Unofficial Christ's Hospital Forum

Terry Bate has presented strategies for fund-raising and cost-cutting which could now be addressed.

Anyone thought about generating a bit of media interest on this? 'Charity school turns its back on charity?' Hyperbole of course but might draw the debate onto the open. Responses from the powers that be are frankly anodyne.

I suggest this would be counter-productive, as there are some good conversations still going on.

It's a massive challenge for CH to reduce the number of FFPs,unless there's a massive injection cash, either annually or as a massive lump-sum into the endowment (approx. £100m!).
It's crucial that that the facts of the numbers get out there, so that everyone has a shared understanding of the financial position the school is in, and thus the options to continue to finance educating a good number of "needy" (in current CH terminology....) children....

Avon wrote:Anyone thought about generating a bit of media interest on this? 'Charity school turns its back on charity?' Hyperbole of course but might draw the debate onto the open. Responses from the powers that be are frankly anodyne.

Most unlikely. Christ's Hospital is just part of the 7% that the other 93% can't get their children into - so called charity school or not. And they've all got other things on their mind; such as how to stop this government turning every school into an academy and exercising a Stalinist grip on our education system. Any newspaper story will merely suggest hypocrisy and special pleading from privileged ex-boarders. And they'll be right.

There is a kernel of truth in this comment but we are simply endeavouring to make the very best of Housey in the 21stC based on that great ethos of educating the poor and needy without undue compromise to Mammon.

Perhaps. But do you want to win the point or have a virtuous debate?

A bit of devil's advocacy here. Suppose you were up against a campaign that set itself the modest target of, say, 1500 or so votes. That campaign fails to get 1000 votes. What do you feel about the credibility and impact of that campaign? Would you worry about their bargaining power?

If I was still worried about that campaign, I'd disassemble the issues into my home territory of governance, policy and statistics and away from the noble and more fundamental aims of the petitioners. Sound familiar?

I'd really relax if the petitioners were led by Ancien Regime types whose association with much of the mess the School/Foundation (see how easy it is to blend them?) made their position a little, er, tenuous.

If I bought into signalling theory, I'd throw my weight around with a bit of tokenism, for example I might cancel a day when people could visit the School.

If the campaign fizzled out into 'people meeting people' I'd be ok with that. I have a supply of people I can send to meetings.

Luckily none of that is happening.

So whilst exploiting the media is a little distasteful, it often has the useful property of focussing minds.

We are committed to "winning". Our strategy at this stage is continued constructive discussion with CH management via the Clerk/CEO. Give this a chance via continued support and debating ideas please.

Another bit of focus then. As a data point, the pupil ratios have a beat rate of one per year - in September. So do we expect to see a more acceptable ratio in September 2016 which is already only 5 months away and I daresay some of the pupils are already selected. Or September 2017?

The 1552 Group is pressing Council for answers to such questions. The key will be the 2017-2022 Five-Year Business Plan. Plus the appointment of the new HM (next month?) and their strategy 2017-2027. We are now launching "Phase 2" of this Campaign following a meeting on Friday in Vancouver. We need to maintain our good momentum amongst the over one thousand signatories - for the benefit of future generations of Blues. Never before in the history of Christ's Hospital has there been a thousand Old Blues world-wide in concert on this issue of the ancient ethos.

There's been some great success from the 1552 Petition, and it's definitely opened some dialog with the Counting House and the School.
It's influenced the powers-that-be that there's a shared ideal of reducing FFPs, and we should now have a chance to input effectively into the next Business Plan.
There's also been some clarification around Governance, but it's a bit blurry - something we can hopefully continue to work on and clarify further.

We're also been invited to work with a small group engaging on Communication, hoping to help with improving information coming out of the school, particularly around the clarity of intake and hopefully finances - this will help us all understand the true financial need of the school today, how FFPs plug that gap, and what's needed to move us forward towards FFP reduction.

I'm looking forward to working on this, and we'll keep everyone up-to-date with progress.

Julian

Great news, Julian !!

Now the new headmaster has been appointed, it will be interesting to learn his views on reducing the number of full fee paying pupils. When he was teaching at CH before, it was before the expansion of numbers of FFPs, so I hope he will be committed to reduce the number as funds allow.

Simon Reid the CEO/Head-Designate is effectively an Honorary Old Blue like Richard Poulton who indeed as HM 1986-1996 appointed Simon to the teaching staff 1993-2004. Simon is fully alerted to Campaign/Petition 1552 and it is optimistically anticipated that Simon will be working in concert with Greg Andrews current CEO/Clerk and the Council of Almoners to assemble a Business Plan to reduce the FFP% to under 10% by 2027, perhaps even to 5% FFP. This hoped-for new and robust reforming policy to fully restore the ancient ethos to educate poor and needy children at a time of continuing inequalities needs to be encouraged by the one thousand Old Blue signatories of Petition 1552. Thereby Simon Reid could become a Great Reforming Head as Sir William Hamilton Fyfe HM 1919-1931, a century ago. We all hope most earnestly that Simon will not fail in this Great Challenge.

So... six months later, what news from Mafeking?

What are the ratios in the new intake?

Many thanks. Well the figure seems to be 22% for 2016-7 which is a start. Keith Bowen based in the UK is leading the charge via a small UK 1552 Group. David