, as you lose everything then- friends and all.

[whimsey]

Unfortunately, it's one thing to decide not to send your child to private school in the first place because you can't afford it any more, but quite another to take them out of a school they are happy at and doing well at. That's a much tougher decision, and the price will be paid by the child, not yourself.

I think it's something you have to take into account right from the start of putting your child into a private school - to set aside spare cash (ho ho!) to see them through to the end. Presumably, if you sent them private it's because you were deeply unhappy with the local schools.

But to take a child out of a private school, and plunge them back into the state sector, is not kind. If there's a whole bunch of their current classmates going into the local state school, fine, but otherwise they will be seens as the 'poshies' and pulled to pieces all too likely.

The otehr alternative is simply to move house to anotehr area, with different state schools (hopefully better ones), but even then, a child can't hide that they've been at a private school. The culture will be very different, the class sizes smaller and a lot of private schools are single sex, so they'll have to cope with co-ed in the state sector.

Overall, I do feel sorry for children yanked out of private schools because whatever has happened to their parents or the economy, it isn't their fault.

However, I think this recession may well see a new type of private school emerging - the cut price one where what you are buying is small classes and escape from a bad local state school. Forget the swimming pools and sports halls and music blox - the real value of a private school is not in those luxuries. It's in good teaching.

Ditto, I expect we'll see more home schooling, or 'virtual schools' where parents club together to hire teachers to teach a dozen children or so collectively, sharing the costs among the parents.