Top private schools told to take poorest pupils or lose tax breaks

Leading public schools will soon have to open their doors to poverty-line pupils or lose tax breaks.

Handing bursaries to "middle-income" families will no longer be good enough, warns the Charity Commission.

Those schools which charge the highest fees will have to provide the biggest subsidies under new rules.

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Commission investigators who check that fee-paying schools deserve their charitable status look mainly at bursaries.

But they also want expensive facilities opened to local state school students.

Up to a dozen fee-paying schools will be chosen at random to face in-depth checks before the end of the year, while others will be encouraged to volunteer.

All will be expected to draw up a report on their public benefit by March next year.

"Charities should not be seen as exclusive clubs that only a few can join, since the public benefit from that is very limited," says the Commission's latest guide.

"In particular, people in poverty must not be excluded from the opportunity to benefit.

"So it would not, for example, be enough to reduce very high fees slightly to enable more middle income people to benefit, if people in poverty were still excluded."

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Head teachers have already warned that schools may have to increase class sizes or raise fees to fund places for poorer pupils.

Fee-paying schools have had an automatic right to call themselves charities on the grounds that they provide education which would otherwise fall entirely on the state.

But Labour's controversial shake-up of charity law now requires them to pass a "public benefit" test and prove their fees of up to £27,000-a-year do not keep out the poorest children.

Those which fail the test face being stripped of their charitable status and associated tax perks, worth £100million-a-year.

Loss of the status would mean closure or takeover by profitmaking education providers and a likely increase in fees to compensate for loss of tax breaks.

The Charity Commission said it did not expect "huge numbers" of schools to struggle to fulfil the requirement.

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Top boarding establishments now charge more than £25,000-ayear. Tonbridge, for example, has fees of £26,826.

The guidance encourages schools to be "imaginative" in coming up with ways they can benefit the wider public.

It goes on to specify key ways they could show public benefit including means-tested bursaries to children who cannot afford the fees, lending teachers to local state schools and opening up facilities such as playing fields and theatres.

Many schools have already begun fund-raising to help them offer bursaries to pupils who cannot afford the fees.

Harrow recently announced it was aiming to raise £40million by 2012 to provide more bursaries to boys from poor homes.

A spokesman for the commission said: "The guidance is about ensuring there's a public benefit to a sufficient section of the public, in particular those in poverty.

"The higher the fees the more you have to look at that."

Bursaries, however, are not popular everywhere.

One independent school head, Dr Anthony Seldon, recently claimed they "cream off" bright pupils from state schools.