Are we alone?

[onewestguncopse]

The school is evolving (as it has always evolved) and this time I think that finances will force the school to change more than some will like. No one is arguing that CH will stop offering the vast majority of parents a bursary that is means tested. However, IMHO is less likely that we will be able to offer as many as we did as it simply costs too much. That may change in time when the school is given an injection of new money but in the meantime it needs to pays its bills etc. I hope the Old Blues will accept that the school is still a great school, with committed teachers and an ethos that remains worthy of its charitable status. After all, we are now being copied by all those schools who want to keep their status and now offer means tested bursaries rather than scholarships. This erodes our main selling point somewhat, but it is good news in that many other children will be able to access excellent private education in other schools in the UK.

[Jo]

Is that really how you all feel? It really sadddens me to think that you are becoming so disillusioned with CH that you are losing the pride/respect/admiration you once had in it. I hope I'm wrong and have misinterpreted your posts, but some of you OBs seem really angry with some of the recent goings-on Have I got it wrong, will you always be blue through and through?

I'm more blue now than I've ever been, which considering I hated the place when I left school, isn't very difficult. It's taken me over thirty years to come to terms with it, but I was just beginning to think it had now become all that it really always should have been, and was doing its students a real service.

What disturbs me about these threads is not the change in ethos - times are hard and CH as much as anyone else has to find sometimes painful ways of making ends meet. No, what really bothers me is the way that parents are reporting it's being done - huge increases with little notice, and a complete refusal to negotiate or even discuss things. If that's really how it's happening, then it's arrogant and unfair, and seems utterly cavalier in its contempt for the effect on the children concerned.

I'm starting to reconsider my monthly donation. I may write to the school to express my concern, but I suspect I would just get platitudes in response.

[kerrensimmonds]

Maybe one day you too will receive 'begging letters'.....
When organising a Reunion in 2000 of Hertford Old Blues, I had the experience of telephoning a Hertford Old Blue (not known to me) who is an ordained priest. My purpose was to ask if she would be prepared to take a part in the Service of Thanksgiving, which we were organising in the Parish Church in Hertford. Her husband answered the phone, and when I gave my name and a brief outline of the purpose of my call, I heard him call : 'It's someone from Christ's Hospital, Darling. I expect they are wanting money from you, again'.
Ouch, again!
Old Blues are always going to be at the forefront of pleas for monetary donations, whatever the circumstances.

[Ajarn Philip]

Is that really how you all feel? It really sadddens me to think that you are becoming so disillusioned with CH that you are losing the pride/respect/admiration you once had in it. I hope I'm wrong and have misinterpreted your posts, but some of you OBs seem really angry with some of the recent goings-on Have I got it wrong, will you always be blue through and through?

...I was just beginning to think it had now become all that it really always should have been, and was doing its students a real service.

What disturbs me about these threads is not the change in ethos - times are hard and CH as much as anyone else has to find sometimes painful ways of making ends meet. No, what really bothers me is the way that parents are reporting it's being done - huge increases with little notice, and a complete refusal to negotiate or even discuss things. If that's really how it's happening, then it's arrogant and unfair, and seems utterly cavalier in its contempt for the effect on the children concerned.

I agree entirely with your second paragraph, Jo.

Lonelymom, I can only speak for myself, but I have very positive memories of CH and will always be grateful for the education I received, as well as the many less tangible advantages that only gradually became evident over the years after I left. And there have been so many beneficial developments in the 34 years since. (In the school, not in me...)

But...there is absolutely no way that my parents could have paid any significant amount in fees, it was all they could do to fill my trunk!

I can only go by the information provided here, but if it's accurate I strongly suspect I wouldn't have been able to benefit from CH had circumstances been then as they seem to be now. That thought makes me very cross indeed!

[huggermugger]

I have read these posts with very mixed feelings. I am very sorry that people are having to make very difficult decisions and I hope that solutions can be found in one way or another. However, my experience of CH and the admin/Counting House staff is very different. I have found them very helpful and accommodating. I don't think they do an easy job.

Secondly, I do find a judgemental tone creeping in that I am finding hard to deal with. Looking from the outside, it is extremely easy to assume that everyone else is in a much better position than they really are. I do think that many people at CH make enormous sacrifices to put their children through the school and you can't judge a book by it's cover or a family's income by the presents a child receives. We are often given other people's so-called cast-offs which were often expensive in the first place and I am relatively well dressed because I get a 40% - 65% discount at a well-known high street store. I have been known to turn up at school in a very expensive car because a friend occasionally offers me the use of it. My own car was sold to me by another very generous friend for less than half it's value because she knew my old car was on it's very last legs. My child has been given expensive presents by his father which I may think inappropriate but over which I have no control. (I would like to say more on that subject but this is a public forum). I live in a lovely house but it is shared ownership. What you see isn't always what you get.

Please don't let other people's experiences put you off applying for your child to come to CH. Everyone's experiences are different. There are 850 children at the school and a very small percentage of them use this forum. I don't think we are necessarily representative. I still firmly believe in Ch both as a school and a charitable foundation.

[dinahcat]

I agree entirely with you huggermugger . Things are certainly not what they seem but this cuts both ways. My daughter had a very expensive looking pair of boots from her Grandmother. They cost £20 pounds and were a Christmas present. They look as if they cost far more as they were in a closing down sale . Anyone looking at them might wonder how she had afforded such glamorous foot wear.
On the other hand I do believe that the school has some difficulty with some parents who do not disclose full income by disguising self employment or property or maintenance payments and the like.
The main problem for middle income parents -two who are employed in modest occupations- is the %12 cap on the rent or mortgage allowance and the counting of pension contrubutions as assessable income.
Most people can see the argument that some unscrupulous parents would take on a huge mortgage and then say that they couldn't afford the fees and so a cap discourages this. Unfortunately most of the pupils come from London, Sussex and Essex. It must be impossible to have a mortgage in any of these areas that is only 12% of your wages and rent is the same. That's the south-east for you.I think these parents might be happy if it was raised to 20% . It also seems rather poor not not be allowed to have a pension at all. Maybe they could think about it in the same way as the mortgage and put a cap on it as well.

[Fjgrogan]

Huggermugger, I loved your comments about the car! In the summer of 1956 I made my first visit to Hertford on the Speech Day before I was due to start as a pupil. I arrived in a chauffeur driven Bentley and spent the day with Fives who must have wondered what was going on. In fact my father was the chauffeur. His employer was a member of the Court of Common Council in the City of London and that year he was Chief Commoner, so was an official guest, along with the Lord Mayor and his entourage. Knowing that I had a place at the school (earned entirely on my own merit as an LCC 11+ candidate - no patronage that I am aware of!) he asked my father if I would like to go along. I have amongst my 'family history' papers the correspondence between my father's employer and the headmistress concerning my visit. Dad's employer and his wife were always very generous to us with Christmas presents, weekly cakes etc, but there was always a strong sense that my father was 'in service' and a very low actual wage - hence no difficulty in qualifying on income grounds for admission to CH. The difficulties arose once I was there, particularly over the expense of visiting on Long Saturdays when my parents struggled to raise the train fares for themselves and my younger brother and sister to and from Hertford. Later my grandfather bought a car and lent it to them which helped enormously. So appearances can be deceptive - the child in the chauffeur-driven Bentley was not what she seemed!

[englishangel]

My parents would borrow my uncle's car to visit me as Dad didn't think the ex-GPO van he used for his nursery business (plants not children) would make it from Rye to Hertford.

At the end of one summer term Dad came on his own to collect me (probably Lower sixth thinking about it) and the radiator was cracked. We got home by refilling it with ditch water strained through a sock. We had to stop about every 30 miles to do this. My how we laughed when we finally got home around midnight.

[dinahcat]

Englishangel -how amazing -we had almost exactly the same experience going home from Hertford in an ancient VW Beetle but without the added interest of the sock!

[fra828]

Were you at CH Hertford , Dinahcat?

[englishangel]

We had to strain it as it was full of flora and fauna. 1001 things to do with a fawn ankle sock. Of course you couldn't do it nowadays as there are no ditches beside the M25.

[ailurophile]

Dinahcat wrote:

The main problem for middle income parents -two who are employed in modest occupations- is the %12 cap on the rent or mortgage allowance and the counting of pension contrubutions as assessable income.
Most people can see the argument that some unscrupulous parents would take on a huge mortgage and then say that they couldn't afford the fees and so a cap discourages this. Unfortunately most of the pupils come from London, Sussex and Essex. It must be impossible to have a mortgage in any of these areas that is only 12% of your wages and rent is the same. That's the south-east for you.I think these parents might be happy if it was raised to 20% . It also seems rather poor not not be allowed to have a pension at all. Maybe they could think about it in the same way as the mortgage and put a cap on it as well.

Hear hear - a more realistic allowance for mortgage and pension contributions would help a lot of CH parents. But I would stress again that for middle income families where two parental wages are assessed, the major issue is that this is done with no recognition of the associated cost of living. Huggermugger said "Looking from the outside, it is extremely easy to assume that everyone else is in a much better position than they really are". The assumption that a double income family is automatically twice as well off as a single parent is equally misguided! To draw parallels with Huggermugger's examples, my husband and I are each required to dress smartly for work (sadly no discounts for us, but we have become expert scavengers in charity shops!), and the family car (needed for work) is 16 years old; the running costs are an increasing concern, and heaven only knows how we will afford to replace the old banger when it finally bites the dust (Huggermugger, I envy you your generous friends!). We have a substantial mortgage on a very ordinary home which is becoming less lovely as the years go by, since we can no longer afford to maintain it properly. And we are wholly responsible for the costs of bringing up our children, who have no source of expensive gifts from other relatives, appropriate or otherwise! (and who will not qualify for EMA!). Yet by simply looking at our income on paper, CH have decided that we can 'reasonably afford' to spend half of our net income on school fees. The simple fact is that we can't.

I am delighted to hear that Huggermugger has found the admin/ Counting House staff to be helpful and accommodating, and I agree that they don't do an easy job. But I do speak from experience when I say that there is little sympathy shown towards parents who are struggling to pay the assessed fees. I guess we all judge as we find!

[MKM]

Englishangel -how amazing -we had almost exactly the same experience going home from Hertford in an ancient VW Beetle but without the added interest of the sock!

I thought Beetles were air cooled.

I hope you washed the sock well, Mary. I wouldn't have liked to explain a stained sock to SWMNBN. I had my house scarf confiscated once for using it as an oven glove.

[englishangel]

I had probably had the same pair for six years so I don't suppose it was very noticeable. I took size 7s wehn I started, the same as I do today.

[huggermugger]

No-one is disputing that the 12.5% allowance is not enough. I cannot comment on the pension issue because I don't have one and have never been in a position to pay into one, compulsory or otherwise. I did not assume or say that I assumed that 2 parent families are automatically better off than one parent families. I was part of a two parent family for quite some time, by the way - most single parents were and I fully understand the economics.

I see no point in trading hard luck stories or debating whether it is better to be a one or a two parent parent family. I can see that you are angry and you no doubt have legitimate reason to be. But I'm unclear what you want from this forum. Everyone has sympathised but none of us (as far as I am aware) can change your situation. Whether you're aware of it or not, I feel that you are attacking some of the people who are actually on your side.

I repeat that the tone of many emails in this topic and others is increasingly judgemental of other people, their spending habits, their lifestyle choices, their marital status, even of their accents, their income or their class. (I don't mean of me, by the way - I can stand up for myself!). These judgments seem to be based purely on what is observed during brief visits to the school or on what is reported by our children. Both sources are flawed. I have no evidence that anyone is fiddling the system. If anyone else does, I suggest they report this to the Foundation.

I think the system is probably fairly flawed. Almost every system I've ever come across is, because one system cannot cater for all circumstances, and yet to implement any form of system there usually has to be a universal set of rules and lines which are drawn in the sand. If the rules don't work in your favour or you find yourself the wrong side of the lines, it can be a very tough place to be. It seems you and your children are in that position and I am extremely sorry for that.