Exclusive:New Fettes chair: We need to stop treating private schools as 'bottomless pits of money'
In his first interview since being appointed Chair of Governors at Fettes College, John Edward said the independent school sector is misunderstood
Government must stop treating the private school sector as “bottomless pits of cash”, the new chair of Fettes College has said, as he warned students from disadvantaged backgrounds are missing out due to the imposition of VAT on fees.
John Edward, former Head of the European Parliament’s Office in Scotland, has taken over the role of Chair of Governors at the prestigious boarding school, and in his first interview expressed frustration at the lack of public and political appreciation of the private sector.
And Mr Edward said that, while tech giants are “barbarians”, it was too late to attempt to row back on technology and AI in schools.
Mr Edward was the chief executive of the Scottish Council for Independent Schools (SCIS) from 2010 to 2023, although his background is in EU policy.
He previously worked in Brussels for Scotland House and the European Policy Centre.
“Everything I’d done before was explaining a sector to the wider world and to politics, or explaining politics to the wider world,” he said.
“In a way the schools job was the same because the sector is not terribly well understood, except to the people who are in it or of it.”
Mr Edward, who describes Fettes as “one of the best schools in Britain”, says people would be surprised by its informality and warmth.
Mr Edward is frustrated by the entrenched government position that independent schools are “bottomless pits of money”.
He said: “They are part of the infrastructure of Scotland. We like to pride ourselves on being all Jock Tamson’s bairns - well, so are the young people here.
“The 27,000 young people in the independent sector are all a credit to Scotland.”
Misconceptions about the sector are part of the reason there is little political pushback on either the introduction of domestic rates on fee-paying schools or the addition of VAT.
“Ultimately, what every teacher in here is trying to do is exactly what every teacher down the road in Broughton is trying to do.
“By putting VAT on it, you're talking as if it's somehow a luxury service.
“It's not. And ironically, had we stayed in the European Union we wouldn't have been able to put VAT on education.”
Those losing out by the increase in schools costs are pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds who would have received bursaries, he added.
“The biggest sadness is it restricts the ability of schools to do what they were planning to do, which is to widen their bursary provision,” he said.
“The only people losing out are the people who are not getting these bursaries.”
Mr Edward described the independent heads in Scotland as the “most influential chief executives” in the country.
“They run massive not-for-profits with a huge social capital benefit to Scotland and the wider world, and it's all been done as part of education rather than as a towards an economic end,” he said.
Mr Edward took over as Chair last month, succeeding Lady Morag Wise.
His arrival come before Richard Girvan starts as the next Head of Fettes in September in what the school is calling a “new era of leadership”.
Mr Edward says he has slight imposter syndrome when he looks around the board table at the “interesting and impressive” people who lead the schools.
He added: “That’s one thing I’ve never really understood - why the state sector in Scotland doesn’t have some form of governance, however voluntary or partial, where parents or the broader community can get involved in schools.
“Schools in Scotland would benefit from that, because it brings an element of challenge, but also an element of support to the senior management.”
Fettes, set in 100 acres of land in Edinburgh, has opened a new health and wellbeing centre for pupils, the Allardice Centre.
Wellbeing of pupils is a core focus of Fettes, and something Mr Edward takes seriously.
The school is still involved in litigation over historic abuse cases with at least one appeal over amount of compensation currently working its way through the courts.
It is personal for Mr Edward.
He sat through every day of evidence for the independent school section of the Sottish Child Abuse Inquiry in front of Lady Smith.
“It was an experience I would never want to go through again,” he said. “In some cases, I was the only person in the gallery at the time, which I think is a shame.”
Mr Edward gave expert evidence, gave evidence as a witness and wrote papers for the inquiry.
“I take it very seriously by its very nature,” he said.
“It brought introspection and change and modernisation on the schools, not that I think necessarily that was necessary, because I think they did recognise how things had changed.
“I think this school has done everything it should and could have done.”
The independent sector is currently in a state of flux: some schools are closing, some are merging, others are forming consortiums.
Some of the UK’s most prestigious fee-paying institutions are setting up chains of schools overseas.
Glenalmond College last year took funding from an investor with close links to the Qatari royal family.
“You can't have all the issues that have happened to the sector, and there not be change,” he said.
“But that's always happened.”
In the late 1970s there were three times as many independent schools in Scotland as there are now.
Fettes last year initianted a redundancy process, which has now completed.
“It was small, but of course it was tragic,” Mr Edward said, adding that the school is currently in a strong financial position.
On the impending school mobile phone ban, Mr Edward said the school will “follow very closely” what the Scottish government ultimately proposes.
Fettes currently has different policies depending on year group and for boarders.
“There is now no doubt social media is designed to be addictive, it’s not accidental, it’s deliberate, and therefore the responsibility of any school is to help young people through that process,” he said.
“There's no point in trying to keep the barbarians at the gate, although some of these tech giants are barbarians.”
He says each generation has concerns about what’s coming down the line for the next but, ultimately, a school’s role is to prepare them for the future.
“There is always a sense of the moment has just passed,” Mr Edward added, “So it's really important to let them know that the moment is never completely passed.”
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