Anonymous private school teacher

“Sadly, we independent school teachers are propping up a system of acute structural inequality.”

PRIVATE SCHOOL TEACHER*

I teach in an independent school, but I will not give my name here.

Teaching in a highly selective independent school, like any school, is not easy. Expectations are high, hours are long and inboxes are full.

Reporting and feedback is relentless, with parents ever more demanding of communication regarding their individual child’s progress.

This becomes clear at parents’ evenings when they often require extensive justification of the reasons for a child’s lack of progress. Recently a parent asked me what I was going to do about his son’s tendency to forget to do his homework. When there is an economic transaction involved, this can mean that all of the onus is placed on the school to ensure a student makes progress.

Similarly, despite perceptions to the contrary, behaviour in the private sector can also be challenging, as discipline policies are often lax or non-existent.  

However, the joys of teaching in an independent school, like any school, are plentiful. The students in my classes, particularly at A-level, are engaged, motivated and politically aware. They are intellectually curious, resulting in class discussion that is rich and challenging.

I am able to share my deep interest in the subject I teach with a group of people who are in the process of developing a similar interest over the course of their time at the school.  It is, in many ways, an extremely rewarding job.

I want to emphasise that teachers who choose to teach in the independent sector are not the enemy. We do so for a variety of different reasons ranging from job availability to career progression as well as pay and conditions. My colleagues are all good, kind and compassionate people, working extremely hard to support the students in their care both in terms of their academic progress as well as their overall welfare.

And yet, we independent school teachers are also propping up a system of acute structural inequality.

A system where those who we educate disproportionately end up in positions of power in later life. They will attend the best universities, hoard access to the best jobs and subsequently earn more money than their state educated peers.

The concentration of power in the hands of a minority of the privately educated is a travesty, emblematic of a society with severe problems that urgently need to be addressed. Despite the existence of the above as a key social issue of our time, these themes are rarely discussed and debated at my school. The private school conversation is addressed indirectly through assemblies focusing on privilege and global inequality, but rarely more explicitly than that.

However I have had conversations with students which suggest that they are fully aware of their own privileged position in society and the resultant impact on society. One of my students for example, is very politically active and believes strongly that private schools should be abolished. I have no doubt that the students would be open to the conversation if they were exposed to it more regularly which is why I think it is so important that the debate is inclusive of those within the private sector.

Through charitable work in the community, or through trips to sub-Saharan Africa, our pupils do help others. There is no doubt that this charitable work is admirable and wide reaching. However again, there is no problematising of the raising of these funds, or questioning of the reasons why this charitable work needs to be done in the first place.

This summer there was a resurgence in calls to abolish private schools, most aggressively in the form of the grassroot Labour Abolish Eton campaign. Although I am fully in favour of private school reform and the eventual integration of the private sector into the state, I do not believe that a combative and divisive campaign was the way forward. Exacerbating divisions in our society that are already present will do little to help the campaign to achieve its ends.

Furthermore, whilst private school reform and ultimately integration is no doubt necessary, these reforms need to be considered alongside issues in the education sector more widely. Were private schools to no longer exist, the parents of the children I teach would no doubt make use of their considerable resources to negotiate the system in other ways, primarily through the housing market to guarantee their child admission to the ‘best’ state schools.

In my view the road to a solution, as advocated by David Kynaston and Francis Green in Engines of Privilege (2019) starts with a proper conversation and debate about this issue, inclusive of those sympathetic to the cause from within the private sector. My students are politically aware, widely read and erudite, however they lack exposure to the core themes and ideas underpinning the problem – class privilege, structural inequality and the myth of meritocracy. These are issues we should (and I will) be discussing on a daily basis within the independent sector, so as to raise awareness of the part we play in propping up a system that is inherently unequal. If the system is to change, as it no doubt urgently should, the conversation needs to be inclusive and tolerant of all those involved.

My decision to work in the private sector has worked out well for me – I’ve made lifelong friends with some colleagues and am still in touch with former A-level students. My career progressed quickly and my job satisfaction levels have been consistently high.

However it has taken me some time to come to terms with the fact that my personal gain has come at a cost to society more generally. This is something I now believe that all teachers in the private sector should consider.

*The picture is a stock image and not of the author. The author teaches in an independent secondary school.