Letter – Guardian

Letter To Guardian 2 July 2012 Dear Sir, Daniel Boffey’s response to Dr Seldon’s article expressing his view that Britain’s private schools ‘have lost their moral purpose’ [Guardian Saturday 30 June] treads over some familiar ground but does only so much to inform the debate. As is so often the case, the extraordinary diversity of institutions within the sector is ignored. The long established old public schools with their boarding traditions are mixed up with the vast majority of independent schools with quite different origins and approach. Few independent schools have the palatial premises occupied by Eton or Harrow but they all promote a sense of morality that is often ignored. Independent day schools provide millions of pounds each year to support students from backgrounds that, in the maintained sector, would ensure that they were on free school meals. A great deal of effort is devoted to partnerships with primary schools, supporting local charities and working with children abroad. To suggest that this does not amount to ‘moral purpose’ is fatuous: our students have raised by themselves over £25,000 in nine months for a variety of causes. This is not unusual – they do it every year. As is evidenced in inspection reports time and again, one of the great strengths of most independent schools is precisely the moral focus they place at the heart of education. As Sir Peter Lampl of the Sutton Trust has noted, the sponsorship of academies is not the only game in town to improve social mobility and is often inappropriate or impossible for schools without the resources of a Wellington. Schools such as King Edward’s are very keen to share their advantages with less privileged students; we take our charitable obligations very seriously. If the government is also serious about social mobility it should focus on open access for underprivileged children to independent day schools funded by the state. This would provide a much more cost effective and targeted means to open up still further our schools to their local communities, as has already been demonstrated by the Sutton Trust in Liverpool, than the as yet largely untested notion of academy sponsorship by the independent sector. Yours faithfully, Mr. A.J.Thould MA,