Levelling up Charlie Minogue, Headmaster of Moor Park in Shropshire, explains the transformative power of bursaries and how we might level up rather than dumb down If a random sample of British adults were to play a game of word association when the chosen words were ‘prep’, ‘independent’ or ‘private school’, the results would be predictable. ‘Posh’, ‘exclusive’ and ‘expensive’ might make an appearance, although so might ‘excellence’, ‘results’ and ‘success’. Placed against these preconceptions of independent education, it is easy to see why some politicians feel the days of independent schools’ charitable status to be numbered. Even as a Headmaster of an independent prep school, I sometimes struggle, morally, to reconcile the opportunities that we can create with the reality for many children across the country, despite the best efforts of so many fellow professionals in maintained schools. Having started my career in the state sector, I only made the switch because I felt I would have the freedom to design an education that worked in the fullest sense and the ability to create something unique and bespoke for every child
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is a joy. The moral tension comes from considering why this is only available for those who can afford it, although surely it can never be right to knock excellence and reduce everything to the lowest common denominator in the quest for equality. The charitable status of most independent schools hides, from some, our need to balance the books. This is particularly challenging in prep schools where the fees are lower and the margins tighter: the preconceptions of wealth held by many are simply incorrect in most cases. Competition between prep schools can be fierce and the need to demonstrate relative strength and quality over rival schools is essential. This need creates a tension between the school as a business and the school as a charity, and it would be easy for Heads and Bursars to prioritise the former at the expense of the latter. Not only would this be morally wrong, it is also a short-term and blinkered course of action and schools, even small
