Best Schools - Fee paying schools ‘save billions for the taxpayer’

Private schools are saving taxpayers billions of pounds a year, their head teachers have said in a forceful defence of the sector.

The heads used their annual report yesterday to assert the financial benefits of fee-charging schools and the good they are doing for society.

The schools bring economic benefits and taxpayer savings totalling more than £20 billion a year by educating pupils who would otherwise need state places and by providing employment, community facilities and tax contributions, an analysis for the Independent Schools Council (ISC) has found.

Oxford Economics found that private schools saved the taxpayer £3.5 billion last year because children were not taking up state school places. In addition they and their suppliers paid £4.1 billion in tax.

Their gross domestic product, the value of the work they supported across the economy through their spending, was £13.7 billion. They also supported 302,000 jobs, more than the city of Liverpool, the analysis claimed.

The ISC said that families received more than £1 billion of help with fees. Of the £864 million provided by schools themselves, £422 million went on means-tested bursaries and scholarships, £24 million more than in 2017.

Children should not stop playing sport in run up to exams as it has no impact on results, study suggests

Parents should not stop children playing sport in the run up to exams because it has no impact on results, a new study suggests.

Taking part in competitive team games in the run up to GCSE and A-level exams will have no negative effects on a teenager’s grades, according to research commissioned by The Headmasters’ & Headmistresses’ Conference (HMC).

The study analysed the GCSE results of 1,482 male and female students from 19 independent schools, and examined the effect that participation in sports such as badminton, cricket, hockey, netball, rugby and tennis had on their results.

Professor Peter Clough, head the Psychology department at Huddersfield University who carried out the research, found that contrary to what some parents believe, “sport involvement does not appear to have any negative implications” on results.

The study also examined whether participation in other extra-curricular activities, such as music and drama, had any effect on exam results.

It found that these activities had neither a positive nor a negative direct effect on academic performance. But they did not have the same advantages as sport in terms of improving wellbeing and mental toughness.