8 ms·

Notoriously in England, public schools are charities. My school made god knows how much by offering a few bursaries and thereby counting itself as a charity. My

by samhw 5y ago

Notoriously in England, public schools are charities. My school made god knows how much by offering a few bursaries and thereby counting itself as a charity. My best friend's school, old Slough Comp, is possibly one of the greatest forces of anti-charity and anti-egalitarianism in the country and yet is still - IIRC - a charity. It means absolutely zero whatsoever. Perhaps other countries are different.

stuaxo 5y ago
For people in the US "Public School" in the UK are actually private.
- akiselev 5y ago
  And "Slough Comp" is a tongue in cheek name for Eton College
- ChuckNorris89 5y ago
  >"Public School" in the UK are actually private That's confusing as hell. Can anyone please explain?
  - samhw 5y ago
    Yeah, sure. When they started[0], the aristocracy were educated by private tutors, and these schools actually were for the poor (ok, fine: for 'poor', read 'slightly less than royalty'). That context has obviously changed a lot since, and it now feels a bit silly. Also, while that person's comment is correct, it's worth noting that not all private schools are referred to as public schools. That name is only for the oldest, mostly-boarding schools that were big players when the system was (finally) formalised in the 19th century. The vast majority of private schools would just be called private schools. And then state schools are the genuinely-free ones. [0] ETA: Mostly around the Tudor period I believe; i.e. by Shakespeare's time most if not all of them were well established.
    - unfocussed_mike 5y ago
      Yes -- but also all "Public" schools were not "Church" schools. Basically there is a time when education was almost exclusively monastic; those who were not taught privately were taught by religious institutions. The public schools were free of that influence to a greater extent. There is one more tier of school you don't mention which sits somewhere below "public": the "commercial school". There were some of these owned by the livery companies, and were a tier of schools that were created along the lines of the public schools but before the school system was fully established. Most of them were not fee-paying but were funded by donations or livery company charitable funds. They taught largely vocational skills (but professional ones rather than technical ones); parents sent their kids to commercial schools to bring back the knowledge to professionalise the family business or to set them up in a trade. (I went to a school that was originally founded this way, but was a part-state-owned grammar school by the time I got there a century later)
      - samhw 5y ago
        Oh wow, thanks for adding that detail. I didn’t know about practically any of that. That’s a fascinating side of things: I thought there must have been a slight lacuna in my understanding, that not all the educated classes could have employed private tutors, and that definitely fills in a missing link for me. Though it adds another small question: aren’t/weren’t most public schools severely Anglican? I know my school was quite radical at the time for admitting Jewish boys, so that always painted a picture of a not-exactly-super-secular institution, but maybe I’ve got the wrong impression in some way... Also, those commercial schools sound a bit - subtracting for a moment the fee-paying aspect - like the German technical education system which I’ve always liked the sound of. I wish we had something more like that today, though obviously now it wouldn’t - or shouldn’t - be fee-paying.
        unfocussed_mike 5y ago
        > Though it adds another small question: aren’t/weren’t most public schools severely Anglican? Yes -- implicitly. (sidebar: I am not sure that, when public schools really first sprang up, it was even possible to educate people of Jewish descent; the situation for Jews in england in particular was deeply complicated by their unique relationship to the state as established by the Magna Carta. Either way, they were not landowners by law and therefore probably not that interesting to the church.) But at any rate as Wikipedia says, the first public schools appear to have been generalised and detached versions of grammar schools, which were the schools run for wealthy families that were attached to churches and monasteries. Those schools started off teaching young people the skills needed to function in church life, but eventually they seem to have become so generalised for various other trades that they separated themselves in an administrative sense. They'd have had lots of clergy doing the teaching nonetheless, I imagine, simply because really only clergy had access to education at that point. I am not sure how "technical" the school I went to ever was in its earliest form (we did have technical schools in the UK for a while as a precursor to the comprehensive system). I get the impression it was commercial in the sense that it taught reading and writing necessary for conducting a business, maths necessary for bookkeeping and engineering, and some science. (The livery company that founded it still owns half of it -- the outside half, literally)
  - pessimizer 5y ago
    School run by members of the public rather than by the state. So instead of public/private, state/public.
    - samhw 5y ago
      No, it’s really as simple as in my own reply: the American meaning is exactly what the term conveyed when ‘public schools’ began, centuries before today’s ‘state schools’ existed anywhere. It was a school that was open, in principle, to anyone. Think ‘free as in speech’ vs ‘free as in beer’, but with the added sense - like ‘public transport’ - of being democratic and round-about-accessible to all. As for the US: when it began, fee-paying schools were the dominant mode, and there wasn’t really an aristocracy with private tutors to distinguish it from. So it never needed the ‘public’ - and when government schooling became a thing, it pretty naturally took on the ‘private’ qualifier instead.
    - implements 5y ago
      Actually, I think it was that a subset of private fee-paying schools were set up to prepare students for positions in ‘Public Life’ ie politics, military, clergy, civil service - basically running the country aka “The Ruling Classes”.
      - samhw 5y ago
        Nope. Like I said a moment ago[0], it really did just mean ‘free as in speech’, like not-quite-free public transport suggests. Your explanation is certainly very neat and plausible - all the makings of a folk etymology - but it happens not to be correct. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31008161 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31008161
        implements 5y ago
        You’re right about “Public, as in open to all (who can pay)” being the primary origin of the name, but it has also evolved to mean: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/public%20school https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/public%20school “An endowed secondary boarding school in Great Britain offering a classical curriculum and preparation for the universities or public service.” The purpose of public schools isn’t academic excellence (though of-course they support it for their most able pupils) but networking and the ‘habits of person’ necessary to compete socially in class-sensitive institutions.
  - BlueTemplar 5y ago
    Consider also how in the USA, "public" companies are actually private.
  - gerdesj 5y ago
    Actually, it's worse than that! Fee charging schools can be known as both public and private schools. Those terms are never used in the UK for schools funded by the state. A state funded school will be labelled as Primary, Secondary etc. Some are known as State schools. Some are Academies (a bit more complicated but largely publically funded) etc. Basically in England anyway, Public and Private schools are fee charging schools. The name does not refer to how they are funded. I went to a private school aged nine to 13 and a public school 13 to 18. Then I went to a polytechnic, which changed its name after a year and then two (three?) years later it was a university! Whilst in sixth form (17/18) So the message here is that the public/private distinction for school nomenclature here in England and perhaps some or most if not all the UK doesn't mean what it does elsewhere, unless it does except where it doesn't ... except on a weekend when all bets are off. Clear? Jolly good. As you were, carry on!
    - samhw 5y ago
      Thanks for adding that detail! Also for being the one person who replied ITT with a non ’apocryphal’ etymology. I was getting ready to dig into another “public schools are called public because you can see them from the road!” pseudohistory... And, more importantly, thanks for adding detail on the state school side of things, which I suppose I left out of my answer because it’s not something I know about. It was definitely sorely needed.
  - OJFord 5y ago
    In brief, read 'for the public' rather than 'by the public'. Another example - public houses (aka pubs) are generally for-profit private (or large chains may be public in the sense of being listed) companies that take your money in exchange for real ale and good food; not social housing! The more confusing thing is that we now (see history in sibling comments) have 'private schools' too. What you call 'public' are 'state' schools here, or something more specific where it's implied ('grammar', 'comprehensive', 'academy').
OJFord 5y ago
It doesn't mean 'absolutely zero' - the key point is that it must have charitable aims and objectives which it strives to achieve or encourage. For example, a university student union can sell you beer in the SU bar and run events to raise cash in order to further its aims in education and student experience etc.
outsb 5y ago
> It means absolutely zero whatsoever I know you're being dramatic, but at least charities in the UK do have vastly different treatment by HMRC, and much more granular financial reporting requirements. Raspberry Pi foundation annual accounts are here: https://s3.eu-west-2.amazonaws.com/document-api-images-live.ch.gov.uk/docs/CBTw8ypbBIKtolVf1svcpbxuWhrOajn3wU5DG5X_FaA/application-pdf?X-Amz-Algorithm=AWS4-HMAC-SHA256&X-Amz-Credential=ASIAWRGBDBV3CSIPE72Y%2F20220413%2Feu-west-2%2Fs3%2Faws4_request&X-Amz-Date=20220413T005610Z&X-Amz-Expires=60&X-Amz-Security-Token=IQoJb3JpZ2luX2VjEKj%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2FwEaCWV1LXdlc3QtMiJHMEUCIQCLavstNj2AZ7Mh8DIGM5iepBday7nPVz9s%2BYXCcmLNcQIgXtJ8NY32aAj62xpMm6N%2F94aLSs7na2EfHvU0OSTplWAq%2BgMIURAEGgw0NDkyMjkwMzI4MjIiDBkjl1QA%2FFNPGilPlCrXAzW%2FZbJeiKkGOQSFNOUEwKjFupuidn1SafxEySUmgXFePK0LeQIVhE9b4IC3d%2FVBBB3fS7FMwpslBp4dw6sOx4bclbKv2NRNv40fXy9ajBC4DCDPSqaGObNNpsyl7IsdFqyV1Q8oP1x2BAtHE2CqQT1aL2ss%2BMyUIV8CFDP8q8Wx%2Bdi%2BoBkI1xkv9aVEArCVIJPvNXBSfySwNZWzgCQrR7Lt2VX4bf63cr19BlcyjaGcgAMw5bPWelsM3gzJELwSonrX8XmorXStIgTyh0HarctRLvgi6ENaXUw3BPTbQei%2FwfpPaeXK54dtEPsFcDkQHNwLu9XgNME6FnoWOohFRtIrDYvoVQVgaNC2svRAxjg%2FzNnOKHL80JJMA%2BvlypIqnOMBqfVrWkgL84JLDC%2BdRPzrKIjz5ThfHcf6gt0P%2FkMFOw1h4wamwxl5TtWjB7lhc%2FaVSxIobnK%2ByfHEsep4G%2B3YdZzX5Jv32O3BwKb9NTr8ywZ9O9tasIs%2B865ZUv%2BOWNH9NlR1DLgGWds26JPeUgy4%2Fom5ASIpirlpa8eCtpW9BhPs5Qn842WV4J%2FDo2JUUTsWDxJl1BRm0nsf40eWtbkgDPXu8EUCGYcpklAWaeIvollZzZCRTjD9nNiSBjqlAW81oklMnc3Qc3Sk5wwIub%2FLAC1uO8mXqd2JYsQ05Y0XzLRPQX2qwDW%2F3VFdGSCdK1%2FNy%2BroVqYHRgdD8qNWK3V2wM1GzP8oLwFCPGQyq%2FjYvlR0NClczaruZzIVDg1om9hOEv20eX7nwc2%2BpZ3D6L2%2F7XaQGmpaxAE92aXANTQCKNwQF7WwTe57H8u962r2gnz8GoKjJdI2aj%2FI3fr2FMdaWUTdKA%3D%3D&X-Amz-SignedHeaders=host&response-content-disposition=inline%3Bfilename%3D%22companies_house_document.pdf%22&X-Amz-Signature=375c8edf4936fca6cf9e6cc7de01e1d027877c02b585c9a20826edf3c7ce1135 https://s3.eu-west-2.amazonaws.com/document-api-images-live.... For example we can see one member of staff was taking home more than £290k in 2020 It seems this is a rather profitable business hiding beneath the label of "education exemption"

by samhw 5y ago

stuaxo 5y ago

For people in the US "Public School" in the UK are actually private.

akiselev 5y ago
And "Slough Comp" is a tongue in cheek name for Eton College
ChuckNorris89 5y ago
>"Public School" in the UK are actually private That's confusing as hell. Can anyone please explain?
- samhw 5y ago
  Yeah, sure. When they started[0], the aristocracy were educated by private tutors, and these schools actually were for the poor (ok, fine: for 'poor', read 'slightly less than royalty'). That context has obviously changed a lot since, and it now feels a bit silly. Also, while that person's comment is correct, it's worth noting that not all private schools are referred to as public schools. That name is only for the oldest, mostly-boarding schools that were big players when the system was (finally) formalised in the 19th century. The vast majority of private schools would just be called private schools. And then state schools are the genuinely-free ones. [0] ETA: Mostly around the Tudor period I believe; i.e. by Shakespeare's time most if not all of them were well established.
  - unfocussed_mike 5y ago
    Yes -- but also all "Public" schools were not "Church" schools. Basically there is a time when education was almost exclusively monastic; those who were not taught privately were taught by religious institutions. The public schools were free of that influence to a greater extent. There is one more tier of school you don't mention which sits somewhere below "public": the "commercial school". There were some of these owned by the livery companies, and were a tier of schools that were created along the lines of the public schools but before the school system was fully established. Most of them were not fee-paying but were funded by donations or livery company charitable funds. They taught largely vocational skills (but professional ones rather than technical ones); parents sent their kids to commercial schools to bring back the knowledge to professionalise the family business or to set them up in a trade. (I went to a school that was originally founded this way, but was a part-state-owned grammar school by the time I got there a century later)
    - samhw 5y ago
      Oh wow, thanks for adding that detail. I didn’t know about practically any of that. That’s a fascinating side of things: I thought there must have been a slight lacuna in my understanding, that not all the educated classes could have employed private tutors, and that definitely fills in a missing link for me. Though it adds another small question: aren’t/weren’t most public schools severely Anglican? I know my school was quite radical at the time for admitting Jewish boys, so that always painted a picture of a not-exactly-super-secular institution, but maybe I’ve got the wrong impression in some way... Also, those commercial schools sound a bit - subtracting for a moment the fee-paying aspect - like the German technical education system which I’ve always liked the sound of. I wish we had something more like that today, though obviously now it wouldn’t - or shouldn’t - be fee-paying.
      - unfocussed_mike 5y ago
        > Though it adds another small question: aren’t/weren’t most public schools severely Anglican? Yes -- implicitly. (sidebar: I am not sure that, when public schools really first sprang up, it was even possible to educate people of Jewish descent; the situation for Jews in england in particular was deeply complicated by their unique relationship to the state as established by the Magna Carta. Either way, they were not landowners by law and therefore probably not that interesting to the church.) But at any rate as Wikipedia says, the first public schools appear to have been generalised and detached versions of grammar schools, which were the schools run for wealthy families that were attached to churches and monasteries. Those schools started off teaching young people the skills needed to function in church life, but eventually they seem to have become so generalised for various other trades that they separated themselves in an administrative sense. They'd have had lots of clergy doing the teaching nonetheless, I imagine, simply because really only clergy had access to education at that point. I am not sure how "technical" the school I went to ever was in its earliest form (we did have technical schools in the UK for a while as a precursor to the comprehensive system). I get the impression it was commercial in the sense that it taught reading and writing necessary for conducting a business, maths necessary for bookkeeping and engineering, and some science. (The livery company that founded it still owns half of it -- the outside half, literally)
- pessimizer 5y ago
  School run by members of the public rather than by the state. So instead of public/private, state/public.
  - samhw 5y ago
    No, it’s really as simple as in my own reply: the American meaning is exactly what the term conveyed when ‘public schools’ began, centuries before today’s ‘state schools’ existed anywhere. It was a school that was open, in principle, to anyone. Think ‘free as in speech’ vs ‘free as in beer’, but with the added sense - like ‘public transport’ - of being democratic and round-about-accessible to all. As for the US: when it began, fee-paying schools were the dominant mode, and there wasn’t really an aristocracy with private tutors to distinguish it from. So it never needed the ‘public’ - and when government schooling became a thing, it pretty naturally took on the ‘private’ qualifier instead.
  - implements 5y ago
    Actually, I think it was that a subset of private fee-paying schools were set up to prepare students for positions in ‘Public Life’ ie politics, military, clergy, civil service - basically running the country aka “The Ruling Classes”.
    - samhw 5y ago
      Nope. Like I said a moment ago[0], it really did just mean ‘free as in speech’, like not-quite-free public transport suggests. Your explanation is certainly very neat and plausible - all the makings of a folk etymology - but it happens not to be correct. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31008161 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31008161
      - implements 5y ago
        You’re right about “Public, as in open to all (who can pay)” being the primary origin of the name, but it has also evolved to mean: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/public%20school https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/public%20school “An endowed secondary boarding school in Great Britain offering a classical curriculum and preparation for the universities or public service.” The purpose of public schools isn’t academic excellence (though of-course they support it for their most able pupils) but networking and the ‘habits of person’ necessary to compete socially in class-sensitive institutions.
- BlueTemplar 5y ago
  Consider also how in the USA, "public" companies are actually private.
- gerdesj 5y ago
  Actually, it's worse than that! Fee charging schools can be known as both public and private schools. Those terms are never used in the UK for schools funded by the state. A state funded school will be labelled as Primary, Secondary etc. Some are known as State schools. Some are Academies (a bit more complicated but largely publically funded) etc. Basically in England anyway, Public and Private schools are fee charging schools. The name does not refer to how they are funded. I went to a private school aged nine to 13 and a public school 13 to 18. Then I went to a polytechnic, which changed its name after a year and then two (three?) years later it was a university! Whilst in sixth form (17/18) So the message here is that the public/private distinction for school nomenclature here in England and perhaps some or most if not all the UK doesn't mean what it does elsewhere, unless it does except where it doesn't ... except on a weekend when all bets are off. Clear? Jolly good. As you were, carry on!
  - samhw 5y ago
    Thanks for adding that detail! Also for being the one person who replied ITT with a non ’apocryphal’ etymology. I was getting ready to dig into another “public schools are called public because you can see them from the road!” pseudohistory... And, more importantly, thanks for adding detail on the state school side of things, which I suppose I left out of my answer because it’s not something I know about. It was definitely sorely needed.
- OJFord 5y ago
  In brief, read 'for the public' rather than 'by the public'. Another example - public houses (aka pubs) are generally for-profit private (or large chains may be public in the sense of being listed) companies that take your money in exchange for real ale and good food; not social housing! The more confusing thing is that we now (see history in sibling comments) have 'private schools' too. What you call 'public' are 'state' schools here, or something more specific where it's implied ('grammar', 'comprehensive', 'academy').

OJFord 5y ago

It doesn't mean 'absolutely zero' - the key point is that it must have charitable aims and objectives which it strives to achieve or encourage. For example, a university student union can sell you beer in the SU bar and run events to raise cash in order to further its aims in education and student experience etc.

outsb 5y ago

> It means absolutely zero whatsoever I know you're being dramatic, but at least charities in the UK do have vastly different treatment by HMRC, and much more granular financial reporting requirements. Raspberry Pi foundation annual accounts are here: https://s3.eu-west-2.amazonaws.com/document-api-images-live.ch.gov.uk/docs/CBTw8ypbBIKtolVf1svcpbxuWhrOajn3wU5DG5X_FaA/application-pdf?X-Amz-Algorithm=AWS4-HMAC-SHA256&X-Amz-Credential=ASIAWRGBDBV3CSIPE72Y%2F20220413%2Feu-west-2%2Fs3%2Faws4_request&X-Amz-Date=20220413T005610Z&X-Amz-Expires=60&X-Amz-Security-Token=IQoJb3JpZ2luX2VjEKj%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2FwEaCWV1LXdlc3QtMiJHMEUCIQCLavstNj2AZ7Mh8DIGM5iepBday7nPVz9s%2BYXCcmLNcQIgXtJ8NY32aAj62xpMm6N%2F94aLSs7na2EfHvU0OSTplWAq%2BgMIURAEGgw0NDkyMjkwMzI4MjIiDBkjl1QA%2FFNPGilPlCrXAzW%2FZbJeiKkGOQSFNOUEwKjFupuidn1SafxEySUmgXFePK0LeQIVhE9b4IC3d%2FVBBB3fS7FMwpslBp4dw6sOx4bclbKv2NRNv40fXy9ajBC4DCDPSqaGObNNpsyl7IsdFqyV1Q8oP1x2BAtHE2CqQT1aL2ss%2BMyUIV8CFDP8q8Wx%2Bdi%2BoBkI1xkv9aVEArCVIJPvNXBSfySwNZWzgCQrR7Lt2VX4bf63cr19BlcyjaGcgAMw5bPWelsM3gzJELwSonrX8XmorXStIgTyh0HarctRLvgi6ENaXUw3BPTbQei%2FwfpPaeXK54dtEPsFcDkQHNwLu9XgNME6FnoWOohFRtIrDYvoVQVgaNC2svRAxjg%2FzNnOKHL80JJMA%2BvlypIqnOMBqfVrWkgL84JLDC%2BdRPzrKIjz5ThfHcf6gt0P%2FkMFOw1h4wamwxl5TtWjB7lhc%2FaVSxIobnK%2ByfHEsep4G%2B3YdZzX5Jv32O3BwKb9NTr8ywZ9O9tasIs%2B865ZUv%2BOWNH9NlR1DLgGWds26JPeUgy4%2Fom5ASIpirlpa8eCtpW9BhPs5Qn842WV4J%2FDo2JUUTsWDxJl1BRm0nsf40eWtbkgDPXu8EUCGYcpklAWaeIvollZzZCRTjD9nNiSBjqlAW81oklMnc3Qc3Sk5wwIub%2FLAC1uO8mXqd2JYsQ05Y0XzLRPQX2qwDW%2F3VFdGSCdK1%2FNy%2BroVqYHRgdD8qNWK3V2wM1GzP8oLwFCPGQyq%2FjYvlR0NClczaruZzIVDg1om9hOEv20eX7nwc2%2BpZ3D6L2%2F7XaQGmpaxAE92aXANTQCKNwQF7WwTe57H8u962r2gnz8GoKjJdI2aj%2FI3fr2FMdaWUTdKA%3D%3D&X-Amz-SignedHeaders=host&response-content-disposition=inline%3Bfilename%3D%22companies_house_document.pdf%22&X-Amz-Signature=375c8edf4936fca6cf9e6cc7de01e1d027877c02b585c9a20826edf3c7ce1135 https://s3.eu-west-2.amazonaws.com/document-api-images-live.... For example we can see one member of staff was taking home more than £290k in 2020 It seems this is a rather profitable business hiding beneath the label of "education exemption"