Private schools - perceptions of the sector 97-06
21 March 2007
From Nice-but-Dim to Loadsamoney: Changing media perceptions of the independent schools sector 1997-2006
Report below by John Morrison, Morrison Media Consultants - March 2007
Report commissioned for the 2007 ISC Annual Conference
by the Independent Schools Council
Morrison Media Consultants . 07985 145694. john@morrisonmedia.co.uk
From Nice-but-Dim to Loadsamoney?
Changing media perceptions of the independent schools sector
1997-2006
Executive summary
- The study analysed mainstream media coverage of independent schools in the UK over the ten years from 1997-2006.
- This has been the Blair decade. Labour made early moves against the independent sector by abolishing assisted places. But over time the Labour leadership has come to see independent schools as providing a template of potential solutions to the intractable problems of state schools. It is not too far from the truth to say that current government education policy is to make state schools as much like independent schools as possible.
- The independent sector has also become more intellectually assertive and in recent years has the led the policy debate over examination standards and the sixth form curriculum. The sector has, for example, adopted highly demanding exams long used abroad such as the IGCSE and IB.
- The independent sector benefits from a generally supportive press. A number of key titles have become either more supportive, or less opposed, in the course of the ten years under examination.
- However, although the independent sector is increasingly winning the high-level debate, the media contain much evidence that negative perceptions of independent schools remain entrenched in general discourse. This can be seen in some of the "narratives" - the underlying, often unexamined, frames of reference applied in lowlevel public debate - used in relation to fee-paying schools.
- The "public school" narrative poses particular problems for the
sector. In this narrative "public school" is a term of mild abuse. The narrative itself is one of unearned and self-perpetuating privilege. It is embodied in the character created by the comedian Harry Enfield and known as Tim Nice-but-Dim: a white male of limited intelligence but large bank-balance whose public school accent and networks give him undeserved access to elite positions denied to more talented individuals educated in the state sector.
- Fee-paying schools have been successful in creating a competing narrative - the "independent school" narrative. This stresses high academic standards, good discipline, motivated staff, operational efficiency, high levels of extra-curricular activities and so on. It also counters the accusation of self-perpetuating privilege by highlighting the number of first-generation parents entering the sector and the
numbers of parents coming from low-income areas.
- The sector also benefits from the "confidence narrative" - the
widespread acceptance of the sector's unique ability to turn out
confident and socially adept young people. This ability is widely
accepted (including by at least two Labour education secretaries) as something that differentiates independent schools from their state equivalents. Occasionally, however, these confident young products of the independent sector can be resented as overbearing or arrogant.
- The major worry for the sector is that the sharply rising level of
school fees is beginning to create a damaging new narrative: the "pricing us out of the market" narrative. This highlights the hurt and anger of middle class parents who have always aspired to educate their children independently but are no longer able to do so because fees are now so high. Independent schooling is beginning to be seen as the exclusive province of the super-rich. It is worth noting that this
narrative is taking root in sections of the media traditionally very strongly supportive of independent schooling. The sector may have to face the possibility that the new embodiment of fee-paying schools will no longer be Tim Dim-but-Nice, but one of Harry Enfield's much less attractive creations - Loadsamoney.
John Morrison
Chief Executive
Morrison Media Consultants
March 2007
Brief
The brief was to report on changing perceptions of the UK independent schools sector over the ten years from 1997-2006 as reflected in mainstream
media coverage.
Method
Media coverage was sampled from three separate years - from the start,
middle and end of the ten years. The three sample years were calendar:
Within each twelve-month period coverage was sampled from a range of newspapers, and from the BBC. The newspapers were:
- The Times
- Daily Telegraph
- Guardian
- Daily Mail
- Sun
This sample was chosen to include a reasonably wide political spectrum, and to include representative examples from the quality, mid-market and "redtop" sections of the marketplace2.
BBC coverage was taken from its news and sport website: http://news.bbc.co.uk/
The coverage was sampled by searching online databases using the terms:
- "Independent school/s"
- "Public school/s"
- "Private school/s"
- "Fee-paying school/s"
This method does not pick up every single story about every single independent school - for example, it is conceivable that a story about Eton might not contain any of the search-terms used. But sample searches to test this hypothesis did not produce significantly different results and we are confident that the search-terms chosen produce a fully representative sample of coverage of the sector.
Using the chosen search-terms produced a very large number of individual stories - something like 300-400 a year from each newspaper (although significantly fewer from the Sun and from the BBC website). Some of the stories were rejected because, for example, they concerned non-UK schools. Even so, we were left with well over one thousand individual stories from each of the years sampled.
Categories
The coverage of independent schools falls into four main categories. These are:
- Issues affecting the sector as a whole (eg fees, legislation etc)
- Passing mentions of current relevance (eg references to "public
school loutishness")
- Passing mentions of purely historical interest (eg in obituaries which
mention the schools attended by the subjects of the obituaries)
- Events at individual schools (eg crime, sexual misconduct etc)
Of these, categories 1 and 2 play the largest role in creating media perceptions of the current independent sector. Category 1 carries obvious significance: it is in this coverage that fundamental issues and attitudes to the sector are formed and debated.
Category 2, although superficially of less significance, is also important because it reveals the narratives underlying public and media attitudes. These play a significant role in creating and maintaining the image - positive and negative - of the sector in the minds of media consumers.
This study, therefore, gives most attention to these two categories of
coverage.
Coverage in category 3 - passing mentions of purely historical interest - probably has some small effect on overall perceptions of the sector. There is a steady flow of references to past bleak conditions - cold baths, vile food and stern discipline - but usually with an implicit acknowledgement that things have now changed for the better. So these references probably work to the sector's advantage. But, on the whole, they provide little more than mood music.
Category 4 - events at individual independent schools - can also largely be ignored. Although this coverage is often negative (eg: embezzlement by a bursar; a drugs bust; drunken behaviour by pupils etc) the negative impact is usually confined to the schools concerned and there is little evidence that it is seen as typical of the sector as a whole - rather, the opposite. In fact it is arguable that these isolated stories are positive for the sector as a whole. The "crimes" reported tend to be fairly low-level: had they taken place in a state school many would have generated coverage only in local, not national, media. It is the fact that they have happened in an independent school that makes them newsworthy nationally. The clear inference from this is that standards in independent schools are expected to be much higher than in state schools: this is what makes even quite a minor fall from grace so significant in news terms. In other words, these isolated incidents, although damaging to the individual schools concerned, may well work to support an underlying narrative of independent schools as places of notably high moral, professional and ethical standards.
This would, of course, rapidly change if patterns of reprehensible behaviour began to appear - if, say, there was a run of stories over a period of months about drunken behaviour by independent school pupils in different parts of the country. This might begin to affect perceptions of the sector as a whole. But in the period under examination there is little evidence of this.
Political Context
The ten years under examination, 1997-2006, roughly coincide with the Blair/New Labour period. In May 1997 Tony Blair became the first independently-educated prime minister for more than 30 years. He came to power promising: "education, education, education", and he was re-elected in June 2001 and again in May 2005.
In the period immediately before Blair became leader, the Labour Party was strongly opposed to independent schools and strongly in favour of comprehensive education for all. Party policy was to weaken or remove public subsidies for independent education, such as assisted places, charitable status and the exemption of school fees from VAT. Under New Labour, however, things changed. Although assisted places did disappear in one of the earliest pieces of legislation from the first Blair government, the party's principled opposition to independent schools was abandoned as part of New Labour's project to recapture the political centre ground.
Many in the party were - and remain - unhappy with this shift of direction. But the leadership has seldom wavered. Indeed Blair's first education secretary, David Blunkett, made clear his belief that the state sector had much to learn from independent schools. A few months after he became education secretary, a profile in The Times quoted him as recalling the sports matches his own state school used to play against the neighbouring independent school, Shrewsbury:
"What I learnt there was that youngsters were being trained to believe in themselves...they built up confidence, and even youngsters that weren't academically very bright they gave a belief in themselves. That's a trait we've got to build up in our state school system as well." (T: 27 Sep 97)
Blunkett's line was echoed by the then schools minister, Stephen Byers, a little later that year:
"These [independent] schools are highly successful. In terms of our own standards agenda we want to see if there are things we might learn. Of course, they are taking youngsters from backgrounds with lots of parental support but they may be doing things that are working well that we might use in the state sector." (G: 7 Oct 97)
These statements from Blunkett and Byers established the Blair government's general approach to the independent sector, which has been maintained ever since. Whereas Old Labour saw (indeed still sees) independent schools as part of the enemy, New Labour has seen them as offering a template of potential solutions to problems in the state sector.
This was underlined in 2001 when Blair, shortly before the start of his second term, began to talk about the "post-comprehensive era" and his then press secretary, Alastair Campbell, announced: "The day of the bogstandard comprehensive is over." State schools were to be encouraged to be become more distinct from one another and more tailored to meet pupils' individual needs and aptitudes. Specialist schools were to be encouraged and schools were to be offered a greater degree of autonomy.
This process of, in effect, making state schools more like independent schools, and using independent schools as a benchmark for the state sector, remains a central plank of the Blair government's education policy. Gordon Brown, expected to succeed Blair as prime minister later this year, has said he wants to increase investment in state schools to the levels of independent schools, and has called for many more state schools to introduce a version of the combined cadet force3. And in 2006 the current education secretary, Alan Johnson, praised independent schools for turning out rounded, socially adept pupils - and did so in terms strongly reminiscent of the comments of Blunkett and Byers ten years before:
"One of the reasons why independent schools get such good results, apart from the level of selection and extra resources, is the time they spend with children doing sport, music and drama, building social skills, confidence and team-working. This helps children develop not just academic and vocational skills but social skills as well. These skills are vital in today's workforce, where the ability to communicate, interact and engage are essential - they are the skills which employers increasingly look for first." (BBC: 25 Jul 06)
Perhaps partly as a result of New Labour's open admiration of many elements of the independent sector, the independent sector itself has become more intellectually assertive. There are some policy areas where the independent sector now sets the pace of the policy debate. This is particularly the case with examinations. It was independent schools that first raised the problem of grade inflation; and it was the independent sector that first became disenchanted with GCSE and AS-level and exploited its independence to try different approaches such as the IGCSE and the IB - approaches now endorsed by the government as suitable for state schools.
So the history of the ten years under examination can be characterised as the independent sector regaining significant ground in the high level intellectual and political debate over the best way to educate the nation's young people. However, as we shall see, antipathy to the sector remains entrenched at a lower level - and there are signs that some traditionally very strong supporters in the media may be turning against the sector.
Analysis
1) The politics of public schools
This section examines the way the central political and social issues surrounding the independent sector have been identified, reported and debated in the sampled media in the ten years under examination.
On the whole, the sector has had a positive press - reflecting in part the generally right-of-centre stance of the majority of national newspapers. Indeed over the ten years support for the independent sector has strengthened (or, at least, opposition has weakened). However, there are significant differences between different titles. For the sake of clarity, therefore, the analysis is presented title by title.
Guardian
The Guardian, as a newspaper of the centre-left, could reasonably be expected to be strongly opposed to independent schools. And indeed this was largely the case in 1997, when the newspaper espoused the traditional position of the Left on this issue. But by 2006 the picture had become much more complex. The newspaper now carries a much wider spread of opinion on this issue, and overall its attitude to independent schools has become markedly more ambivalent.
In 1997, the stance of the Guardian was typified by the following extracts - all from different writers over the course of the year:
The "freedom" to send children to private schools is available only to a tiny percentage of the population. All those who cannot afford the fees have no access to such freedom. In these circumstances, freedom for a minority is a denial of the same freedom for the majority. (G: 10 Feb 97)
The [independent school] sector's unfairness and iniquity have been overlooked in this [General Election] campaign (G: 3 Apr 97)
...public education has been undermined by the flight into private schools (Guardian leader shortly before polling day; G: 29 Apr 97)
These schools cream off an elite which would be much better occupied giving stimulus to other schools. The state sector is deprived of a vociferous middle class that would otherwise press for increased educational efficiency at national level as well as in the schools themselves. (G: 12 May 97)
People send their kids to private schools not simply because of smaller class sizes but because they give access to an Establishment group denied to those who attend comprehensives. (G 21 Aug 97)
The Government could change the culture by making it clear that it disapproved of parents opting for the private sector. Many Laboursupporting parents already go private, even though they know it is to the detriment of the state system. Some would be deterred by VAT on school fees, still more by a hypothecated 50% top rate of tax earmarked for state education. (G: 15 Sep 97)
By 2001 voices similar to these could still be heard in the newspaper:
...a school system that permits a large minority to buy their children a better chance of getting the results we all hope for is a hideous blot on a society that claims to be modern...Whatever its supporters say about choice and all the rest of it, the beginning and end of this issue is that a two-tier system isn't fair. It is obvious that kid X should not be better educated than kid Y just because his parents are richer. (G 13 Feb 2001)
But by this time these voices are heard much less frequently. And they are balanced by a new voice in the debate - that of anguished middle class professionals deciding to compromise their ideals for the sake of their children. The same issue of the Guardian that included the extract quoted above also included a story about Julian Johnson, a university lecturer with a clever 8-year old at a state primary:
Johnson wanted his son to skip a year. "He was streets ahead, and was the oldest in his class. The head felt it would set a precedent, and refused ...I always said we'd never send our children to private school. But in the end we had no choice." Ben is now at a £2,200-per-term school, 13 miles from home, where they agreed to accelerate him a year. "He's much livelier and more confident - everything an eight-year-old should be. We've got our child back," says Johnson. (G: 13 Feb 2001)
And, later that year, the Guardian also published the league tables for independent school for both A-level and GCSE - presumably to satisfy a perceived demand from at least some of its readers.
In 2006, there were still Guardian writers expounding the Left's traditional principled opposition to independent schools - for example Fiona Millar, one of the paper's chief commentators on education:
Independent schools...disadvantage the wider community. They are socially divisive, cream off motivated pupils and parents from their local state schools, and are mostly academically selective. (G: 24 Jun 06)
But overall, it was now much easier to find the voices of those who, albeit reluctantly, have taken the independent route for their own children. A good example is a lengthy feature published in March 2006 about "panicked parents" in London unable to find places for their children in the state schools of their choice:
"We will have to send her to a private school, which we can't really afford. Ideologically, we're not particularly happy about taking the private route, but we feel we've been left with no choice in the state sector."
"All comprehensives would be much better if certain children weren't creamed off to study at private schools. But we don't live in a Stalinist state and people need to have choices."
"We heard last week that we got offered our fourth choice for a state school and offers at all the private schools. We've decided to go private, to a school that we can't really afford."
"Society is already dividing us up into the people who go to private school and get a first-class education and people who go through the state system where it's pot luck." (All from G: 14 Mar 06)
While none of these quotes constitutes a ringing endorsement of the independent sector, they illustrate very well how the tone of the Guardian's coverage has become increasingly ambivalent in this area. By the same token, it is notable that Guardian readers are now being provided with a wider range of evidence than has traditionally been the case in the debate on independent versus state schools within the Left.
Here, for example, is the economist and Guardian columnist Gavyn Davies:
David Jesson of York University, one of the UK's most respected education economists, has followed the progress of the brightest 5% of secondary school pupils from 1999 to 2004. He finds very strong evidence that the brightest pupils do far better in independent schools than in the state sector. (G: 23 Feb 06)
Davies goes on to argue that the answer is not to return to selection but to find ways to improve the chances of the brightest children within the comprehensive system, but the publication of the evidence seems to reflect an increasing open-mindedness by the newspaper on this issue. A similar attitude can be seen in a Guardian leader column which roundly rejects the traditional left-wing tendency to place all the blame for social division in the UK on the existence of independent schools:
Research suggests that the main driver of social segregation in England is not private schools but the uneven distribution of children within the state sector. Better-off children go to the betteroff state schools. (G: 1 Mar 06)
It should be said that these extracts reflect only the paper's main high-level coverage of the core policy issues. There are many other passing references to independent schools in the Guardian and these tend to demonstrate that, away from the policy areas of the newspaper, its traditionally negative attitudes remain entrenched, albeit frequently expressed with the paper's trademark irony - as in this gardening tip on the best way to get rid of snails:
I have the perfect ethical way to dispose of them. I simply lob them into the grounds of the private school that backs on to my house. The snails probably survive the short flight and I have done my bit in the class war.
The Times
As a newspaper on the right of the political spectrum and with strong establishment links, The Times might be expected to be a doughty defender of independent schools. But until quite recently, the newspaper was lukewarm in its support for private education, which it tended to equate with "elitism" - using the word in its pejorative sense. In recent years, however, its support has strengthened and its pages are now regularly used to make the intellectual case for independent schooling.
In the 1997 election, when the Murdoch press supported New Labour, the newspaper took a fairly Olympian view of Labour's promise to abolish assisted places, expressing only the mildest opposition:
The private sphere would become the preserve of the rich. It is hard to reconcile that outcome with the admirable objectives for education that Mr Blair and Mr Blunkett have outlined. (T: 25 Apr 97)
With Blair and Blunkett in office, The Times' attitude towards the independent sector remained no more than lukewarm - witness this leader from November 1997:
The lack of understanding between young people of different backgrounds is exaggerated by their physical separation. A child at a private school, who is driven everywhere and lives in an expensive house, may rarely come across a contemporary from a working-class family. A little more social mixing might break down the hostility. (T:27 Nov 1997)
True, it did occasionally run more robust leader page pieces such as this one in March 1997 from the philosopher Roger Scruton
...elites are the friends of education. The public schools were the model for the grammar schools, and their pursuit of learning for its own sake. In other words, not child-centred, but subject-centred learning has played a part in ensuring that our country has been governed, until now, by a genuinely educated class. The state sector was successful so long as it tried to emulate the private sector, modelling curriculum, ethos and discipline on the standards set by the private schools. (T: 15 Mar 97)
However, more typical was The Times' tacit acceptance of the belief that independent schools are inherently anti-meritocratic. Witness its career advice for those seeking jobs as shopkeepers:
What kind of background can lead to success in retailing? This is clearly one career option, unlike the City or the professions, which is not heavily skewed in favour of public schools or Oxbridge, but rather more state schools, redbrick universities, business schools and meritocratic selection process. (T: 11 Aug 97)
This approach did not alter much over the next five years. In 2001 the newspaper reported:
The old boy network still thrives in the Diplomatic Service, with the
number of recruits from Oxbridge and independent schools rising
sharply last year. (T: 3 Apr 01)
The unthinking assumption behind this report - that the choice of recruits inevitably reflected nepotism (the "old boy network") rather than, possibly, merit - was fairly typical of The Times' general approach of equating success by independent school pupils with "elitism" (and not in the sense used by Roger Scruton):
Only 7 percent of our children go to private schools, yet they take
about half of Oxbridge places and make up to 35 percent of "straight A" students. Clearly, elitism starts young. (T: 1 Mar 01)
Five years on, and The Times was still equating independent school success with the boo-word "elitist":
The Diplomatic Service, which still has a reputation as an elitist,
public-school stronghold... (T: 16 Jan 06)
However, countervailing voices were now much more likely to be heard, such as the former Times editor, now columnist, William Rees-Mogg:
The major reason that the private sector does so much better in
winning university places is not simply that it is better funded - not
all private schools are wealthy. What is important is that schools in
the independent sector have to meet the requirements of parents
15 who choose to spend their money on education. Independence is of the essence. (T: 23 Jan 06)
Tony Halpin, then education editor of The Times, was another voice making the case for independent schools:
It isn't only bright children who gain - independent schools excel at
getting average pupils to overperform... Plenty of children in
comprehensives would do just as well with the same attention -
which, sadly, they never get.
And Peter Riddell, the newspaper's distinguished political commentator, has welcomed the involvement of independent schools in the state sector:
...this expansion [of academies] is also part of a breakdown of
demarcation lines between the private and state sectors. Successful
independent schools, such as Dulwich College and Wellington College, are amongst two dozen either sponsoring or supporting academies. There is great potential here. (T: 1 Dec 06).
Daily Telegraph
The Daily Telegraph has never wavered in its robust support for the
principle of academic selection in education, whether state or independent. Its recently retired education editor, John Clare, invented school league tables. In the ten years under examination the newspaper has consistently promoted a strongly traditional educational agenda based on selection, discipline, intellectual rigour and high academic standards. It is deeply suspicious of anything that smacks of the educationally progressive. Its support for independent schools is strong - but by no means uncritical.
The general tenor can be gauged from the headline and introduction to a feature article from January 2001:
How Oliver learnt to love exams: To her surprise and relief,
Cassandra Jardine's son found new self-confidence through sitting
exams for selective independent schools. (DT: 31 Jan 01)
Or this, from December 2006:
The story of private education is such a triumph that, in any other
sphere, its guardians would never be out of Number 10, collecting
gongs....So great is the success of these schools that some (including mine, I am proud to report) have established "franchises" overseas. This is one British export that does work...So let the cry go up throughout the kingdom: hurrah for private education, and the many benefits it brings us all. (DT: 9 Dec 06)
Not all the coverage is quite so uncritically gung-ho. John Clare ran an advice column for parents in which he frequently advised them to weigh up coolly the benefits on both sides before making the choice between state and independent. One mother who asked if her child would receive a better education in one or other of two named primary schools in London - one independent, the other Church of England, was told:
It is quite wrong to believe that doing the best for your child
necessarily means sending him to an independent school. Children of all abilities flourish in good schools, state or independent....I do not think the difference between the two [named schools] is such to
warrant a significant financial sacrifice, especially if that were to
leave you with less time and energy to give your son the support he
needs at home...As for whether the outcome of the two systems
would be so different, the answer must be yes. Independent schools
are overwhelmingly middle class in culture and tone. Is that what you
want for your son? Or would he - and you - be happier in a more
inclusive environment? (DT: 19 May 01)
And the Daily Telegraph could sometimes be outspokenly critical of
independent schools if they failed to follow the newspaper's line on - for example - drugs:
Glaring examples can still be found, especially in the independent
sector, of heads of prestigious schools choosing to ignore the drugs
issue. (DT: 7 Mar 01)
But on the whole, there are few firmer friends of the independent sector in the media than the Daily Telegraph.
Daily Mail
The Daily Mail is another wholehearted media supporter of independent schools. Indeed, until very recently, it was almost impossible to find even the faintest breath of scepticism in the newspaper's coverage of the sector.
It consistently holds up independent schools as models of efficiency, high standards and consumer-responsiveness, by comparison with which the state school come a very poor second, and from which the state sector has much to learn:
I have two daughters - Beth, ten, and Charlotte, five. Both are bright
but wouldn't be earmarked as outstanding. Yet Beth is already two
years ahead of her age group in most subjects. Charlotte, who is at
the bottom of her age year-group because her birthday is in July, is
beginning to read simple books fluently and has the language skills of a seven-year-old. Am I a remarkable parent? No. It is simply that my husband and I send them to private school. (DM: 14 Sept 98)
Teaching methods in independent schools are up-to-date, rather than trendy, or social engineering projects. The time has come for the state system to have the humility to recognise that it has much to learn from the independent sector. (DM: 29 Sep 98)
Private schools perform well because they compete for pupils and
fees. They set out to give convincing value by watching costs and
achieving effective results - not just academically but overall, which
leads to satisfied parents recommending them to friends. (DM 16 Feb 01)
In a competitive market, head teachers know they must constantly
deliver excellence if parents are to continue investing their trust and
money in independent schools. All the evidence suggests schools are
living up to expectations. (DM: 14 Mar 01)
Although it went against all our principles to even consider the local
prep school, we decided to have a look at it. The first thing that
struck us was the attitude of the staff - they were so positive and
energetic. I also noticed how well-behaved the children were. For
example, they all stood up when we entered the room. When our
children went for a day, they really enjoyed it. The teachers seem to
genuinely care about them achieving their potential, not just
academically, but in music, sport and performing on the stage. (DM:
15 Nov 01)
...the evidence shows that a pound spent in a typical private school
delivers more education than a pound spent in the state sector.
Simply put, private schools are more efficiently run, are more costeffective and deliver better value for money. (DM: 23 Mar 06)
One of the most frequently appearing characters in the Daily Mail's
repertory company of stock figures from Middle England is the conscientious parent making real financial sacrifices in order to pay school fees:
I'm lucky we can, just, afford to send our children to a private school.
But we don't have foreign holidays, we run two old cars and we get
family help, too. (DM: 15 Sep 98)
Parents who might have felt a twinge of guilt at ‘going private' now
feel they are simply buying the best standards available in a national education system...Many of those with children in independent schools are ‘first generation' customers. Where once public schools were seen as bastions of privilege for the rich, today they are just as likely to educate the sons and daughters of families who often have to make considerable sacrifices to pay the fees. (DM: 6 Mar 01)
We have sacrificed some of life's luxuries such as expensive holidays and new clothes to have a big family. Our major expense is education - all our children are at private schools - but we believe that is an important part of their traditional upbringing. With only one breadwinner in the family, we can't afford to buy endless expensive toys and computers for our children. (DM: 12 Apr 01)
The school fees meant my wife Jan and I were forced to sell our
house in London, and then another in the country, sacrificed holidays
and a great many other things - and all because we felt the greatest
gift we could give our children was a good education. (DM: 26 Apr 01)
I need to keep working because we want to be able to afford to send
the children to private school when they're older. It takes a lot of
juggling, but it's definitely worth it. (DM: 8 Sep 01)
I drive an old banger and can't afford holidays - but I'd still rather
spend £80,000 a year educating my children rather than put them
in state school. (DM: 7 Sep 06)
However, although Daily Mail writers have nothing but praise for the purely educational aspects of independent schools, it is beginning to be a different story where the financial aspects are concerned. Towards the end of 2006, the newspaper, as we shall see later, began to voice strident protests against the high level of school fees.
Sun
The Sun is in favour of independent schools in principle. However its support cannot be taken for granted. Its primary loyalty is to its own readers, very few of whom send their children to fee-paying schools. In any conflict between the interests of independent schools and the interests of its readers, the Sun will always back its own readers.
For example, in 1997 a serving officer, Major Eric Joyce, wrote a pamphlet for the Fabian Society saying that the senior ranks of the armed forces were over-populated with the products of independent schools. The Sun is not famous for its admiration of Fabian ideals but it had no hesitation in deciding to back Major Joyce. Under the headline Us and them its leaderwriter proclaimed:
The Armed Forces are run by public school boys.
That is the charge by Major Eric Joyce.
He says that not one of the Army's top 50 officers went to a State
school.
It means the Services are out of touch with the values of the society
they protect, he says.
Defence Secretary George Robertson (educated: Dunoon Grammar
School) should investigate immediately. The one war our forces should not be fighting is the class war. (S: 5 Aug 97)
Following the same logic, in 2001 the Sun reacted unfavourably to moves by some independent schools to drop AS-levels, arguing that this might "work against Sun readers' kids":
Splitting A-level exams in two was done with good intentions.
It would be a tragedy if it resulted in a two-tier system that worked
against Sun readers' kids. If private schools reject the new exams and go for elite types of exam, then State pupils will be at a disadvantage. Universities and employers will opt for private "elite" passes, believing them to be better. (S: 18 Apr 01)
The traditional Sun starting point for any consideration of independent schools is that those who use them are "toffs". A headline such as: Toff boy gets boot over beer rampage (S: 16 Jan 97) translates into a story about a public school pupil expelled for fighting in a pub. Ten years on: Jolly violent hockey sticks for toff girls (S: 27 Jan 06) signals a story about an argument between girls from an independent school during a hockey match with girls from a comprehensive. And when, following that Fabian pamphlet
from Major Joyce, plans were announced to recruit more officers from state school backgrounds, the Sun gleefully reported the story under the headline: Army KO for toff brass (S: 14 Nov 97).
However, in recent years the Sun's coverage has begun to include
references to non-toffs who send their children to fee-paying schools:
Brown says he will match private school spending per pupil. Why does he suppose so many working-class parents bankrupt themselves to go private? It's because Labour have failed to fulfil their grand promises. (S: 23 Mar 06)
Most working people I know...want to improve their lives, they want
to own their own houses, send their kids to good or private schools...
(S: 28 Nov 06)
Whether or not this means that the Sun will abandon its toff stereotype for those who attend independent schools remains to be seen.
BBC news website
The BBC news website covers a wide range of education issues
concentrating, for obvious reasons, on the state sector. Its reporting of the independent sector shows no obvious partisan bias. The reporting tends towards the utilitarian. The most interesting material is the weekly analyses of current education issues written by the BBC's highly-respected education correspondent, Mike Baker. His cool and even-handed approach provides a welcome respite from the occasionally polemical tone adopted by some of his newspaper colleagues. His style can be gauged from this extract from his
online column in May 2006, a thoughtful analysis of the current state of the independent sector:
As well as cutting costs, some in the independent sector have argued
that it should make itself more indispensable to the state as a way of ensuring its future. There has been growth in, for example, the
sharing of facilities. There is potential for greater sharing of staff and
expertise. Yet most of the suggestions for greater cooperation involve the independent sector taking in the brightest state school pupils. The real breakthrough might come if the independent sector started to look at what it might offer to pupils with special needs or to those who are, for other reasons, disengaged from the state system. Then the government might find it indispensable and the private sector could start to find a new role if, or perhaps when, times start to get tougher. (BBC: 12 May 2006)
Analysis
2) The image of independent education
This section examines the image of independent education over the ten years under examination, as evidenced in the sampled coverage.
"Image" is quite a hard thing to pin down. There are very few articles in the coverage sampled which consciously set out to describe the writer's overall image of independent schools and those who have attended them. But the sample does include very many articles which - in a throwaway remark or in the choice of a metaphor - powerfully suggest the writers' stance. Often these articles are not primarily about independent schools, but about fashion, or sport, or the arts, or any number of other subjects.
What emerges from these sometimes oblique and glancing mentions is a series of narratives that embody widely-held, although frequently unexamined, beliefs about the independent sector. Some of these narratives are positive, some negative. The important thing about such narratives is that - perhaps because they remain unexamined - they are very long-lasting. Once such narratives have taken root, they are difficult to modify - although, as we shall see, not impossible.
2.1 The "public school" narrative
For some time, fee-paying schools have referred to themselves collectively as "independent schools". However, the older term "public schools" is still widely used as a synonym for "independent schools". This is a problem for the sector, because in common usage "public school" is in danger of becoming a term of mild abuse - and widely used as such in the newspapers sampled in this study.
There are exceptions - the sports pages of newspapers, for example, usually use the term in a neutral sense, perhaps because the writers also report on events such as the Public Schools Fencing Championships and are aware of its original meaning. And many other examples could be cited where the term is used without any pejorative intent. But close analysis reveals that surprisingly often the descriptor "public school" as used in the press carries a derogatory connotation. The narrative it embodies is of a white male, the product of inherited wealth and self-perpetuating privilege, possessing mediocre levels of intelligence, a repressed and sexually arrested personality, a tendency to loutishness, an instantly identifiable "posh" accent and the clothes that go with it, a childlike fondness for nursery food, and an irrepressible urge to shout yah-boo at parliamentary opponents. In short it embodies the character invented by the comedian Harry Enfield and known as Tim Nice-But-Dim (who it will be remembered, joined the Labour Party because Tony Blair "went to a bloody good public school").
To illustrate this, here are some examples of the narrative unfolding over ten years of coverage in a single title, The Times:
The judiciary...the higher grades of the civil service...publishing, the
City - all tend to be dominated by a largely self-perpetuating public school, Oxbridge-educated oligarchy. Like the members of a caste,
these people recognise their own and instinctively are drawn to one
another. (24 Apr 97)
The public school tones of Mr Chalk's "hip hip hoorays" (29 Apr 97)
Jack Straw, the new minister, has announced ... that one of his
recreations is "cooking puddings". Satisfyingly public school puds,
too. "He likes to make meringues, treacle tarts, roly-poly and spotted dick," explains his secretary. (7 May 97)
Less than 30 seconds into the conversation, Geoff [a young City
dealer] is swearing loudly enough to startle a couple at the next
table. The public school accent seems grossly at odds with the vile
vocabulary and casual fluency with which his insults are delivered.
(10 Jul 97)
At most public schools, the food is still so abysmal, that the clubs of
St James's can sigh with relief that their future members will not be
too demanding of the kitchen. (8 Aug 97)
Perhaps because of their public school backgrounds, Tories are
better than Labour at general growling, hooting and yobbery. (Times
parliamentary sketch: 31 Jul 97)
At times he [Stephen Fry] is brilliant, such as when he describes the
sort of men who staff public-school PE departments: "absurd
Loughborough-educated imbeciles calling everyone 'lads'...these
barely literate pithecanthropoids in their triple-A T-shirts, with their
pathetically function-rich stopwatches round their thick, thick necks."
11 Oct 97)
Many MPs seem to suffer a sort of hangover from their boyhoods,
when the public school uniform was so expensive that their parents
would buy them only one pair of casual trousers. Belts, shoes, even
shirts, had to "carry over" and they have continued this policy ever
since. (22 Oct 97)
...speaks with a clipped public school accent... (22 Oct 97)
Major Eric Joyce, a serving officer who accused the Army of being
class-ridden and run by a "posh" public school-educated elite. (14
Nov 97)
Mr Blair (fee-paying Fettes College, Edinburgh, and St John's, Oxford) was seen as an ordinary chap who went to a good comprehensive and a redbrick university. Mr Hague (Wath-upon-Dearne comprehensive, Yorkshire, and Magdalen, Oxford) was considered to be a "merchant banker type" who went to public school and had lots of posh and rich friends. They thought that Mr Blair would enjoy a pint of beer in the pub, and Mr Hague would guzzle champagne, gin and tonic or spritzers. (Report on focus group findings. 27 Nov 97)
"If there is anything about health, whenever you mention breasts or
pregnancy, they giggle. They can't help it...it must be the public
school they went to." (Jane Griffiths, newly-elected Labour MP,
describing male Conservative MPs. 10 Dec 97)
"Judges are afraid of their emotions, which often have not been fully
developed anyway as they went to public schools which taught them
to suppress their emotions as something weak." (TV playwright,
G.F.Newman, creator of Judge John Deed. 8 Jan 01)
British "satire" seems to consist almost exclusively of the privileged sneering at the vast majority of their compatriots who lack a public school/Oxbridge veneer of culture. (Letter to The Times: 24 Jan 01)
Last month the Sunday Express reported confidently that he [BBC
Today presenter Edward Stourton] was going to be dropped because
his voice (public school and Oxbridge) was too posh. (2 Feb 01)
The Cornish resort of Rock is fighting back against public school
"snob yobs" whose antics have outraged both residents and other
visitors. (9 Feb 01)
"It's not that we have anything against women," he added hastily.
"It's just that we like to recruit people like ourselves: you know,
public school, Oxbridge types." (11 Apr 01)
The superficial smoothness and geniality that people who haven't
been to public school sometimes envy is a product of this. Public school people...are not, in a deep sense, social creatures. They can
work brilliantly as a team but they don't really get on (26 Apr 01)
The bristling air of public school repression that wafts from
Conservative Central Office...(26 May 01)
We had to deal with public school, overprivileged, young gentlemen
(30 May 01)
Paxman's once incisive questioning has given way to a minor public
school lower-sixth jeer. (11 Jun 01)
Personally, I see little wrong with hard grafting entrepreneurs in
developing countries being given the chance to fleece foolishly overfunded
public school leavers of their fathers' seldomly hard-earned
money. (6 Aug 01)
There's a lot more to him than public-school arrogance and floppy
hair. (Profile of actor Jack Davenport. 1 Sep 01).
...public-school loutishness of the grossest kind... (31 Oct 01)
Douglas Hogg, an awkward, chippy chap whose accent speaks more
of public school and the Criminal Bar... (Times parliamentary sketch.
19 Dec 01).
The Diplomatic Service, which still has a reputation as an elitist,
public-school stronghold. (T: 16 Jan 06)
There's a sparkiness; something that makes them driven, charismatic, and confident. They don't come out as public-school types; they come out as individuals (18 Feb 06)
The directory should help to dispel the myth that you need to be
white, middle class, public school to be a lawyer because people
will see what black and Asian lawyers are achieving. (21 Feb 06)
One cadet, from a public school, is given a light-hearted dressing
down about his work ethic. "Bit thick," the officer mutters under his
breath as he walks away. (2 Mar 06)
Is there anything new to say about public schools? Some great books have been written about them, [portraying] these revered, elitist institutions as hotbeds of bullying, buggery and snobbery. (11 Mar 06)
The British obsession [with school uniform] can be put down to our
educational class ravine, a public school system that still holds the
state sector in wistful thrall. (8 Jul 06)
For those with money, the big draw is Rock and Padstow across the
Camel estuary, where the Chelsea set and their public school
children can bump into Hugh Grant and Jemima Khan, learn to sail,
drink at the Mariners pub and pay more than £2 million for a holiday
home. (18 Aug 06)
The British are happiest when they are up against it, when they are
thrown into each other's company, when there is a dash of
regimentation and low-level inconvenience to chafe against. Public
school boys get misty-eyed about cold dorms and canes. (22 Aug
06)
These are "hot-blooded young Englishmen" according to the tutors.
Really? To me, they seemed like the worst by-products of the public
school system. (29 Sep 06)
When I was young, the public-school duffer quotient in MI6 was a
noticeable feature. (T: 11 Nov 06)
Most of the top asset managers are English. They are highly educated toffs...brought up with the public school ethos of global and imperial service - and well versed in the art of grovelling. (12 Dec 06)
As we have seen earlier, The Times' editorial line on independent schools has moved from lukewarm to strong support over the last ten years. But it appears that, away from the leader pages, it is going to take some time before many of those who write for the newspaper can be persuaded to abandon their devotion to the wearily clichéd "public school" narrative4.
2.2 The "independent school" narrative
The good news for the sector is that fee-paying schools have been successful in creating a competing positive narrative to set against the negative public school narrative. In this "independent school" narrative, the representative is no longer Tim Nice-But-Dim but the England and Chelsea midfielder Frank Lampard, who went to an independent school, is flourishing in a highly competitive industry where talent, not old boy networks, count; and is planning to educate his own children privately:
When he started playing Sunday football with kids who hadn't been to private school there was a bit of teasing. "I felt a bit socially out of it," but, he says, "I will send my children to private school. It helped me to get good grades and good manners." (T: 29 Apr 2006).
By the same token it is now perfectly acceptable for pop singers to come out as products of independent schools, and taken for granted that successful entertainers (Madonna, for example) will send their children to independent schools of the most traditional stripe. The novelist Jeanette Winterton (a "Northern working class girl not encouraged to be clever" according to her website) is reported to be paying her goddaughter's school fees:
Private school fees for Eleanor are money well spent, she says: "The
local state schools are not great, and she's very bright and needs to
have a lot going on. Both of them adore school; I just think that's
worth a lot." (T: 22 Jun 06)
Winterton's views are widespread according to the regular polls showing that many parents would send their children to independent schools if they could:
More than 50 per cent of parents would have their children educated
privately if they could afford it, a survey suggests. They are being put off state education by "whingeing" teachers and believe standards are much higher in the independent sector. Smaller class sizes as well as better discipline and facilities are also key attractions, a Mori survey of almost 2,000 parents found. (DM: 21 Oct 2001)
The "independent school" narrative stresses not privilege but high academic standards, strongly motivated staff, and good extra-curricular provision. It highlights parents who use independent schools but demonstrably do not fit the stereotype of inherited wealth and City bonuses:
Parents from council estates and high-rise flats in deprived areas are
among those saving or relying on bursaries to secure places. The
report found that almost ten per cent of parents who educate
children privately are from low-income areas. (DM: 22 Mar 2006)
Even the traditional narrative of appalling public school food is being
countered. When the government announced a "healthy eating initiative for school tuck shops," The Times was able to report that:
Independent schools will not be obliged to comply with the new
regulations, but most have been ahead of the curve on healthy eating, thanks to parental pressure and a professional concern for good health. The tuck shop at Rugby School, for instance, is called The Stodge, but a recent inspection noted that it also promoted healthy options. (T: 3 Mar 2006)
And as to the "public-school accent" there are frequent references (many regretful) to young people from good schools adopting "Mockney" or Estuary English. As the Daily Mail pointed out, Tony Blair himself has shown the way here:
When he is required to appear on TV - particularly downmarket ITV - his crisp, public school consonants are replaced by Estuarian glottal stops. (DM: 8 May 2001)
2.3 The "confidence" narrative
Media coverage of independent schools tends to take excellent examination results for granted. These are seen as reflecting the fact that these schools are very well-resourced, with small classes taught in a disciplined atmosphere highly conducive to learning. However, an analysis of the coverage shows the remarkable extent to which building pupil confidence is also widely perceived as one of the outcomes of independent schooling. It is seen as something that independent schools are uniquely good at - and one of the key qualities that makes independent schools different from their state equivalents.
We have already seen how this ability was singled out by two of Tony Blair's education secretaries, David Blunkett and Alan Johnson, to differentiate outcomes in independent schools from those in state schools. In 1997 Blunkett said that independent schools: "built up confidence, and even youngsters that weren't academically very bright they gave a belief in themselves. That's a trait we've got to build up in our state school system as well." And in 2006, Johnson spoke of independent schools: "building social skills, confidence and team-working", it was, he said, one of the reasons why the independent sector "gets such good results." These beliefs are widely shared:
All of these children come across as terribly confident and eloquent, so it is perhaps no surprise to discover that most of them attend feepaying schools. (T: 9 Jun 2006)
Ben has the confidence that comes from a public school education. (T: 20 Dec 06)
At first glance, the advantages of a private school education are obvious: first-class facilities, small class sizes, and extra-curricular activities galore, for example. But it is the self-confidence and connections such establishments imbue that can, crucially, ensure parents get value for the school fees long after their kids have turned (BBC: 19 Jun 06)
Dunstone, like many entrepreneurs, has been helped by the
confidence and contacts given by his public school background.
(DM: 30 Aug (30 Aug 01)
Very English, very blond, broad shoulders, public school posh,
effortlessly confident, cracking sportsman, all-round decent cove.
(Profile of the novelist Sebastian Faulks. G: 23 Apr 01)
He combines a joviality and supreme self-confidence that, some might say, goes with the territory of public school and Oxbridge education. (Profile of Charles Clarke MP. G: 8 Jan 01)
It [a state school] has the feel and confidence of a good public
school. (G: 23 Oct 01)
When I was 16 I moved from the comprehensive in Marlborough to the public school...It made me feel much more confident about myself and life in general.(G: 21 Nov 06)
Ask these confident, articulate children what they like best about the school [an independent prep] and a consensus rapidly emerges. "The teaching is really good," they say. "And it's a sporty school." It is also an exceptionally happy one. (DT 29 Sep 01)
The crucial difference between the two men is that one was a pushy grammar school boy, the other has a relaxed public school selfassurance. (DT: 28 Jun 01)
All this relaxed public school self-assurance can have unexpected results. When an opinion survey of the gay community suggested that those who had attended independent schools were twice as likely to be gay as their stateeducated peers, The Times explained the finding as reflecting the greater self-confidence of the privately-educated:
The picture this survey presents is a true picture but we need to be clear what it is a picture of: that increasing number of "out", upfront, self-confident homosexual people who are relaxed enough about their sexuality to discuss it, even flaunt it - and answer questionnaires. That the proportion of respondents who had been to public school was double the national average may tell us more about a link between private education and self-confidence than about sexuality. (T: 17 Nov 01)
The self-confidence produced by independent schools is cited as one of the key factors that explain why many sought-after careers are dominated by people who have been educated privately. When, for example, a survey showed that a very high proportion of well-known journalists had been privately-educated, The Times quoted the views of "leading editors" to the effect that job applicants from independent schools were favoured because they possessed greater self-confidence than their state-educated peers:
Young, independently educated aspiring journalists...are just more confident, knowledgeable and self-sufficient at an earlier age than their state-school counterparts. (T: 20 Jun 06)
And when the authorities at Sandhurst were pressed to explain the
significantly higher pass rate among applicants from independent schools as opposed to state schools, their explanation was "confidence issues". (T: 2 Mar 06)
So it is perhaps not surprising that sometimes journalists come across those who find all this public-school confidence a bit too much to take:
Advice offered to students in freshers' week rarely mentions problems state school students may face mixing with their private school counterparts, yet some identify this as the most stressful aspect of their first year. It can undermine confidence, and cause depression. The voices of those called yahs, rahs and sloanes boom through the stories that state school students tell. Tina Brooks (comprehensive, Northampton) is in her third year at Edinburgh: "I'd blame all the stress I had in the first year on the yahs. They really make their presence felt - in tutorials, in the pubs, everywhere. They speak so loudly, so confidently, that you can't miss them." Joanne Smith (comprehensive, Bolton) found that students on the art history course she started at Bristol three years ago were mainly women who had been to private schools. "In tutorials one or two would take over the discussion. I didn't join in. I felt everyone would be gobsmacked by my accent when they were so well-spoken - I wasn't as capable as them. Before I went I was confident academically and I had done well at school. It knocked my confidence."
So, the confidence narrative on the whole works strongly to the advantage of the independent sector. But it can backfire if the self-confidence is interpreted as being overbearing or arrogant.
2.4 The "pricing us out of the market" narrative
Everybody understands that fee-paying schools charge fees. And although it has always been clear that school fees will never be cheap, the narrative of school fees in the media has been traditionally been of parents willingly accepting the cost, albeit with a certain rueful fatalism. One of the perennial staples of the personal financial pages of British newspapers has been the article about school-fee planning, re-cycled year after year without much change - until recently.
But now this narrative has begun to undergo a marked shift. A long period of above-inflation fee-rises is taking its toll. The school-fees narrative that once went: "They're expensive, but worth it" is mutating into a new narrative that goes: "They're so expensive that we can't afford them - and we're angry about it."
In 1997, the first year of the ten years under examination, it is quite hard to find any coverage at all of complaints about the cost of school fees. There are occasional stories about criminals optimistically citing the burden of school fees in mitigation of their crimes:
Richard Bruce, for the defence, said that she had been driven to her crimes to pay off debts incurred paying school fees for her daughter. (T: 1 Nov 97)
Or there are the school-fee planning articles, usually starting something like:
Independent schools are no longer solely the preserve of the wealthy upper classes. However, private school fees are not cheap. Termly boarding school fees in the last academic year averaged £3,750 per child... (T: 18 Oct 97)
However, the article then makes it clear that there are ways for prudent parents to find these sums through careful financial planning.
Or there is the occasional lifestyle article in which a member of the concerned middle class (in this case Nigella Lawson) shares her qualms about finding the money to pay fees:
I don't want to have to work all the time, never seeing the children, to scrape together the school fees. I would resent that tremendously, on my behalf as well as theirs, and only hope it won't be necessary. And I sometimes wonder whether it follows, too, that parents who make huge sacrifices to stump up the school fees can't help but put so much pressure on their children to achieve, to excel. (T: 12 Mar 97)
But this is as extreme as it gets in 1997. Move on five year to 2001 and a slightly more querulous note begins to enter the narrative:
The lesson for parents such as me is quite clear: go on struggling to pay those school fees for the older two, because a private education remains an enormous privilege; and go on feeling guilty about failing to raise the money to have the younger two properly taught. (DT: 1 Feb 01)
...when Annabella was born we had no idea just how much money it would cost, and we made no measures to budget for school fees beforehand. It was a real shock when we realised how much it would be - £12,000 a year in total, with the cost of uniforms and music lessons on top...(DM: 1 Mar 01)
I've ploughed the price of four average houses into educating my children. So was it worth it? Yes, but only just. (Daily Mail headline 26 Apr 01)
It was Denis Healey who suggested that the secret to the funding of government was to find a way of taxing sex...for many of the middle-classes school fees have now more or less achieved the same effect. (G: 14 Jul 01)
Independent school fees - particularly for boarding schools - have gone up exponentially in the past 50 years. Fewer and fewer middleclass families can afford boarding schools; even day school fees are a struggle for many. (DT: 29 Sep 01)
However, the 2001 narrative is still: "School fees are a struggle, but one we can manage". But by 2006, the narrative undergoes a marked shift: The average you can expect to pay for boarding is between £4,000 and £8,000 per term. Three terms in a year, and three children, and we would be looking at in excess of £50,000. Per annum. Without extras. Our joint incomes simply don't extend to that. (DT: 11 Mar 06)
Help, please, we're the middle class...School fees of £10,000 a year, per child, mean that private education is out of the question for my own family, though I know my daughter would love to go... (T: 20 Mar 06)
£332,656; THE PRICE OF PUTTING A CHILD THROUGH PRIVATE EDUCATION (Daily Mail headline: 19 Apr 06)
The cost of private education continues to rise beyond the means of many potential customers. Although this year saw the lowest increase in average fees for seven years, it was still a whopping 5.7%. That is considerably more than double the rate of inflation. Like house prices, the cost of private education has been rising so fast, and for so long, that it is hard to see how enough parents can continue to afford it out of earned income to sustain current market share. (BBC: 12 May 06)
BORROWING SOARS TO PAY SCHOOL FEES (Daily Mail headline: 9
Aug 06)
SHARP RISE IN SCHOOL FEES (Times headline: 26 Aug 06)
...a word needs to be said about private school fees. They are far too high and, in some cases I'll bet, set by bursars and governors determined to cash in on their school's emerging status as an alternative to the declining state system. The recently revealed price-fixing scandal among top private schools was evidence of this. Many private schools seem incapable of understanding the fact that the middle classes do not privately educate their children any more out of snobbishness or because of advantages offered by "the old school tie", but because they feel they cannot extract a usable education for them from the state system. (DM: 7 Sep 06)
SOARING SCHOOL FEES PUT PRIVATE EDUCATION OUT OF REACH
FOR MANY (Daily Telegraph headline: 9 Oct 06)
RISING FEES PUT PRIVATE EDUCATION OUT OF REACH (Times
headline: 9 Oct 06)
THE PROFESSIONALS WHOSE CHILDREN ARE PRICED OUT OF
PRIVATE SCHOOLING (Daily Mail headline: 9 Oct 06)
I'd love to send them to private school for secondary level, but there's no way we could afford that. My husband was educated privately and he'd love to do that for our children, but the harsh reality is that we just can't afford it. (DM 29 Nov 06)
Of all these extracts, the most significant are those from the Daily Mail - until now, as we have seen, lost in breathless admiration of the independent sector. When the Daily Mail, with its visceral understanding of the pressurepoints on Middle England, decides not only to return to an issue again and again, but begins to apportion blame (those price-fixing bursars and governors), then it is time for those in the sector to accept that the media narrative may be shifting damagingly against them.
The independent sector has done good work in distancing itself from Tim Nice-but-Dim. But if independent schools come to be seen as the preserve of the super-rich, there is a danger that its narrative may be hijacked by that much less attractive Harry Enfield character, Loadsamoney.
John Morrison, Morrison Media Consultants, March 2007
FootnotesFootnotes
1 It should be noted that in two cases it was not possible to use calendar 1997 in the sampling parameters. The Daily Mail is not available in a searchable online form before late 1997. So in this instance the first period sampled is the twelve months from September 1997-October 1998. The archive of the BBC news website does not extend much earlier than the end of 1998, so in this case calendar 1999 has been chosen as the first sampling year.
2 From this point on newspaper references are: T:Times; DT: Daily Telegraph; G: Guardian;
DM: Daily Mail; S: Sun.
3 Brown's personal views on independent schools, however, remain something of an enigma. Many in the independent sector nurse bruises from the Laura Spence affair in 2000, when Brown sharply criticised Oxford University for refusing a place to a well-qualified stateschool applicant. This felt like an echo of Old rather than New Labour and may be a pointer to the future. His promise to increase investment to independent school levels can be interpreted as a threat to independent schools - an attempt to entice into the state sector middle class parents who might be thinking of independent education.
4) It is slightly unfair to single out The Times in this way. Writers on many other newspapers also appear to believe that the adjective "public school" is an infallible route to an easy laugh. The Guardian is particularly prone to this.
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