If you'll pardon the pun.
A couple of comments yesterday suggest that Schola Ruthinensis (Ruthin School) may be closing. May I state quite clearly and for the record that I don't believe this to be the case. At all. What's happening is, like any business, that the school will next academic year undergo changes that play to its strengths. This means a concentration on secondary education and the phased closure of the school's pre-preparatory and preparatory departments (infants & juniors). Last academic year, there arrived at Ruthin School a new headmaster. Any new chief executive is likely to want to consider the business he runs in the light of prevailing conditions, tough conditions. Why should Ruthin School be any different? It's about sustainability.
Ruthin School is one that sees increasingly the importance of eastern pupils in its senior department. The number of pupils who attend from Asia is now considerable and they are known to outnumber local people. Is this a problem? It only becomes so if it drives out local people. We need to accept that locals are probably less able to afford the fees. For them, Ysgol Brynhyfryd over the road might not offer Ruthin School's the staff-pupil ratios, its extra-circular activities or the opportunities within the private system but Brynhyfryd's results are as good if not marginally better than the school opposite.
Attracting Chinese students is nothing unique to Ruthin School nor, indeed, the university sector. Only yesterday in Peking was the UK prime minister "selling" British education, something already highly prized there. It's well known that people from the east, China especially, crave such a British education, at secondary or higher levels. They don't need primary age education, though. The secondary market for Chinese students remains strong and is a lucrative seam. Indeed, it's possible that this is something that keeps Ruthin School afloat. And although it's a charity (with the financial benefits that brings), it's also a business. Will this activity grow and will it be to the detriment of local children, especially those in or aspiring to pre-preparatory and preparatory education?
The problem comes, if problem there is, when you consider the school's links with Rhuthun/Ruthin. The school was founded centuries even before local benefactor Gabriel Goodman's sixteenth century re-foundation. Though dean of Westminster in London, Goodman is known to have been something of a patron to and supporter of the town. In founding a hospital, strengthening St Peter's Church, re-founding the school and building links between the three, he clearly had in mind the welfare of *local* pupils. The link between town, church and school goes back more than 400 years. Ruthin School acknowledges the importance of Chinese scholars. Will the relationship between town and school change as a result. Is Ruthin School set on becoming an international college to the detriment of local people? And if it does, will it damage either the school or the areas, including local pupils who may wish to attend? Or is this of little relevance to Rhuthun and the surrounding area in an era of free state education and a good state school on our doorstep?
Readers may recall Arden preparatory school near Llanfair DC that closed in the late 1990s.
A couple of comments yesterday suggest that Schola Ruthinensis (Ruthin School) may be closing. May I state quite clearly and for the record that I don't believe this to be the case. At all. What's happening is, like any business, that the school will next academic year undergo changes that play to its strengths. This means a concentration on secondary education and the phased closure of the school's pre-preparatory and preparatory departments (infants & juniors). Last academic year, there arrived at Ruthin School a new headmaster. Any new chief executive is likely to want to consider the business he runs in the light of prevailing conditions, tough conditions. Why should Ruthin School be any different? It's about sustainability.
Ruthin School is one that sees increasingly the importance of eastern pupils in its senior department. The number of pupils who attend from Asia is now considerable and they are known to outnumber local people. Is this a problem? It only becomes so if it drives out local people. We need to accept that locals are probably less able to afford the fees. For them, Ysgol Brynhyfryd over the road might not offer Ruthin School's the staff-pupil ratios, its extra-circular activities or the opportunities within the private system but Brynhyfryd's results are as good if not marginally better than the school opposite.
Attracting Chinese students is nothing unique to Ruthin School nor, indeed, the university sector. Only yesterday in Peking was the UK prime minister "selling" British education, something already highly prized there. It's well known that people from the east, China especially, crave such a British education, at secondary or higher levels. They don't need primary age education, though. The secondary market for Chinese students remains strong and is a lucrative seam. Indeed, it's possible that this is something that keeps Ruthin School afloat. And although it's a charity (with the financial benefits that brings), it's also a business. Will this activity grow and will it be to the detriment of local children, especially those in or aspiring to pre-preparatory and preparatory education?
The problem comes, if problem there is, when you consider the school's links with Rhuthun/Ruthin. The school was founded centuries even before local benefactor Gabriel Goodman's sixteenth century re-foundation. Though dean of Westminster in London, Goodman is known to have been something of a patron to and supporter of the town. In founding a hospital, strengthening St Peter's Church, re-founding the school and building links between the three, he clearly had in mind the welfare of *local* pupils. The link between town, church and school goes back more than 400 years. Ruthin School acknowledges the importance of Chinese scholars. Will the relationship between town and school change as a result. Is Ruthin School set on becoming an international college to the detriment of local people? And if it does, will it damage either the school or the areas, including local pupils who may wish to attend? Or is this of little relevance to Rhuthun and the surrounding area in an era of free state education and a good state school on our doorstep?
Readers may recall Arden preparatory school near Llanfair DC that closed in the late 1990s.