On paper the independent school which my parents sent me to was better than the local, state-funded alternative. The classes were smaller, on average grades were higher, there was a wide range of extracurricular opportunities available and the school wasn’t limited by the national curriculum – so if a teacher had a depth of knowledge in one field then they could teach a course based around that expertise. The national curriculum was followed in a broad sense; otherwise the subjects which we studied wouldn’t have had any semblance to their state sector counterparts and therefore no relevance after school. My school also had an incredibly high rate of university attendance in particular to Russell Group and other high quality institutions; however, the guidance given on university application was given by one teacher who eventually will leave the school, taking that guidance with her and leaving a void which will be incredibly hard to fill. So theoretically there were some advantages to attending the school which I did, legitimising the exorbitant fees involved.
The management of any fee-paying school inevitably shares the fear of not getting enough pupils to cover the school’s costs. As I observed in my nine years of attendance, serious problems will be brushed under the carpet to prevent the school from getting a bad reputation and to avoid any negative press. One teacher was a notorious alcoholic and regularly turned up to classes drunk while another had a history of assaulting pupils, all of whom were given out-of-court settlements or deals with their fees. The school also had a notorious history of drug dealing and taking with one ex-head girl having spent time in rehab for her methamphetamine addiction. And while many others had run-ins with the school authorities and even the law, very few were expelled for fear of repercussions from the parents of the punished.
I also felt largely ignored when I was applying to go to university. The students considered worthy of Oxbridge application (a benchmark upon which the school was measured) were given considerably more help in the UCAS application process than those of us who applied to mere Red-Bricks or, heaven forbid, an ex-polytechnic.
Throughout my time at my all-boys independent school I felt like the teachers’ priority was not my education for my own betterment, but my education to raise the profile of the school and to increase intake and keep the money flowing in. The small class sizes and closer attention of teachers was of great benefit to me when I was younger and struggled with my basic skills in Maths and English, but as I progressed to GCSE and A Level I felt like I was more of a commodity than a person and would far rather have gone to sixth form at one of the local state schools or colleges where I think I would have received not only more help, but also would have been a lot happier.
Joshua Atkins
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