Bursar’s Review Spring 2022 Sampler

Spring 2022 www.theisba.org.uk 10 Feature Here, Tom Arbuthnott , deputy head (partnerships) at Eton College, former chair of the Schools Together Group and founding trustee of the School Partnerships Alliance, describes the benefits to everyone of partnership activities between all types of schools. He writes in a personal capacity. Value for money is a principle close to the heart of most good bursars and most good partnership co- ordinators. Since I took on an early partnerships role in Birmingham a decade ago, the field of work between state and independent sectors has become more complex and also immeasurably more effective. It has also become more expensive to the bottom line, especially within those schools which are most committed to it. This article is to illustrate (and ask for feedback on) the chart on page 12, which seeks to make sense of the differing levels of partnership activity in different independent schools; and aims to suggest that schools which get started with partnership activity tend to want to do ever more. In my mind – though I have not yet worked out how to represent it visually – schools of different sizes and ambitions tend to settle in stages 2, 3 or 4, all ‘alike in dignity.’ Stage 1 exists for schools which are dabbling their toes in partnership waters, and tends to gravitate to stage 2. Schools/partnerships may well be at different levels on different counts: this table is not meant to be prescriptive. It feeds on my experience over 10 years building two different partnership programmes, first in Birmingham and latterly in Berkshire. A short commentary on that experience might help to illuminate the chart. Stages of partnership Share expertise and build practice around what really works