ORIGINS OF
T H E B U R SA RY C A M PA I G N BY JAMES MILLER (94-08)
B As Lord Eldon (Lord Chancellor at the beginning of the nineteenth century) said: “[Admiral Lord Collingwood] and I were class fellows at Newcastle. We were placed at that school because neither his father nor mine could afford to place us elsewhere.”
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readth of access has always been integral to what the RGS is about, and, in the past, thousands have benefited from a free or highly subsidised RGS education. I am sure that I speak for all four of us living Headmasters when I say that the school community, region, and indeed the country have all benefitted from the rich social mix of generations of supported RGS students.
As such, the initial bursary scheme was very limited; more clearly needed to be done. Independent schools have, of course, been running appeals for ever, but almost all had been to pay for new buildings; almost uniquely (I was aware of only one other school doing the same) the RGS Governors agreed to eschew any further appeal for building funds, and to focus solely on appealing for bursary funds.
The Direct Grant system ensured very wide access to hundreds of RGS boys each year, until it was phased out in the mid-70s. The Thatcher government introduced the Assisted Places Scheme in 1981 and I recall that the RGS at one stage had more than 300 boys on the scheme. One of the first decisions of the 1997 Blair government was to phase out the scheme, and so the RGS was faced with becoming the preserve only of parents who could afford the fees.
As remains the case today, we saw RGS bursaries as being very important in three ways:
An immediate response was to create a bursary scheme dependent on existing school funds. There was a reluctance amongst Governors to increase fees in order to pay for bursaries beyond this; we knew that a lot of parents found the pressure of fees a real burden, and requiring them to subsidise other parents did not seem fair. To this day the RGS does not fund any bursaries from fee income; it has remained an important value of the school.
It would enable talented boys and girls, irrespective of their backgrounds, to benefit from what the RGS had and has to offer; The diverse social mix of the school had always been a major asset to the culture of the school and must be fiercely protected; We also felt a strong obligation to the North East, where secondary school attainment and standards were, at the time, well below national averages. Too much talent was going to waste and at least some of that could be obviated by giving able young people the chance of realising their potential at the RGS.