Exclusive:Scotland's private schools 'will start selling assets' in bid to stay afloat
As the newly merged Erskine Stewart Melville school starts its new chapter, head teacher Anthony Simpson says the sector is under intolerable pressure
Scottish independent schools will soon start selling off assets in a bid to stay afloat, a head teacher has said.
Anthony Simpson has overseen the merger of Edinburgh’s prestigious Mary Erskine and Stewart Melville schools to form the new Erskine Stewart Melville (ESM).
On Monday, some 2,200 pupils entered the new school for the first time wearing distinctive new uniforms.
The move sees the end to the institutions’ single-sex status and is the most significant change to the 300-year-old schools in six decades.
However, Mr Simpson said that in line with the sector there had been a drop in revenue and they had to change at pace to stay viable.
Erskine Stewart Melville has sold property to fund the building required to complete the merger, such as a sixth form centre, a new gym, library extension and home economics facilities.
Mr Simpson believes others will follow suit.
“I think that's what you'll see,” he said. “You'll see schools in Scotland who are starting to sell off sites or bits of land, or property to try and match that shortfall.”
“I won’t name names but you will soon see which schools are selling off property and rationalising onto one site because their numbers have dropped or because they need the funds to be able to plug a short term gap,” Mr Simpson added.
It follows the Labour introduction of VAT on fees, an increase in teacher pension contributions and a hike in energy prices for large estates following the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
He said there had been a “cocktail of significant pressures on the sector” over the past four years.
“Our concerns about the future of the school were real,” Mr Simpson added.
Scottish private schools have undertaken a variety of options in order to address the financial challenges facing the sector.
Some have joined larger parent companies, Glenalmond in Perthshire has received investment from Qatar and Lomond in Helensburgh, which recently started taking payments in cryptocurrency, has entered a long-term partnership with international education organisation Scholarium, which is based in Switzerland.
Independent schools in Scotland are losing around 13 per cent of pupils each year, according to research by the Scottish Council for Independent Schools (SCIS).
Mr Simpson said: “You cannot suddenly find that degree of loss in income so it’s trying to absorb it.
“And we are not operating at a surplus because we are a charity.
“If you look at our charitable accounts we were on the wire every single year so if nothing had been done and you suddenly have a significant drop in income there’s no real way back.”
The ESMS merger created “efficiencies”, including job losses. The school, however, insists these were minimal and the majority of staff are now working for the merged school.
He added: “If we hadn't taken significant action, then we'd have been worried about the future of the school, and I think that's true for all schools in Scotland and beyond.
“I've worked in lots of other schools in the UK, and they're having all the same conversations.
“I’m proud we made those changes and can weather the storm.”
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Mr Simpson believes no government would “have the courage” to reverse the VAT introduction.
He said: “It wasn't about making money.
“It's purely political. The Labour Party is not going to lose any sleep over me saying that our school has had to make adjustments.
“They are not going to lose any sleep over schools closing because it’s an ideologically different viewpoint they hold.”
A significant change as part of the merger has been the loss of single sex education.
Mr Simpson insists he never came to the role of head teacher believing single-sex education had to go.
However, single sex education for the schools was simply not sustainable.
The principal decided he wanted to act from a “position of control” rather than react from a “position of threat”.
“The learning outcomes were brilliant for the children,” he said.
“It was just becoming more and more obvious that it was an unsustainable model for us.
“While people were obviously picking us because we were single sex, we were getting a large number of people coming to us in spite of being single sex.”
Mr Simpson says that, while there is absolutely a place for single sex schools, the most important aspect is teaching to the individual, rather than individual genders.
In order to justify the merger to the parent company, Merchant Company Education Board, the school conducted research.
It found that historically parents tended to choose the same type of school for their children as they attended - so single-sex educated parents will choose that for their child.
One of the starkest findings was the diminishing number of parents who are making that choice.
There have been various iterations of the schools since 1694; Mary Erskine School has had various names while Stewart Melville College was a merger of two others.
Mr Simpson said the main guiding principle throughout the merger has been to respect the schools’ heritage while protecting their future.
Current pupils were upset at the loss of their distinctive badges - the Mary Erskine girls their merchant ship in particular.
It has taken some time to persuade all parents and pupils of the benefits of the merger but, he added, they have largely come around to it.
“I didn't want to be the head where people look back and say, ‘He knew something needed to be done and he didn’t do anything about it’,” Mr Simpson said.
“I could take the angst of people who didn’t like the merger because it was short-lived but I couldn’t have handled in five years’ time someone saying I knew VAT was on the cards and failed to take action.”