Unofficial Christ's Hospital Forum

These are essentially full fee payers whose income is needed to assist us to continue to offer needs blind entry to the majority. It represents the future, whether OBs like it or not.

I find it sad that there is no mention of special ability in science. Is this the future?
Maggie

onewestguncopse mentions:

needs blind entry to the majority."

Could he (or anyone else) explain what this meanms, please?

My take is "needs-blind" = regardless of need.

Only guessing, mind you. It's probably a very widely used term in some circles!



You got me curious, foureyes, so I googled it. Sure enough educational establishments all over the place are offering needs-blind admission. I wonder who first came up with that combination? Anyway, surely something like 'means-blind' would be more accurate? (Wouldn't sound any better though..)

He also hopes that Canada will one day achieve an educational system that is "needs blind", where no talented and ambitious student should be denied access to education as a result of financial limitations. When students who have received aid go on to achieve great things, he hopes that they too will "pay it forward" to create an endless cycle of giving.

Taken from the CH Annual Review 2006-07

The Council of Almoners has placed a limit of 6% on the number of pupils whose parents pay full contribution - the current proportion is 2.4%.

It appears to me that what is happening is a mere extension of this decision, presumably, taking it up towards the limit of 6%

The same report says

All parents are means tested and pay a contribution according to the income from the home in which the child resides. 130 families were not asked to pay a parental contribution and a further 25% paid an average contribution of £680

I don't see it as the way we are going but more, a further implementation of an established practice.

Haha, great way to get a bit of extra cash in. Was wondering how they were going to do that? 12 places that say **I don't know the actual figure** pay £20k each a year for 2 years, means that for the 12 Students for the 2 years thats just under £500k,

Wrong, however, true genius. Lets just hope they didn't spend hundreds of thousands paying a company to think of that idea!!

Concerning the 6 percent figure, I believe some research will show that this figure was actually agreed some years ago, but that, having agreed it, it was then always underimplemented, the latest figure, as John says, being just under 3 percent. Thus, what Council has actually done this year is to decide to implement a previous agreement, rather than suddenly raise the limit.

As a matter of interest, my calculation of the figures differs. As I understand it, the all-in cost of one years schooling is around £20K. Thus, if the parents of these pupils are paying the full fees, what they are actually doing is to pay for one place (ie,e for their child), they are not subsidsing anyone else. To subsidise other children they would have to pay MORE than £20K. Perhaps a professional accountant can advise me if I have got this wrong?

As to 'needs-blind' I think that this is a positively misleading bit of educationalists' jargon. It originated in the United States and the authorities there say that it is being used less and less, so it would be as well not to introduce it here.

Foureyes wrote:Concerning the 6 percent figure, I believe some research will show that this figure was actually agreed some years ago, but that, having agreed it, it was then always underimplemented, the latest figure, as John says, being just under 3 percent. Thus, what Council has actually done this year is to decide to implement a previous agreement, rather than suddenly raise the limit.

As a matter of interest, my calculation of the figures differs. As I understand it, the all-in cost of one years schooling is around £20K. Thus, if the parents of these pupils are paying the full fees, what they are actually doing is to pay for one place (ie,e for their child), they are not subsidsing anyone else. To subsidise other children they would have to pay MORE than £20K. Perhaps a professional accountant can advise me if I have got this wrong?

As to 'needs-blind' I think that this is a positively misleading bit of educationalists' jargon. It originated in the United States and the authorities there say that it is being used less and less, so it would be as well not to introduce it here.

There is one other aspect to this that concerns me. It is clear that some houses are refurbished to a higher standard than others. If I were paying 20K, and then found my child was in a lower standard of accomodation that one who was paying nothing, I might feel a little aggrieved! I know this does not apply to GRE and GRW, but in the 1st year of the 6th form it would. Maybe other people are more altrustic than me...

stpandp wrote:
There is one other aspect to this that concerns me. It is clear that some houses are refurbished to a higher standard than others. If I were paying 20K, and then found my child was in a lower standard of accomodation that one who was paying nothing, I might feel a little aggrieved! I know this does not apply to GRE and GRW, but in the 1st year of the 6th form it would. Maybe other people are more altrustic than me...

Why should that be ???

Smacks of elitism to me !

The accomodation issue is a red herring. The decision to redecorate to a different standard was made when the cost of the refurb rose. That decision pre dated by some time the decision to admit a group of new fee paying 6th formers. Interestingly, the quality of our accommodation is better than the majority of full fee paying boarding schools that I have visited so I would be surprised if a parent were upset about that. Full fee paying parents will probably be more demanding but I think that any parent paying for private education, be that 2K or 20K, should expect that their money is better spent than sending the child to a good state school. If not, why bother?

Thanks for the reply onewest.

That does indeed make sense.

For one horrible moment, I had visions of Lord Mandelson of Fops business practises.

(Taxi ????)

I believe that 5 out of the 8 housing blocks were comprehensively (I would say too greatly) refurbished and were essentially gutted. (This includes rooms in the Lav Ends where presuambly the windows are far too high to look out of; there are also no rooms in the houses large enough to accommodate the whole house).

The other 3 blocks were refurbished to a 'lesser standard' but in essence that has meant less messing about with the layout but new carpets, rooms and paint as well as windows that actually close and rewiring etc...

Great Plum wrote:are also no rooms in the houses large enough to accommodate the whole house).

That's just Lamb, dear. Peele and the others do have largish rooms, comprising most of the north half of the house.

In a previous post I said that:...

As a matter of interest, my calculation of the figures differs. As I understand it, the all-in cost of one years schooling is around £20K. Thus, if the parents of these pupils are paying the full fees, what they are actually doing is to pay for one place (ie,e for their child), they are not subsidsing anyone else. To subsidise other children they would have to pay MORE than £20K. Perhaps a professional accountant can advise me if I have got this wrong?

It has been pointed out to me, very politely, that I am wrong , and for the following reasons:
Over 90 percent of CH costs are fixed with respect to student numbers and will not change with the addition of a small percentage of full fee payers; say from 815 to 827. Even food costs will be changed by an imnmeasurably small amount, and there will be no more teachers, no change in electricity bills, etc, etc. Further, they fill space previously unused due to attrition at the GE level. Indeed, taken to an extreme, at the margin only the cost of the Leaving Bible and Prayer Book seem to be identifiable additional costs! It would only be if the increase in students were to be really substantial, say more than 60 or so, that the fixed costs would increase significantly and the "subsidy" would be much less and probably close to zero. Thus in this scheme nearly all of the full fees go to "subsidise" the operation of the school in general and hence decrease the demands on the financially needy.

I accept this from a financial point-of-view, a subject upon which I am no expert (ask my wife!). However, I still have some reservations on the scheme in other respeacts.

I still await someone explaining the meaning of "needs-blind."

Did anyone see th earticle in this Sunday's Times in the development and endowment section? There was a spread on CH saying they had assets of 300m£ of which a fair amount was tied up in property. Don't have the link but just as info...