2012 – Olympic or Titanic year?

There’s sometimes an odd symmetry in historical coincidences. 2012 will mark the centenary of the most celebrated nautical disaster of modern times, the loss of the Titanic. The Titanic had a sister ship, named the Olympic. And this year will also bring, of course, the Olympic Games to London.

So – Titanic or Olympic – which will prove to be a more apt epithet for the year? A year of celebration and renewed confidence in the future? Or a year when all our confident assumptions about progress and growth hit an iceberg?

We asked an assortment of experts – heads, bursars, journalists, entrepreneurs – for their own forecasts and published their responses in this term’s issue of School Matters, which should have reached schools’ in trays in the last few days.

Unsurprisingly, most took a bleak view of the immediate future for both the economy and for independent schools. Here’s Richard Cairns, headmaster of Brighton College:  “Continued economic gloom in 2012 will see a further flight to quality in the independent sector. Leading schools will  take an ever increasing share of the diminishing pool of parents able to afford independent education while those that fail to innovate and adapt will be forced to merge or go out of business altogether.”

Other heads joined Cairns in foreseeing a “flight to quality”, as did IAPS chief executive David Hanson, who added: “Good schools and in particular, those that are known as a centre for excellence (arts, sport languages, boarding) will buck the recession as report modest growth.  At the same time, schools that are perceived as being less good will experience accelerating decline.”

Wellington’s Master Anthony Seldon and Good School Guide publisher Ralph Lucas both linked their pessimistic outlook for independent schools with a prediction that the best state schools would leap ahead.

“2012 will be hard for the independent sector … The state sector in contrast will forge ahead, with more Academies and Free Schools, putting the independent sector under further pressure,” said Seldon, cheerleader-in-chief for the Government’s Academy project.

Lucas forecast: “There will be growing confidence in the qualities of the best new Free Schools and Academies, and a growing consciousness of the disadvantages that independent schools face in UK university access. Independent schools will need to find new ways to convince parents that they are worth the fees.”

For Mark Semmence, assistant head of Rugby School, “2012 could bring the ‘perfect storm’ for the independent education sector, pushed from one side by an ever worsening economic climate and squeezed from the other by the fast pace of structural change within the state sector.” Independent schools needed to respond, he said, by being more strategically focused with their offer and controlled costs efficiently.

But others took an altogether brighter view.

Andrew Maiden, editor, Funding for Independent Schools magazine, and organiser of the Independent School Awards, said: “The fee-paying independent school sector will be the one bright spark in British education in 2012: the recession has culled the weaker performing schools and the rest of the sector is embracing strategic and financial change,” adding: “Academies/free schools will begin to realise that ‘independence’ also means freedom to fail.”

Taking inspiration from the Olympic theme, Alice Phillips, headmistress of St Catherine’s, Bramley, acknowledged that the challenging economic climate would persist, but “in its midst we must make the most of an international celebration of sport as the UK hosts the Olympics and inspires our wonderful young athletes to achieve PBs of all kinds:  sporting, academic, musical, career, and so on.”

But let’s give the last words to headmaster of The Dragon School, Oxford, John Baugh, whose tour d’horizontook : “Olympic bubble; recession (again); Manchester City; droughts, floods, earthquakes; euro collapse; Andy Murray; Syria; Libya (again); Apple iTV; space tourists; first prep school academy; Orang Utan technically extinct; Iran goes nuclear; honeybee population collapse; the world won’t come to an end on December 21 and 2013 will be a great year.”

Read the predictions in full in mtmconsulting’s School Matters. And make sure your school is ready to face anything by reviewing your strategic plans for the future. Contact us for the most expert help available in the independent sector.