Thanks to a unique partnership with Haileybury, Turnford School has gone from strength to strength.
In 2015, the school was relaunched as Haileybury Turnford academy, with Haileybury the sole sponsor.
A generous annual improvement grant was established, worth 2 hundred thousand pounds a year. This enabled Turnford to recruit much-needed staff and retain high-quality, specialist teachers.
Haileybury gives additional financial support for Turnford’s SEND students, and provides opportunities for a wider breadth of academic and co-curricular activities, such as support programmes for gifted and talented pupils.
Academic standards have been transformed, a new class building was constructed and, in 2022, Haileybury Turnford was judged by Ofsted to be Good for the first time in the school’s history.
Regretfully, the Government’s imposition of VAT on fees could put all this at risk. Nobly, Haileybury are planning to absorb the impact of VAT as much as it can, rather than place an extra burden on parents.
To do so, they must look to reduce expenditure, and, therefore, their ability to offer financial support to Haileybury Turnford – painfully contradicting the Government’s argument that this policy will result in more spending on state pupils.
Greater financial pressures on Haileybury will inevitably lead to staff having less time and resources available to share with Turnford, and less inspirational opportunities for students as a result.
For nearly a decade now, a genuinely working-class community has benefited from the state and independent sectors working together.
For this impact to continue, I urged the Government to allow the financial support and resources provided to state schools by independent schools to be offset against VAT liability.
