Funding: small schools

A diversity of schools and more choice for parents can lead to funding tribulations… writes John Hipshon

Education should be built around values and an individual’s needs. Government will only fund schools ofa certain type – that is to say, the ones that they control.

Independent schools, therefore, have to fend for themselves.

If you have a vision for your school that is different from the norm, perhaps even offbeat, and certainly not one that is going to attract all and sundry, putting your vision into practice is near impossible, unless you have a financier who is prepared to give you enough support to keep the school running – and, most importantly, keep it running well.

Charging parents fees is one thing, except it assumes you have enough parents who believe in your vision and are willing to pay: Alcuin School presently has 38 pupils.

But passion must always prevail and if you believe strongly enough in your vision you have to find other ways to fund it: and fees are simply not going to do the trick.

Shared views
At Alcuin we depend largely on benefactors who share our vision. We also depend on donations, which is why we are an educational charity. We are, I believe, of public benefit because we contribute to the diversity of education that is the lifeblood of our education system. Importantly, we can also educate some children for free if their parents are prepared to offer some benefit or service to the school, such as secretarial work, kitchen work, as a librarian or through helping in the classrooms.

So trying to create a school that pays for itself or even, dare we say it, makes a profit, means you have to create a school that is going to be like many others. It could be said that the more unique a school is, the costlier it becomes.

And some might say in today’s competitive environment, why bother?

But creating something different which serves the need to educate the small numbers who need or want something different requires courage: of convictions, but also courage to use money and time to carry out that vision.

It’s a sad fact that if small independent schools do not attract investment or benefactors, then we will lose them. We will lose the diversity within our education system and we will be the poorer for it.

John Hipshon is headmaster at Alcuin School in Leeds.

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