Eight out of 10 Gillicks prefer it

13th January 1995, 12:00am

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Eight out of 10 Gillicks prefer it

https://www.tes.com/magazine/archive/eight-out-10-gillicks-prefer-it
Clare Dean reports on renewed controversy over the assisted places scheme, which critics say is undermining the state system. “I have no brief for independent education, but I have to find the best I can for my children and I will get the best education for them by hook or crook because they only have one crack at it.”

And the best for Gordon Gillick and his wife Victoria - the anti-Pill campaigner of the Eighties - has meant a public-school education for their children through the assisted places scheme.

The Government has provided cash help for places at Wisbech Grammar School for eight of the 10 Gillick children. Four are currently at the school, which is just a few hundred yards from their home in the Fenland town.

Wisbech Grammar - a member of the Headmasters’ Conference and more than 600 years old - is one of just two secondary schools in the town. The other is Queens, an 11-to-16 grant-maintained school, which has just gained Funding Agency for Schools backing for its proposals to set up a sixth form.

The grammar school is an 11-to-18 mixed day school, near the top of the exam league table for Cambridgeshire with termly fees of Pounds 1,430. More than half of its pupils - 336 - are on assisted places, bringing in more than Pounds 1 million a year of Government cash the equivalent of Pounds 3,416 per pupil. Nearly half are on full fee remission, meaning their parents pay nothing.

Wisbech is in an extremely poor area. Wages are low and unemployment high and the work that is available in agriculture is seasonal.

Bob Repper, the headmaster, argues that assisted places gives parents in Wisbech choice. Joseph Piercy, head of Queens, claims it makes his job of running a comprehensive school very difficult. “I am running a comprehensive but losing half of the above-average ability children to the grammar which has a substantial effect on my statistics and place in the league tables.

“I also have great philosophical objection to the market-place in which Government is spending twice as much on private education as it is on public education.”

The threat to assisted places is taken seriously at Wisbech grammar where Mr Repper insists: “This is a local issue. If you are in a big city you have got lots of choice. It is different in a rural community like this. There are only two schools in Wisbech.

“I am fed up of hearing of what goes on in the metropolis and in big famous places. People in this town are just as entitled to high standards as those who live in fashionable areas.”

Gordon Gillick has sold equity in the family home to help meet the cost of the children’s schooling - and would do so again if the assisted places were axed.

“I work as a designer and my wife writes and because of having a lot of children my income is limited and sometimes it is non-existent. In a society like ours, if you make things or build things you don’t get much money. The people who can afford private education generally are the percentage people but children only get one chance at education and it is important that they get the best chance.”

Rory Fester, who moved to Wisbech after 22 years in the Army, has two children on assisted places at the school and believes peer group pressure will help them succeed academically.

“If this school lost assisted places it would only survive by being exclusive and I find that offensive. It is a big sacrifice for me to send my children here.”

Mr Fester was unemployed when he left the Army, and now has a factory job which may only amount to a three to six-month contract.

“I get very annoyed with all these political slogans that are bandied about. People perceive independent schools as Eton or Harrow. They don’t realise that people like us exist.

“I haven’t had a new car for 13 years and am unlikely to have one for the next 13 years. I have not had a holiday in the past five years and I am not likely to have one in the next five.

“These are the sacrifices we have to make, although my children might not appreciate it at the moment.”

Mr Repper added: “The amount of money we get in assisted places is the same as the Ministry of Defence spends on providing batmen to maintain high table for senior officers - which is the more important?

“It’s said that money saved from the assisted places scheme would be used to help other areas of education.

“How could you demonstrate to people in this town that it would be used for opportunities in Wisbech?”

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