Private school heads are too 'timid' to run academies

Private school heads are too 'timid' to run academies, claims Lord Adonis - Independent schools are too 'timid' to play a bigger role in state education and are failing in their charitable duties, a former schools minister has claimed.

Lord Adonis says he 'deeply regretted' that so few independent schools had taken up his idea of sponsoring academies to help close the private/public education gulf.

He claimed headteachers in independent schools were happy to 'sit and carp' on the sidelines instead of getting involved.

'I do not think the private school sector has risen up to its responsibilities properly at all,' the peer told magazine Attain, for the Independent Association of Prep Schools'

'I think the majority of good private schools should be actively engaged in the opportunities which academies represent.'

Independent schools are run as charities and must show they provide 'public benefit' to maintain their charity status

'They are too timid to rise to the challenge of managing a state school directly. They are far more comfortable with sitting on the sidelines and carping about the problem of standards in state education while not taking any responsibility whatsoever for doing anything about it.'

Lord Adonis claimed independent schools used the 'excuse' that fee-paying parents wanted the focus to be only on running their own school.

Independent schools are run as charities, which gives significant tax advantages but they must show they provide ‘public benefit’ to maintain their charity status.

The peer's comments emerged as a report revealed parents have snubbed Labour’s attempt to give poorer pupils bursaries to top private schools.

Critical: Former Schools Minister Lord Adonis

Just one-third of independent prep schools have seen a ‘reasonable’ level of interest in bursary places from prospective parents - despite legislation forcing schools to offer them.

Private schools say it meant they were forced to waste valuable resources complying with red-tape in a ‘failed bid at social engineering’.

Headmasters believe the measure was a ‘cheap political trick’ and ‘an attack on private schools’.

They want the legislation axed or relaxed so they can be given the freedom to benefit the public in the way they see fit.

David Hansom, of the Independent Association of Prep Schools, said: ‘These results show that the provision of 100 per cent bursaries is nothing more than a box-ticking exercise for the Charity Commission and the demand from parents simply is not there.’

Charity Commission legislation, which came into force in September 2010, set out rules prescribing how schools should make places available to poorer pupils, ushering a shift from scholarships to means-tested bursaries.

It forced many to hire extra staff to deal with the red tape involved in complying as any school failing to meet the requirements risks losing its charitable tax breaks.

And less well-off independents were forced to pass on the cost of bursaries to fee-paying parents, which has in turn made them even further out of reach for many.

A survey by the Independent Schools Council, which represents private schools, shows that just 33 per cent of schools thought interest in their bursaries was good or better.

Russell Hobby, of the National Association of Head Teachers, said it was too early to judge whether the new measures were a success and added that many parents will be put off by the additional costs of sending their children to a private school. ( dailymail.co.uk )