A UK headmistress has made a stark warning that the credit crunch could drive families with modest incomes away from private education, damaging their social mix.

Small independent schools could struggle to survive the recession. Many have already closed or merged. Yet other fee-charging schools fear, not that they will have to shut, but that their intake will become less socially mixed, as families with modest incomes shun private education.

Rosalind Hayes, headmistress at Malvern St James, a girls' boarding and day school, said social mobility had benefited independent education in recent years, but that this was now under threat. As the credit crunch continues, there could be a turning back of the years, with the sector reverting to being populated only by the children of elite and privileged parents, she warned.

Financial sacrifice

"For nearly all parents, choosing a private education entails considerable financial sacrifice and a reordering of priorities," she says. "Over the past 25 years, with more dual-income families, the gradual rise in disposable incomes and greater social mobility in Britain generally, the make-up of those choosing independent schooling has broadened immeasurably, with ever increasing numbers of ‘first-time buyers' entering the sector.

"Many of these parents will not have been privately educated themselves, yet have made the decision to invest in this for their own children."

She said independent education had opened up in recent years, resulting in fee-paying schools mirroring society much more accurately than they used to. This has injected fresh-thinking and a competitive edge, she said, driven by the customer expectations and consumer values of the new generations.

Discerning parents

"Many of those entering the independent sector have been self-made people, professionals, entrepreneurs and other achievers," Mrs Hayes continues. "Today's generation of discerning parents are demanding of the very best, and this has meant more parent contact and engagement with schools, in my experience. This in turn, I believe, has helped the schools themselves to evolve and improve as businesses in their own right.

"For lots of reasons, I would be concerned if the impact of the economic situation over a prolonged period was a shift towards only the very wealthy being able to afford independent education."

Under new Charity Commission legislation, independent schools will have to prove that they provide public benefit to retain their tax breaks, worth an estimated £100 million. Ways of doing this have not been set in stone, but could include offering more bursaries or opening up further facilities to the community.

Other heads echoed Mrs Hayes' comments. Patricia Kelleher, headmistress of Perse Girls' School in Cambridge, said bursaries were of concern at the moment, but were seen as necessary to ensure a mixed intake. Her school is spending about £350,000 this year on bursaries for pupils who can not afford the fees.

Schools ‘wooing' parents

She said the school was keen to ensure it kept a diverse population, adding: "We expect there to be more hardship in the next couple of years. We're going out to some primary schools to identify candidates for 100 per cent bursaries. We have to woo them and persuade them to consider us.

"There will be parents of girls who think we're just a posh school full of posh children, but it's not like that at all. It's a thinking school and the atmosphere is not pretentious."

Ms Kelleher also said parents now wanted more for their children. "There's been a change in expectations from parents - it's not enough for their daughter just to get three As at A level. When we have visits from prospective parents, they take it as a given that their daughter will do well academically. They want to know what else we're going to do, such as drama and music.

"Parents want it all now, they have definitely become more demanding but that's the age we live in - society has become more demanding."

Tackling ‘taboo' subjects

Ms Kelleher said more pastoral support had also become the norm, rather than assuming anxieties were being dealt with at home. "What has changed since I became head in 2001 is that the school has more of a role in supporting girls in their personal lives.

"That's the big change. A sex and relationship programme is now expected to be delivered. We didn't talk about eating disorders or people cutting themselves when I was first here. We have a counsellor in the school. We're in a mutually supportive relationship with parents to help their daughters."

Some experts have questioned whether single-sex education is in decline, as some schools have chosen to go co-educational, to attract more pupils in the recession.

But heads argue that girls' schools are still popular, and that female pupils flourish because they are more confident in a single-sex environment.

"Boys' levels of maturity are not as high as girls," says Ms Kelleher. "They want instant gratification and to see how well they've done, and if they've done it right. They're inevitably less focused than girls."