Collective Intelligence
Insight, news and design inspiration for the education sector.
The price of a full class
ISC schools lost 19,029 pupils in the year to January, a 3.5% fall. Year 7 shrank 5.6%.
Some schools are still filling every desk.
But often at a price.
Fee assistance reaches 183,705 pupils (34.9% of the total) and is worth £2.1bn.
Councils and other outside funders supply £917m, most of it for SEND places.
Schools give the remaining £1.1bn.
Just under half of that is means-tested.
The larger share, £589m, goes to families whatever their income: 57,015 scholarships and 72,911 sibling, staff, forces and clergy reductions.
Headline fees rose 4.4% before VAT.
But the census does not record what families actually pay.
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Follow one family through the gate.
A bursar offers a fifth off an empty Year 7 desk, badged as a scholarship.
On the average senior day fee of £19,476, that is £3,895, close to the average scholarship.
Small money, and the class is full.
But if fees keep rising at 4.4%, the place lists at about £25,000 by Year 13. The family discount has crept to £5,000.
A brother follows two years later. The parents assume the same terms and the school is in no position to argue.
After nine years, one discount has opened a £65,000 gap below the list. And the parents have friends at the next open morning.
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Governors see a full headcount.
The prospectus needs no rewrite.
The danger builds slowly, out of sight, then arrives all at once: a cohort that cannot be discounted into existence, a lender asking about yield, a merger conversation nobody planned to have.
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Words by Tom Woods
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Tom is on a mission to change the way we design schools.
He champions the involvement of children and their communities in the creative process, and through the studio’s programme In The Making, he’s opening up careers in design to more young people.
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Five checks before the next discount
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Before offering a discount, cost it across every remaining year at the expected fee rise, and count likely siblings.
On census averages, a fifth off one Year 7 place can run to £65,000 across a family.
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Tie every award to milestones written into the offer letter, such as the end of Year 9 and entry to the sixth form.
At each one, the award is renewed, reduced, or ended based on criteria the family agree to on day one.
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Governors should see net fee income per pupil, by year group, every term.
A full class at 80% of list and a full class at list look identical on a headcount chart.
To a lender, they are different schools.
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Decide the lowest net fee the school will accept, and route every reduction through one person.
When the Head, admissions and the bursar each agree on discounts separately, the result is a price list nobody approved.
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A discount buys one place and gets talked about at the next open morning.
A better nursery or a new teaching space is on the tour for every family that follows. Money set aside for reductions may go further if you invest it in the offer.
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