'As with so many independent schools, service and community are core to our mission'

Recently a former pupil asked me to speak in a Cambridge Union debate: This House Would Abolish Private Schools. Scheduled against the semi-finals of The Traitors, it was always going to be a tough gig; at more than one point, I wondered if I’d be banished or murdered by cloaked assassins. Battling against the various accusations (which included responsibility for Donald Trump...?), it might have been all too easy to lose sight of the social good private schools actually do.
 
Back at the Magdalen College School castle, I was brought back to a more positive reality when signing off our latest Partnerships & Sustainability Report, celebrating the rich variety of partnerships and community engagement initiatives underway at MCS – which somehow manage to bring together Old Norse and elephant toothpaste under one joyous umbrella.
 
As with so many independent schools, service and community are core to our mission. Last year, MCS Sixth Form pupils gave 7,500 volunteer hours to helping local primary schools with reading, maths and science, and to running the Community Larder at Rose Hill; while our successful ‘Bridge’ programme (now in its third year) delivered a stimulating Saturday school for high-achieving boys and girls in Year 5, hand-picked by their teachers for their potential. Independent schools all have their own USP, but it is heartening to know we are not unique: there are many similar examples of positive partnerships flourishing across the sector, including those recently shared here by Robert Gordon’s College and King Edward VI School.
 
I often say to our pupils: “You are what you do”. And it was gloriously meaningful to have what we do recognised in an Independent Schools of the Year Award for Social Mobility recently.
 
Others say, “You are what you measure”. I agree with that too, and in recent years, under the pioneering guidance of MCS’ deputy head for education development (who has written on these pages about the importance of impact reporting), we have continued to look carefully at the outcome, not just output, of our partnerships.
 
Through tracking we know, for example, that 100 per cent of primary school pupils reported feeling more confident with their numeracy skills after working with their MCS mentor; and that 100 per cent of their older peers, whom we supported through university applications, felt better prepared. We invite aspiring medics at local schools to join our Medsoc, matching them with doctors, dentists and vet mentors from our alumni, drilling them in mock interviews, and grilling them for the rigours of the UCAT test. We feel enormously proud of the 10 per cent of MCS pupils who secure a place to study medicine each year, and equally celebrate the offers achieved by those at neighbouring schools. A partner school Medsoc pupil recently wrote to update us: “I have received offers from Leeds, Manchester and Birmingham. Thank you all so much for your support during the UCAT preparation, I really couldn’t have done so well without the help of MCS, I am incredibly grateful.”
 
This isn’t nothing. In 2015, the British Medical Association conducted major research into representation in the profession, and found that between 2009 and 2011, half of all schools in the UK did not provide a single applicant to medical school. Additionally, the seven per cent of the UK population educated at independent fee-paying schools made up 22 per cent of medicine and dentistry undergraduates and 51 per cent of the most influential doctors in the profession. Ten years on, and the picture has improved in terms of state school representation, but one third of schools still do not produce any applicants to medical school, and around half have had no successful entrants. If we, as independent schools, can support a pipeline of medical talent - not to mention, help a wider range of young people realise their dream of becoming a doctor – this is a good thing.
 
So, to those who say independent schools are responsible for Donald Trump, or leaking state school roofs, or a charge sheet of other crimes, I say please look again. And rather than arguing about how to abolish us, let us instead stimulate discussion about opening access to schools like MCS (and Robert Gordon’s College, and KES, and many more).
 
All this is our mission. Independent schools can play a positive part in the national provision of education and be a force for social good. This is what inspires the partnerships we have already forged, and which will spur us on to foster new ones. So that all young people, regardless of background, can have the opportunity to access and enjoy the excellence in education we facilitate.