‘Those are my principles, and if you don’t like them . . . well, I have others.’ Groucho Marx  

‘Intelligence plus character – that is the goal of true education’ Martin Luther King Jr

In December, the results of the latest IPPR thinktank poll on what we think of our politicians showed a significant decline in the confidence we have in our leaders. The findings stated that 63% of the population believe politicians are in it for themselves while only 5% believe they are in it for the country’s best interests. 

Recent polls in mid-January make even worse reading with only 27% of Conservative voters from the 2019 election believing that Prime Minister was telling the truth about the Downing Street parties.  Yet as questions about truthfulness and integrity mount, there is also a seemingly contradictory view amongst his own party, namely that it is better for the Prime Minister to stay in post. It appears that truth and trust have become expendable.

There are many reasons for this decline in trust, including the various scandals and allegations about donors and the recent debacles about parties at Number Ten, exacerbated by delayed reports, accusations of fraud and impropriety, all adding to the rhetoric of one law for politicians, another for everyone else.  With the publication of the abridged Sue Gray report, the country is once again left in limbo, as the credibility and integrity of the Prime Minister is weighed up against his appeal as an election asset and political expediency. Trust, it appears, is notthe issue.

Yet there is no more important validation for a leader than being trusted. Questions about the integrity and honesty of our politicians are not new, and – considering the expenses scandal of 2009 –  nor are they just the property of one political persuasion, but the indubitable conclusion of recent goings-on is that most of the public no longer trust those who purport to lead us – and that should worry us all.

There is a particular reason why this should be of particular concern to the independent sector and that is the fact that most of the current crop of leaders, notably those implicated in the various acts of impropriety were educated at independent schools.  From that evidence, it might be assumed that the failure sits within these schools and that instead of embedding the principles of service and a sense of civic responsibility in their students, they have fostered instead, however inadvertently, a sense of entitlement and self-interest. 

While the media make much of the schools that many of these individuals attended, the schools find themselves in an invidious position, being judged by the deeds of former students whose characters and values were wrought long before they entered the school gates and nurtured after they left by like-minded peer groups.  It is a situation often outside of each school’s control, and while mitigated to some degree by the actions of the schools, the main fault, it can be argued, lies elsewhere, in the social divisions of British society.

We have always placed too much emphasis on the ability of schools to shape the character of their students, and for schools to be constantly called out for the sins of their alumni is neither fair nor helpful. After all, just as state schools are responsible to the state, independent schools are responsible to their constituents, dependent on the very families who choose to send their children to them. Independent they may profess to be, but they are tied in almost every regard to the values and expectations of their parents, governors, and old pupils and to market forces. Often the values of the parents are foisted on the school, for good and bad. One recently retired Head explained the dilemma, rather unkindly, by saying that there was nothing wrong with the schools, only that the wrong children went to them. However, when we ask why have so many leaders who came through independent schools in the seventies and eighties behaved with such disdain, arrogance and lack of empathy towards those they purport to lead, we should start by acknowledging that some of the leading schools were perceived as behaving the same way. Traditionally, these schools, that make up only a small percentage of all independent schools, are populated by children from similarly privileged backgrounds seeking aspirational, safe, socially segregated environments bound by strong and cohesive parental networks that inevitably reflect their values. However, some of the less savoury aspects of this group are invariably present, as evident in the recent scandals, which means that schools still have a significant part to play.

When considering those who have travelled this highly selective educative journey and seeing some of the results, we can see the challenge to schools to change deeply rooted views, prejudices, and attitudes by endeavouring to instil values and ethics consistent with their own mission statements.  And even when doing so, there are invariably contradictions. Self-confidence, for instance, is one of the traits that independent schools take pride in encouraging (and surely a prerequisite for leadership), while ignoring the fact that leadership need to be rooted in an awareness of others and the concept of service. Character, likewise, needs to be seen as at least as important as academic success, while acknowledging that it is not easily measured (and therefore not always valued). Hence, while schools may feel that it is unfair to be held hostage to past failings, they should not expect complete absolution. It is right, after all, that we ask why some of those who have had a privileged education, apparently learned so little about basic human values in their time at school. 

Any list of miscreants that emerges in times of crisis, (and especially the names of leaders), is, like Viscount Gage’s drive, full of potholes and arguably, a product of contemporary society. Schools are always morphing, reinventing themselves, dealing with the day to day challenges and responding pragmatically to the challenges of the marketplace. The foundations of our historic schools, such as Eton and Harrow, established under Royal Charter as charity schools to provide free education to the poor of their Parishes, were undoubtedly well-intended.  The same could be said of the many schools founded in the mid 19th century including Cheltenham College (1841) Marlborough College (1843), Radley College (1847), Wellington (1853) and Haileybury (1859), each established around principles of public service and a readiness to contribute to society, whether under the auspices of the Oxford Movement, or with links to the East India Company, the military, and the Colonial Office. In recent years, especially as schools have been made accountable for their charitable status, more attention given community involvement and charitable works and state-independent partnerships. But there is a way to go.

While striving to protect their ethos and values in the face of changing societal expectations is challenging, most independent schools today adhere to an ethos based around service and community as a bulwark against criticism. There are many examples of teachers, largely through historic reports, trying to address behaviours and values in their students that are contrary to those of their school, few better expressed than Boris Johnson’s Housemaster, Martin Hammond who noted in a letter to the student’s father:

‘Boris sometimes seems affronted when . . . criticised for what amounts to a gross failure of responsibility. I think he honestly believes that it is churlish of us not to regard him as an exception, one who should be free of the network of obligation which binds everyone else.’

Such refreshing honesty, alas, is no longer countenanced. Schools attempting to change the behaviours and views of individual students who have the unequivocal support of their parents has been a timeless challenge; affecting a change in the culture of a whole school without alienating the parent body is quite another matter. At the Henley Literary Festival in 2019, Tony Little, the previous Headmaster at Eton was quoted acknowledged that some Tory Etonians were giving the school a bad name and that “we’d all be better served as a nation if this particular clutch of people hadn’t been educated at the same school,” but, as he went on, it was the individual’s choice how they used the opportunities life had given them and not the fault of a School that had, after all, produced the founders of Friends of the Earth and Amnesty International. 

It is a mistake to see independent schools as one homogenous entity. They are not. Most independent schools, one senses, take pains to distance themselves (or are themselves distanced) from the public utterings and historic actions of their more prestigious colleagues. Only a small number of schools get all the airplay with their heads held up as leading figures in education and mouthpieces for the sector. For most independent school parents , however, the focus is no longer on status and influence, but in the well-being and happiness of their children. Prep schools, in particular, have little voice and are often implicated in attitudes and behaviours they are not party to and would never countenance. Whatever the agenda, however, all schools still have a role to play in challenging bias, prejudice and inequality, even if their influence will always be slight compared with the influence of the world their children come from.

So, we should be wary of dismissing the concerns and perceptions of the public as historic, forged in the days of bullying and class hierarchies, in the “greed is good” excesses of the 80s, as just another club to beat independent schools with. It is not that long ago that issues of town and gown prevailed, elitism was tacitly marketed by schools and practised by students and schools that often stood aloof from their local communities.  Even today, independent schools are still seen by some critics, to put it crudely, as businesses selling safe places and advantage. Thankfully, that perception is changing, and the Charities Act can take the lion’s share of the credit for bringing down walls. Yet there are still attitudes and behaviours that schools need to keep chipping away at, both to keep meeting their charitable goals, including actively eschewing the trappings of elitism, still embraced, and promoted by some schools; to help redefine the definition of what constitutes a successful education; and because it is the right thing to do. Of course, independent schools will argue that, by and large, being held accountable for the actions of schools of thirty or more years ago is an historical overshoot, that the days of swagger and a sense of entitlement are long gone, referring to a whole raft of community service programmes, the Duke of Edinburgh and similar service schemes, bursaries for poorer families, the reiteration of school values and ethos. They will talk about community ventures, involvement in academies, in local groups, and in a proverbial red herring, how much they contribute to the economy. They might cite the coming together of the state and independent sectors, or the internationalisation of British education and the not altogether salubrious argument that by selling their franchises abroad they are generating funds for UK bursaries – but is that even relevant?

Social stratification, class, privilege and the insider trading of contacts and networks in the elite independent schools are not going to go away, regardless of what schools do, but they can be mitigated. It is not easy managing expectations, and it may be argued that diluting a student’s sense of entitlement would affect aspiration, but in any cases, that may be no bad thing. In some instances, the actions of schools have merely served to exacerbate the problem. The awarding of bursaries to talented children from local state schools simply removes their top students, from classes and sports team (would be that bursaries were given to struggling students); likewise, the proliferation of school networks, set up to provide support after leaving school through the rest of their lives, well-meaning though they may be, and important selling points for schools, are undoubtedly seen by critics as entrenching privilege yet further.  Schools need to be more outspoken in lining up education alongside citizenship, about being a part of, not standing apart from, society, even challenging the fine line between evasion and avoidance, that life should not be about what you can get away with, but what you can contribute to it.

It is encouraging that in many schools, there is a new generation of better informed, socially responsible and committed students, as advocates for societal and environmental change. Students who know they are privileged, but without an accompanying sense of entitlement and a desire to use the opportunities they have in order to make a difference. Most independent schools today have parent bodies and governors who believe in societal values and who want their children to be well-adjusted and able to fit into their communities. But in terms of education, or what students are leaving their schools believing and committed to doing, in some schools the veneer is still thin. The proof, as they say, is still in the pudding.

It is not difficult to communicate values and beliefs to intelligent students in lessons or assemblies (defined, as our schools do, by IQ rather than by EQ) and to receive the superficial responses sought without anything taking root. What is less easy to achieve is to teach children to think ethically, to challenge their presumptions, about rights and responsibilities, to question their aspirations and goals and to engage them more deeply than PSHEE and Philosophy lessons, or assemblies based around values or the school’s mission statement allow. Channelling IQ needs to be matched with a similar focus on EQ, the importance of character and the value of reflection and the responsibility that comes with learning.  The fear is that if something is not measured, it isn’t important. Such questions need to be an inconvenience, itches needing to be scratched.  

Students should be challenged to think outwardly and to have their aspirations challenged and channelled. They need career advice linked to ethical considerations, so that it is not just accessing the best universities and the very best jobs, but about what a holistic education should include and what they want their role and responsibilities to be when they go into the workplace. They would benefit enormously by including mindfulness (as some do) in their curriculum so that they can learn more about themselves on a deeper level, and their place in relation to others.

Schools should endeavour to teach them, implicitly, to accept that we are all part of society and sign up to the same rules, about behaviours, travel, paying tax, about internships and adherence to the law, to be prepared to give back in ways that may be personally uncomfortable. They need to be taught how to develop greater empathy, to understand the challenges for those so not well-off or those involved in occupations and vocations that they would not consider for themselves; and the personal value of moving out of their own comfort zones and widening their social groups. If they aspire to be leaders in any field, they need to understand what leadership means and not just see the Nolan Principles as something that exists for others – but they also need to learn how to serve and the value of the menial, the repetitive, the physical. They should not always expect to start halfway up a ladder based on factors other than their own achievements and ability. Humility, service, and a good work ethic are important attributes and should be treated thus.  The task for schools is to work harder at embedding core values and changing attitudes by challenging students rather than just teaching them some superficial intellectual construct.  The government’s levelling up agenda points to the need to nurture and encourage a different mind-set to ensure we get the right sort of leaders from either sector. That might come at some short-term reputational risk that independent schools feel they cannot afford, but that would be to put a pessimistic slant on what is an opportunity to make a difference. Which is what education – and leadership – should be about. 

For those schools that have produced so many of our leaders, and especially those who have drawn so much adverse attention to independent schools, the challenges are even greater, but several are addressing the challenges head on, including Eton College under the Headship of Simon Henderson, who has focused on the civic responsibility and emotional intelligence of students. Many other Heads are similarly disposed, conscious of their social responsibility and keen to drive change, although realistic enough to know their job is a balancing act and to achieve anything more than superficial change is not easy.  They feel frustrated, no doubt, that changing the attitudes and values of each cohort will always be a matter of degree, but then every degree counts.  Parents pay substantial fees to help their children succeed in the company of similarly like-minded families, but like their children, they might also appreciate clarity and boundaries, knowing and embracing the values of the school if they respect and trust its leaders to do well by their children. To maintain their integrity, schools will need to keep re-visiting their offering, focusing on such traits as honesty, trustworthiness and respect for others and staying true to their founding principles.

Trust and reputation are not earned lightly. The fact that we have leaders whose relationship with the truth is so fleeting is something independent schools and universities need to confront more aggressively, in their selection, in their offering and in their pedagogy, to find ways to integrate integrity and trust into what they say and do. It would be useful if part of having the very best education meant focusing on EQ as well as IQ and character as well as attainment.  For independent schools, who are still likely to have a significant role in shaping tomorrow’s leaders, consideration should also be given to educating their parents and the wider school community and bringing them on board. Such initiatives may not come without some cost, even parental kickback, but restoring and protecting the reputation of the sector by overcompensating for the failings of the past is the proper response. 

  • Prominent leaders who have come from the independent school stable  include Boris Johnson (Eton, Oxford), David Cameron (Eton,Oxford), Jacob Rees-Mogg (Eton, Oxford) Owen Paterson (Radley,Cambridge) Dominic Cummings (Durham, Oxford), Allegra Stratton, (Latymer Upper School and Cambridge),   Matt Hancock, (Kings Chester, Oxford), Rishi Sunak (Winchester, Oxford)  Robert Jenrick (Wolverhampton Grammar School, Cambridge), George Osborne (St Paul’s, Oxford) and Michael Gove, (Robert Gordon’s school, Oxford).  
  • Others who went to independent schools and who either went to different universities or didn’t attend university include Nigel Farage, Lord Feldman, Esther McVey, Nadhim Zahawi, Carrie Johnson and Sir Peter Viggers. Yet others were either educated in part abroad (Liz Truss ) or at grammar schools (Dominic Rabb) before attending Oxford. 

(An edited version of this article appeared on the www.independentschoolmanagementplus  website under the headline,          ‘Are independent schools really to blame for Boris Johnson?’)