John Claughton responds to the findings of our recent Leading People report.

Last month’s Leading People 2016 report showed the dominance still exerted over the commanding heights of our society by pupils from independent schools. So, for example, 74% of High Court judges, 51% of print journalists, 61% of doctors attended independent schools. These figures are always set against the statistic that only 7% of children are educated in the independent sector.

This dominance is too often used as a stick with which to beat independent schools. And it’s not the first time: in 2012 independent schools were all but blamed for winning too many Olympic medals. However, this success is not really a fault, it’s a fact and a fact with clear causality.

There are lots of factors other than connections, the old school tie and the injustice of the class system which contribute to that success. Independent schools may only have 7% of the nation’s pupils, but they do have 12% of the Sixth Form population and very many of those pupils are of outstanding ability. In most cases, you do need money, and lots of it, to get into a highly selective independent school, but money can’t buy you that place: you need talent, too, and lots of it.

Also, our schools do provide lots of advantages – that’s why parents are willing to pay so much. The funding per pupil is much greater than any state school has, so independent schools can provide more, in terms of teaching expertise, range of subjects, class sizes, specialist support and advice, facilities and opportunities. Sport, music, drama, cadet forces, societies and lectures combined with all of those chances to develop ideas, character, confidence, experience and leadership are there in abundance. Independent schools do also provide, through their alumni and university and careers advice an advantage to their pupils as they go into the big wide world.

All of this is what independent schools have to provide and it is what independent school teachers expect to provide as a fundamental part of their jobs. And perhaps their greatest benefit, and particularly in selective independent schools, is the chance to study and live with like-minded souls, others who are clever and ambitious, in a culture where high achievement and high expectations are bred in the bone. Of course, other schools that charge nothing can do some of these things, but it isn’t easy to do all of them when independent schools have anywhere between £11000 and £25000 a year to spend on each pupil and his/her education – and his/her accommodation.

I don’t see how any of this is going to go away, unless a government decides to tell people how they can spend their own money. So, the only way that this undoubted inequality can be addressed is by striving over time to change, not the schools themselves, but the pupils who go to them. In stark terms, it would probably be better for this country if the best schools were filled with the brightest kids, not the richest kids; inner-city children not the scions of oligarchs.

This won’t come easily or quickly but change could come. Indeed, there is one easy and obvious way to make a start – something the Sutton Trust itself constantly pursues –  Open Access, the provision by the state of funds to enable able pupils of all backgrounds to attend independent schools. It’s not complicated: the state could contribute the amount of money they’d pay to a state school and the schools themselves could make up the difference. It’s not even original, since this is merely a variant on the Direct Grant system which is perceived to have been a great engine of social mobility in the 1940s, 1950s, 1960s and 1970s in this country. And it could happen because the best independent schools could find, especially through alumni giving, the funds to make it happen.

Let’s be specific. King Edward’s School has plenty of alumni who might appear in the data that makes up the Leading People report: from Daily Telegraph editor Chris Evans, to Sir Paul Ruddock, Chairman of the V&A. Our alumni also include Lord Willetts, the former higher education minister Andy Street, Chief Executive of John Lewis and Lord Hall, Chairman of the BBC. From the arts, we have, Bill Oddie and the authors Jonathan Coe and Lee Child.

What these and other notable alumni have in common is that none of these ex-pupils of an ‘independent’ school are the children of privilege. Indeed, all of them attended King Edward’s School for free from ordinary backgrounds. Each one of them would say that the school changed their lives and raised their eyes to higher ambition. We shouldn’t find fault with independent schools and their extraordinary qualities and what they do and have done for thousands of pupils. We just need independent schools to keep on doing the same job whilst the classrooms and corridors are filled with different pupils.

John Claughton is Chief Master of King Edward’s School, Birmingham and a member of the Sutton Trust’s Education Advisory Group. For the Trust report, direct grant school alumni who were at school when the direct grant schools were state funded are treated in the same way as state grammar school alumni.

Media enquiries

If you're a journalist with a question about our work, get in touch with Sam or Rocky on the number below. The number is also monitored out of hours.

E: [email protected] T: 0204 536 4642

Keep up to date with the latest news