Parents' group lobbies against private schools

Published on Saturday 12 September 2009 19:47

A NEW action group plans to leaflet private schools in an attempt to convince parents to reconsider the benefits of a state education for their children.

Back To School says it is not against private education but that the proportion of children now going to fee-paying schools is damaging the state school sector.

The campaign is headed and financed by parents in the Trinity and Craiglockhart areas of Edinburgh who say they will leaflet outside private schools in their area during the morning and evening school runs. The group wants to highlight the positive side of state education to private school parents at a time when state enrolment is dwindling.

Around one in four children in Edinburgh attend private schools – the highest rate in the UK – and the numbers enrolling in the private sector are increasing in other areas of Scotland amid concerns over a decline in standards in state primaries and secondaries.

Kevin O'Donnell, who is on the Parent Council at Trinity Academy, said the recession and the financial pressures it had brought to many middle-class families made this a perfect time to get parents to consider dropping private schools.

He said: "This is an idea whose time has come. A quarter of all school pupils in Edinburgh are at private schools. That is a situation unheard of anywhere else in the UK, and it is something the education authority should be looking at.

"It should be promoting its own schools in the same way that they promote the city's festivals. If councils won't promote their own schools, then parents are perfectly entitled to step in and do the job themselves."

O'Donnell said many parents now simply do not consider sending their children to state schools. "That is something we have got to try and reverse. I would recommend our local schools, Trinity Primary and Trinity Academy, to anyone thinking of sending their kids to an expensive private school instead. They could save their money and allow their children to fulfil their potential as part of a thriving local community."

The group started the campaign by delivering 3,000 leaflets promoting the local school to homes in the Craiglockhart area – close to George Watson's College, the city's biggest private school. Parent Council chairman Gavin Corbett said: "The initiative worked well, in that an increasing number of parents are looking at state rather than private options.

"Many parents are surprised by what they see. They sometimes have no experience of the state sector themselves. I think some parents form their attitudes to state schools from watching Grange Hill or they have their own experiences 30 or more years ago which are nothing like schools today."

The Scottish Council for Independent Schools claims private schools are thriving despite the current financial downturn. But it refused to comment on the Back To School campaign tactics.

However, a spokeswoman advised against targeting parents at school gates. She said: "That would not be helpful at all. If anything, having people thrusting leaflets at you would be more likely to convince you that you were right to send your children to an independent school."

There are currently 32,000 children in Scotland's 70 private and independent schools, making up 4.4 per cent of the nation's school roll.The average annual fee for private secondary schools is 8,000 per pupil – but that can rise to 23,000 per pupil for the most exclusive boarding schools.

Sian Jones, a leading schools marketing expert who works for private and state schools, said: "For many parents, sending their children to private school is not a decision they take lightly. They will have thought long and hard about it, and thrusting leaflets at them is unlikely to change their mind overnight."

Her research had found two reasons why parents send their children to private schools. "Firstly, they believe their child will receive a more individually tailored education at private school. This is often expressed as wanting smaller classes, but what it actually means is that the parents want to make sure their child's individual needs are being met. And they often conclude that the private sector will do that better.

"Secondly, they believe their child will enjoy a wider range of opportunities at private school, whether in music, drama, sport or after-school clubs.

"At state schools, these things are not given the same emphasis; parents are often keen for these to be central to a school's ethos."