Gathering in the eccentric grandeur of a Liverpool hotel where one of the public suites is said to be an exact replica of the first class smoking room on the Titanic might not be thought to be the best of omens for the 2009 annual meeting of the Headmasters’ and Headmistresses’ Conference (HMC).
In fact, however, the heads of 250 top co-educational and boys’ schools met in the best of spirits, having just published a survey showing that numbers in their schools were up by 0.5% in September 2009.
The same survey showed, moreover, that their schools had begun to heed the warnings – from mtmconsulting’s Independent Education Sector Report 2010 and the School Fees Payment Survey amongst others – that fee rises would have to be moderated: HMC fees went up by an average 3.4% this year, compared with 5.9% in September 2008.
Chairman Andrew Grant’s combative and pithy speech on “independence in a responsible democracy” drew much comment from education journalists, especially his call for a more gracious recognition, by the Government and the Charity Commission, of the vital contribution independent schools – and the parents who pay their fees – make to the country at a time when the public purse is empty.
The importance of that contribution was starkly underlined with the publication of a report commissioned by HMC from Prof William Richardson of Exeter University. It showed how dependent Britain’s top universities have become on independent schools for well-prepared students on courses in “strategic, important and vulnerable” subjects like science, engineering, maths and modern languages.
And in a keenly-anticipated coda to the conference, Charity Commission chair Dame Suzi Leather, courageously ventured into the lions’ den to try to calm fears about the public benefit test now faced by charitable independent schools. For her pains, she was first skewered by Manchester Grammar School’s High Master, Christopher Ray, who listed the school’s many charitable activities going back over many years, none of which – without its generous bursary scheme – would have been enough to get it through the test, then openly mocked by members, who found her response less than convincing.
mtmconsulting’s Schools Marketing Consultant, Joe Faulkner said, “the topics explored at this year’s HMC conference seem to have been well received by heads and media alike. The importance of school business strategies and the future of the sector was explored in great length at the mtmconsulting conference 2009, and this week’s discussions have followed on naturally. mtm has been following and monitoring the educational PR that has been published and has been interested in the schools’ research, as it sits well alongside our own schools marketing and education business planning.”
For more information on mtm’s school business, research, and marketing services, please contact us.
