Parents supporting private schools even in recession
Parents want the best education for their children even in a recession, argues Jonathan Challinor.
The straitened circumstances in which we find ourselves impact on us all in many different ways.
In the education sector we are affected indirectly. The credit crunch has the potential to impact on the parents who choose to send their little ones to our school and, in turn, those parents might look to make savings in their everyday lives.
As you would in any business, parents will look to make savings on the bottom line. However, while we know, as a “secondary industry”, that we are going to feel some pain, what we are finding is that parents continue to stand firmly by independent education as the recession bites.
I am pleased, although I cannot say I’m completely surprised. We are no more exempt to the vicissitudes of the economic climate than anyone else. But when the going gets tough, historically parents will continue to put the quality of their children’s education right at the very top of their priorities.
They will, of course, look to be careful and to make savings where they can; they may even look to find a school with lower fees, but it is the school’s ability to enable youngsters to thrive in a caring and supportive environment which matters most of all.
Norfolk House School, in Norfolk Road, Edgbaston, has seen these sort of recessions before. We are not complacent or expecting to escape unscathed, but we are pragmatic. My father before me helped to make the school what it is today and – with a history stretching back more than 70 years – I am proud to continue that tradition. We are fortunate to be located in a superb building on the Calthorpe Estate and that is often what makes it such a favourable first impression on so many parents. A large part of me is tied up in this school, as it is where I went as a child.
It is the atmosphere inside which makes the difference. We have had to adapt to tough economic circumstances before, but the school has always been a bedrock of stability for our future generations while the outside world sorts out the mess it has got itself into.
As an independent establishment I believe we are not just in a position to weather the storm, but we are able to continue to offer the choice to parents for their children which will have a vital and far-reaching impact on what those pupils do with their lives.
There are several elements to why I believe that independent schools offer the best choice. There is a process which busy, professional people will go through when choosing a school for their children, and the basis for that is a determination to secure them the best start to their young lives.
Birmingham, and Edgbaston in particular, abounds with good schools, so what is it that makes the independent sector stand out?
For one, it is class sizes and, therefore, the ratio of pupils to teachers. In smaller classes pupils receive more attention. The teachers listen to them read every single day, which simply would not happen in a state school.
We also value respect and manners very highly, and genuinely want our pupils to be independent in their thinking as well as their actions. We treat our youngsters as individuals in a rich, multi-cultural learning environment, out of which come well-rounded human beings who are more than capable of coping with the next stage of their education.
These values are never compromised. We provide an environment in which we simply do not have issues of discipline, so our teachers spend their lives teaching, not being involved in crowd control. And, of course, it is the quality of the teaching staff which is so important. Those staff have ensured that for the past three years we have been Birmingham’s top-performing independent preparatory school.
There is a cost – this is, after all, private education. However, to use Norfolk House School as an example, we are far from being the most expensive. So whereas money is occasionally an issue, a child’s education would usually be the last thing a parent would wish to sacrifice.
What is more apparent is that parents’ expectations have heightened and changed in recent years. It is important for a professional couple who are both working to be able to have before- and after-school care available if required. Parents are also more savvy – they want their money’s worth and rightly so.
This is tied in with the expectations of the wider society. We are more discerning than we were a few decades ago. Parents expect high standards and their children to gain entry to grammar schools. They are starting to think about their child’s future career much earlier, so that when the child is very young they have already begun to consider which grammar school they might attend.
There is also much more choice and competition in the education sector, which is a good thing because it drives up standards. We always encourage parents to look at a variety of schools as they will know precisely the moment when they discover the one that is right for their child.
We also talk to parents a lot about education being a team effort. The school cannot do everything, the children need to practise and have encouragement at home. We can set the tempo and provide the materials, but the parents must ensure that they play their part too.
The nature of parenting and of parents has changed, and against this background we see our new nursery – to be opened in a refurbished building next door to Norfolk House School in September – as a logical extension to what we offer.
It has been a while in planning and implementing, but it will bring to the city another aspect to our independent educational offering. It will be a symbiotic relationship – the nursery will benefit the school, and vice versa.
We are great believers in creating a family aspect to all we do. Like any family, we have our values and we lean on each other. In our case, we also assimilate the best aspects of modern teaching and technology into the curriculum.
With the opening of the nursery as a “new addition” to the family, this will be an exciting year; the best test for us as a school and a city is that we continue to do our best to ensure that every pupil’s potential is reached during their stay with us and at such an important time in their lives.
n Barrister Jonathan Challinor runs the independent preparatory school, Norfolk House School, in Edgbaston.
