ISC challenges findings of PEPF bursary report
The Independent Schools Council (ISC) has criticised a new report from the Private Education Policy Forum (PEPF), which claims that England’s wealthiest independent schools spend less than six per cent of their income on means-tested bursaries.
The report gathered data from the annual accounts of 215 schools in membership of The Heads' Conference (HMC), and used 2020 as the baseline year.
Speaking to The Guardian, a spokesperson for the ISC said: “This report takes an unrepresentative sample of independent schools and starts from a baseline of one of the most anomalous years schools have ever seen.
“There is a good conversation to be had – one we are keen to participate in – about bursaries and how independent schools could more effectively target them. Sadly, this research adds absolutely nothing to that conversation.”