Giant Games Blog

Every single year it would seem that the ISC actually put together a bit of a census when it comes to all of the 1,200 plus private schools in the United Kingdom, the ISC being the Independant Schools council if you didnt already know, this is done for many reasons. The main reason that this is done is to see how much the sector has changed in the last year. It is safe to say that recent times have not been nice to the families of Britain but another thing to say is that paid education is still worth pursuing, without doubt on this.

Firstly, the ‘exodus’ many of the newspapers have been misreporting over the past few months hasn’t happened total pupil numbers are down just 0.6%, making this only the seventh year in the past 26 that numbers have not increased. Despite this it would seem that independent schools are still gaining more pupils than the state ones.

Secondly - about a third (32.5%) of pupils at ISC schools receive help with their fees. The amount that was put forward to help the people this year actually came to an amazing £664 million which is really fantastic of this 80% came from the schools and the rest came from the bursaries or scholarships. Hopefully, then, people should not be put off applying for financial help because it’s rare or only for a select few. If you are considering applying for a scholarship or bursary, it is always a good idea to discuss what is available with the school’s admissions department.

Getting a scholarship will involve a pupil demonstrating that they really excel in a particular field, be it academic, sporting, musical &c. A maths scholarship, for example, would probably be the result of getting the best marks in a special examination; a sporting scholarship might involve being captain of the school team, playing at county or national level &c.

Bursaries are very different indeed as they are means tested and it depends on the parents paying. Even if you have a scholarship your place is not gurenteed because you will still most likely have to go through the interviews and other such things. If parents are looking for a bursary then they will need to actually take a form/test which will then be sent off for the school to decide upon. When it comes to bursaries I would actually apply as soon as possible because the schools will get a lot of them through.

Thirdly - the pupil-teacher ratio is still enviably low 9.4:1, compared to 16.9:1 in the maintained sector. This of course means smaller classes and more time for the kids. It also reflects the breadth of subjects available to pupils at independent schools many of which are not available in the maintained sector and their commitment to keeping these subjects open, even where it might be perceived as uneconomical.

Finally, and importantly, this year the highest number ever of school-leavers went on to Higher Education: more than nine out of every ten pupils.

ISC have a range of things on offer from teaching jobs to teaching vacancies so boarding schools are the way forward.

This entry was posted on Saturday, July 31st, 2010 at 11:41 am and is filed under Education. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.