Rugby union is no stranger to unintended consequences. The sport’s incessant law tweaks tend to tinker with one area only to open a loophole or inspire a tactical trend somewhere else.
In a similar way, the Labour Party was probably not overly concerned about the future of the 15-a-side game when running for office on the manifesto promise to remove the VAT exemption on fees at independent schools; a policy that came into being on January 1 of this year.
While it may not meet the proposal of former England head coach Eddie Jones, who claimed in 2022 that power brokers should “blow up” the independent school system to instil more “resolve” in youngsters, it is an initiative causing frustration and widespread angst over the ripple effects that rugby union will have to confront.
Inevitably there will be fewer pupils and therefore fewer players, but critically scholarships and bursaries – often handed out to prodigious sporting talent – will become rarer.
These scholarships are sometimes worth up to 110 per cent of school fees – with the additional funds designed to help out with uniform and expenses for overseas tours – and have traditionally driven a migration of budding professional players from state schools to independent schools at the age of 16.
Recent data showed that around 63 per cent of under-16s affiliated to a Premiership academy attended state schools, which drops to 46 per cent from under-17 onwards. What must be kept in mind here when making any comparisons is that less than 7 per cent of the school-age population attends an independent school.
Nobody disputes the importance of private schools to the landscape of English rugby union, so Telegraph Sport spoke to those within rugby to find out how much damage the VAT law change could cause.
Anxious and angry landscape
Facilities and provision at private schools are staggering. Video analysis, gym programmes and ex-internationals as coaches are commonplace.
Crucially, though, this is not just about a route into professionalism. Independent schools have long fielded multiple sides for each age group. A full-back in an under-14 C team might become a season ticket-holder in the future or fall in love with the sport sufficiently to introduce it to their own children one day.
Courage, camaraderie and other positive aspects can, of course, be fostered in club teams and at state schools, but many independent schools remain a dependable breeding ground.
England back-rowers Tom and Ben Curry profited from bursaries, moving across the state and independent sectors from Bishop Heber High School in Cheshire to Oundle School for sixth form.
“It was as close as you could get to professional,” Tom told Telegraph Sport. “Now I think they even have ice baths, it’s crazy. It was two out of 18 years [of education]; only a small percentage but a really good stepping-stone into that professional environment.”
The twins were coached at Oundle by their uncle, former England hooker John Olver. After 22 years there, Olver retired in 2017. The pay hike has stirred strong feelings. “Don’t get me going… you have got me going,” Olver says down the phone. “It’s an envy tax and they’ll only end up raising enough money for 10 miles of motorway and a few bridges. That’s it.”
Olver, an old boy of Rossall School in Lancashire, made his England debut alongside fellow alumnus Peter Winterbottom. The pair were captained by Sedbergh old boy Will Carling that day and Olver received a card from his former headmaster in the build-up. It read: “Sedbergh 1 Rossall 2”.
Olver believes that Tom and Ben would have progressed towards the top level without attending Oundle. They had been part of the junior set-up at Crewe and Nantwich RUFC and their father, David, had represented Rosslyn Park. Even so, Olver predicts the VAT imposition will have a profound impact.
“Of course it is going to affect the future of rugby,” he adds. “They’ve forgotten about the middle class of really, really hard-working people that want to send their kids to private school. It won’t take millionaire businessmen or oligarchs out of the equation. What it will take out of the equation is the two-parent families where mum and dad work their arses off to get their kids to school and can just about afford to do it.”
The Curry twins had ex-Oundle team-mates at Twickenham last Saturday to watch them help England to a 16-15 win over Scotland. Olver calls the friendship group The Muppet Show. “Rugby goes hand in hand with private schools,” Olver continues. “It’s a niche sport. It’s not football, which is the national game. Rugby is a community, and a massive part of that community is private schools.”
The sentiment is shared by Guy Ayling, the headmaster at Mount Kelly in Devon who doubles up as the rugby lead for The Heads’ Conference (HMC), an association of headmasters and headmistresses from 351 independent schools. He went to Rugby School in the 1980s, only finding out about the size of his means-tested bursary when organising his mother’s affairs after her death.
Ayling has no qualms about dubbing the VAT hike an “existential threat”. Although he echoes many by conceding that the full effect cannot yet be predicted, the Government’s choice to introduce the tax in January, rather than over the summer, is branded as “cynical” because it is likely to ensure two terms of receipts at least given the difficulty of moving.
Ayling acknowledges a “shared anxiety about the pipeline” and forecasts “fewer kids in independent schools in September”. Already, he has witnessed more proactive marketing. Schools may bid to accentuate their “differentiators”, such as rugby programmes, by setting aside funding. But that may require other things to be sacrificed. Either way, Ayling is prepared to stick out his elbows.
“Generally, I think our sector has been cowed a little in the run-up to the VAT introduction,” he says. “Perhaps we’ve been too apologetic and feeling the need to make excuses for the fact that we are giving privilege. I don’t buy the slightly defeatist attitude. I’m rather tired of it. I’m proud of the school I went to and what it did for me. It’s turned me into a professional who cares about giving other people opportunities.
“Independent schools can be fantastic vehicles for social mobility too. I’d include myself in that. Both of my parents were comprehensive school teachers who wouldn’t otherwise have sent their children to an independent school. I want to get on the front foot about this and I think our parents want to as well. They don’t want to be spending their money on a school that isn’t confident about its positive contribution to society, and I am hugely proud of the young people we send into the world.
“In terms of rugby, absolutely, why shouldn’t we be proud? I do think that one of the engines of our national sporting success is being nobbled at the moment, frankly, by a Government that doesn’t seem to care about quality. We’re seeing the shape of the problem now and we’ve got to be bold and brave and get out and tell people that we’re worthwhile.”
Ayling spent 15 years at Sedbergh, where he taught James Simpson-Daniel, before Mount Kelly, and argues that independent schools are not the “impenetrable castles they used to be”. Alan Martinovic, who enjoyed immense success as a coach across both school sectors, plundering national trophies with Colston’s Collegiate [now known as Collegiate School] and then Hartpury College, points out another potential pitfall.
“Given the panic in some places around this, it might suggest that there has been an over-reliance in sourcing players from one particular section of the education system,” he says. “I wouldn’t say it was an accident waiting to happen, because who was to know that Labour would put 20 per cent on school fees, but if you’re reliant on one particular sector and it becomes less productive for you, for whatever reason, that becomes a problem.
“I think there’s a misconception that all independent schools are the same. They’re not. The irony is that the people that Labour probably want to impact the most will be impacted the least. Certain schools aren’t entirely reliant on school fees for revenue and income. Some extremely wealthy schools could exist for a while without taking a single penny in fees because of centuries-old endowments and property that they own. They can absorb some of the VAT, and put up fees by less.
“The problem then is that it becomes even more elitist because smaller schools, which are reliant on fees for everything from salaries to lightbulbs, cannot give away bursaries and scholarships. If those schools want to protect their rugby programmes as they almost certainly begin to haemorrhage pupil numbers, they will need to cut costs elsewhere, by making teacher redundancies or cutting other programmes and expenditure.”
One study examined the backgrounds of England internationals to have made their Test debuts between 2014 and 2024. During that period, the top source for new caps was not any English school, state or independent. It was in fact New Zealand, with nine. Next down that list were Hartpury College (seven), Wyggeston and Queen Elizabeth I College in Leicester (six), Millfield School (five) and Whitgift School (four); two state schools followed by two independent schools.
This data shows the landscape is more diverse than many think it to be, but the critical role of independent schools is recognised – and even envied – by other rugby-playing nations.
Warren Gatland put those schools into the spotlight last week, accusing them of “tapping up Welsh talent” in an interview with Telegraph Sport. He name-checked Kepu Tuipulotu, the Pontypool-born England Under-20 hooker whom Gatland tried to pick for the Wales senior side a year ago. Tuipulotu earned scholarships to Caldicott at the age of 11 and to Harrow School from year seven. Now 19, he has qualified to represent England seniors thanks to a decade of cumulative residency.
Tuipulotu starred with an all-action performance against Scotland Under-20 on Friday evening. A rumbling break up the middle, complemented by a cute grubber kick, will have added to a jaw-dropping highlight reel of clips from his exploits with Harrow, London Irish, England age-group sides and now Bath and Bath University.
There is an increased awareness of these tyros, thanks in part to Angus Savage, the founder of NextGenXV, a global online platform for schools and representative rugby. As he outlines, independent schools are weary of being painted as pillaging bad guys.
“I know for a fact that independent schools get really wound up for ‘handing out bursaries’ because they are giving these kids the opportunity of a lifetime and get stick for it,” Savage says. “I think that’s the bit that sometimes gets lost – there’s no guarantee that you will end up as a professional if you are affiliated to an academy at 16, far from it.
“The opportunity that you get by being put into one of these schools at 14 or 16 is enormous; often life-changing overnight. Rugby is the vehicle that has got them in, but it could collapse within months if they don’t grow three inches or whatever. They could get all the way into a first-team squad at a Premiership club, not quite break through and reach the age of 25 without 10 appearances to their name. The career life-span is short, but the life opportunity at an independent school is exactly that – it’s for life.”
Savage labels the VAT issue as a “scary” and “uncertain” challenge to which independent schools are having to respond. Factor in headlines regarding head injuries, a softening from compulsory to voluntary rugby and the introduction of non-contact options and it is a tricky cocktail.
Millfield, a prolific powerhouse of the game with former England captain Chris Robshaw, Scotland centre Huw Jones and Wales prop Henry Thomas among its former pupils, is a good news story in more ways than one. Despite the Somerset school offering 30 sports, close to 300 boys and girls are choosing rugby.
John Mallett, the former Bath prop who played for England at the 1995 World Cup, heads up an impressive operation and regrets that the expectations of fee-paying parents have had to change.
“If there is ever hope with numbers in England, it probably lies there,” Mallett says of the state sector. “I understand the real fear of Millfield-type schools becoming the only places that you can play a game that is becoming vastly reduced in numbers.”
At the end of March, Millfield Under-15s A will face Northampton School for Boys (NSB) in a friendly. At first XV, or U18 level, the two teams have competed in The Schools Championship, a competition that has expanded since launching with four sides – Sedbergh, Millfield, Wellington and Whitgift – in 2022.
The tale of NSB, a state school which counts Courtney Lawes and Ollie Sleightholme on its roll of honour, is immensely heartening and ground-breaking.
East Midlands anomaly
Phil Beaumont is a PE teacher, a year team leader and the deputy designated safeguarding lead at NSB as well as the point-man for BTEC Sport level three sport qualification. Director of rugby is not technically among his job titles, but has become “the only way people know who I am”.
A decade ago, NSB had four teachers and two support coaches running six rugby teams. They would have 80 boys turning up to muck in at the beginning of year seven, of which approximately 30 had played before. Those numbers would gradually dwindle over the ensuing months because not all of them could play in matches.
This Thursday, when an England Uunder-18 squad convenes at Bisham Abbey for a four-day camp, NSB will be the most represented school. They are contributing three players. Fly-half Hugh Shields has been there since the age of 12. Jack Lewis, a back-rower, joined from another state school that did not play rugby and prop Aiden Reid was previously at fee-paying Bedford School. All three also started for Northampton Saints in their victory over Bath in the Premiership Academy League decider.
To bolster NSB’s rugby infrastructure, Beaumont implemented a “community model”. He enlisted parents as volunteers and support coaches, tapping into his school’s advantageous location between two thriving local clubs in Old Northamptonians and Northampton Old Scouts. There are now 40 adults involved, with five coaches per age group. “The PE teachers aren’t contracted to be there for matches on Saturday,” Beaumont says. “That is the best sell to the volunteers because we’re all in it together, through choice.”
On the way to establishing “one of the best fixture cards in the country”, Beaumont has had to recalibrate. Wins by 50 points were no good to anyone. Linking with local independent schools was not easy, though, because they wanted A, B, C and D team fixtures.
“Our A teams are picked on merit, and the lower sides are picked on rotation,” Beaumont continues. “It’s not about short-term outcomes, it’s about our mission-statement for rugby, which is for boys who leave us to continue to play rugby at the highest level possible.
“A few years ago, we had Ethan Grayson make his debut for Northampton Saints. His whole NSB team went and watched him. Another boy in that year, Jacob Burns, made his debut in senior rugby for Old Northamptonians 3rd XV. The whole squad went to watch that as well. And that’s really special.”
NSB teams invariably forge deep into national knockout cups as a flagship for state schools. They won the U15 Continental Tyres Cup in 2023 and reached the final of that competition the following year.
Beaumont has been delighted to have late developers take up rugby in years 10 and 11. A fly-on-the-wall documentary followed NSB’s 1st XV last term and is out for tender. It is likely to end up on Sky, RugbyPass TV, Netflix or Amazon. The school will also tour South Africa in the summer, funding themselves in part with a mini-festival for local clubs that will accommodate 500 kids.
As for VAT on fees in the independent sector, it could well enhance Beaumont’s operation even further – not that he needs the help.
“We are a good rugby school that doesn’t charge and have boys moving from the independent sector to join us anyway,” Beaumont says. “It’d be unfair to say the rugby programme is the sole reason for doing that. In reality, I don’t think they’d consider us at all if our rugby programme wasn’t stronger than a lot of independent schools.
“We have boys turning down 110 per cent scholarships to stay with us. We have boys that have been on scholarships elsewhere and have left to join us. We have boys that weren’t with us and have chosen us over a scholarship somewhere else, and then gone on to be professional players.
“I don’t think they’re coming to us because of VAT. I think they’re coming to us because of our unique environment where we have top-pedigree rugby that can prepare them for the professional game or they just want to be involved in high-quality school rugby. And the academic profile of our school, at sixth form and lower down, is as strong as the independent sector. We are the anomaly.”
A randomised intake is a limiting factor for NSB, because 1,000 boys can apply for just 200 places. If a promising rugby player does not get in, it can be “really sad”.
“Boys that get missed, and don’t get a scholarship to an independent school, end up at a local state school where they pay lip service to playing rugby and there isn’t a budget for a programme,” Beaumont says. “There might be four games a year, which is not enough to keep boys training. They tend to fall off by years nine or 10.”
Mark Hopley, the head of Northampton Saints’ academy, oversees a diverse catchment area that includes large, traditional independent schools such as Bedford and Stowe. NSB is a strong pillar of it, and Royal Grammar School High Wycombe, a selective state school, has come into the Saints academy catchment area since boundaries were redrawn under the new professional game partnership (PGP) following the demise of Wasps and other clubs.
The same PGP will see Premiership clubs expand from one official partner school, who will represent them in the ACE (Academy Colleges and Education) League, to at least two. Northampton’s first ACE League link is with Moulton College, where Tommy Freeman went. Their second will be Impington College in Cambridgeshire. Hopley is striving towards “equity in our region” and wants to address how pupils at independent schools, especially those who board, will have more coaching hours.
All that said, Saints are “not hugely reliant on any one school” and won the Premiership U18 Academy League despite, Hopley estimates, having the least contact time with their players. “If I had them training three times a week, they might spend eight hours in the car per week and they wouldn’t be doing school work,” Hopley says. “We prioritise one session per week and then go out to do outreach. It’s not rocket science.”
Bill Richardson, an education advisor, works with Northampton Saints and speaks to parents about school and university options. Movement after GCSE exams, which used to be a “Wild West” for schools approaching kids, is critical. “Boys at 16, every now and then, get offered a life-changing opportunity to attend an independent school on a 100 or 110 per cent scholarships,” Hopley continues. “At 16, you have to remember that they are schoolboys. They don’t go to school for their rugby. They go for their education. That’s the only tangible thing they have.”
Rather depressingly, abuse on social media caused Saints to abandon listing the schools of their academy players on squad announcements. These days, they draw up collages of crests instead. “It was ‘Oh, you’re only picking kids from private schools’,” Hopley says. “The kid might have been from a state school and had been offered a scholarship to give them a chance of getting a contract. The people commenting didn’t know the players’ backgrounds or understand the opportunities they had been offered.”
Should VAT disrupt the status quo, Saints have robust contingencies. Hopley describes himself as “a state school boy through and through” yet clearly values the independent sector highly.
“The perception of the game right now is that it is a white-middle class sport, and behind the scenes, we are trying to make it more inclusive and accessible,” he says. “Equally, you can’t turn your back on a system that helps you. The really good independent schools on our patch have contributed to our success.”
Finding more like Ellis Genge
Ben Earl leaves enough space for you to read between the lines. The athletic England back-rower credits Saracens as more of an influence than Tonbridge, the Kent boarding school he attended, on his path to the professional ranks.
Tonbridge did allow Earl to immerse himself in sport – and he bowled at contemporary and future England cricketer Zak Crawley in the nets “all day, every day” – yet his schooling may have hindered him in different ways.
“I loved my time at school and have been very grateful for the journey I’ve had,” said Earl. “It probably held me back at one point, but I wouldn’t change it.”
Asked to elaborate, Earl smiles. “I just think there was a time when [going to independent school] was seen as a bad thing, and I don’t think it makes a difference – it really doesn’t. We’ve got some boys that have [been to independent school], some boys that haven’t. I’m very good friends with someone like Ellis Genge. You’re still trying to win games for England at the end of the day.”
The strong implication here is that Earl’s upbringing was fuel for Jones, Steve Borthwick’s predecessor as England head coach, to form a negative opinion and discriminate.
Don Barrell was head of the RFU’s pathways when Jones aimed his barb at independent schools. He reflects diplomatically.
“When you assume that a high-performance coach is always qualified to comment on youth development, you’re wrong at the starting point,” Barrell says. “It’s the same reason university lecturers aren’t in charge of primary school education.”
Genge, meanwhile, tends to be held up as a rough diamond that rugby union usually misses. Martinovic is a major reason that the England vice-captain was not lost to the sport, having made Genge his skipper at Hartpury College.
“Ellis’s character has become commensurate with his playing ability in terms of his importance to England,” Martinovic explains. “And he’s said it himself, there are loads of kids out there like him that haven’t had the opportunity. All I’m concerned about is providing more opportunities. If we do that, then a lot of this issue around school fees can be off-set.”
Martinovic voices potential solutions. One is for academies to run sessions out of junior clubs for children under 15. Martinovic is also curious about players cut by Premiership clubs much later at 18. Could they be invited to a under-21 trial or combine for those who have stayed in the game?
There is universal agreement that schools must suit the individual pupil in question. Barrell is now chief executive of Greenhouse Sports, a London-based charity using sport to engage 12,500 children in some of the areas of highest deprivation in England. Generally speaking, he would view “living and breathing rugby” and “making mates” at a boarding school as the most likely way for a disadvantaged youth to upset the odds and win a Premiership contract.
Independent schools invariably demand high academic standards. Other institutions with greater emphasis on vocational courses can be a much better social and cultural fit.
“Ellis Genge at an independent school?” laughs Martinovic. “F—— hell. He was bright enough but it would have been carnage. It wouldn’t have worked for him or the school. Hartpury was a good fit.” The ACE system, formerly known as AASE upon its foundation in 2004, in which vocational qualifications are often the norm, is a vital tool.
Martinovic spells it out: “If you have the choice between an independent school that will cost you £50,000 per year and an ACE college that will be free, or around £9,000 per year with accommodation, it’s a big opportunity.”
The expansion of ACE was already in the ether before Labour imposed VAT on independent school fees. According to the Rugby Football Union (RFU), there are plans for 120 fixtures between ACE colleges in 2025, up from 28 last year. Much of this discussion is dependent on geography and Newcastle Falcons lean heavily on their ACE link with Gosforth Academy, which guided Callum Chick and Jamie Blamire towards the first team. Earlier this month, Falcons Uunder-18s faced Yorkshire in a double-header. Of 49 players involved for Newcastle, there were 31 involved in state education with 22 at Gosforth Academy.
Neil McCarthy, the head of Premiership academies, suggests that “a gold standard” would be for more competition between independent and state schools. Genge and Maro Itoje, another Old Harrovian, never met in a schoolboy game despite being in the same year; an example used as evidence of how things can be improved.
Two more pertinent issues are raised by Martinovic. Firstly, why have the ACE finals, which were originally staged at Twickenham, been moved around the country to clubs such as Dings Crusaders and Cheltenham Tigers when tournaments such as the Continental Tyres Schools Cup still grace the hallowed turf?
Secondly, Martinovic states that a child who does not attend an ACE college or an independent school – and is not fortunate enough to find an outlier like Northampton School for Boys – has a “fairly remote” chance of playing for England.
There are, however, other problems and tensions to highlight. Beaumont at NSB worries that a decline in sport-specific PE teachers in state schools is diminishing the footprint of niche sports like rugby, cricket and gymnastics. “If you are a specialist, you will go where the provision is,” he says.
Sources raised concerns that kids could give up better academic prospects to join an ACE college. Another teacher at a state school spoke of how a lack of finances, a lack of support and a talent grab was exerting more and more pressure.
“Every year, we lose our best rugby players to ACE programmes because they’re being promised the dream when very few make it through that pathway towards becoming a first-team player,” they said. “Last year we lost five players before lower sixth, which added a strain on the crop coming through.”
Kids seeing aspirational role models whisked away is a vicious circle. Although junior clubs are critical, accessibility to quality coaching is rarer since the RFU’s abolition of rugby development officers. A spokesperson for the governing body cited its ambition to invest in a “national network of 100 school rugby managers by 2027,” with 40 already in place. These employees will work with clusters of local schools to embed rugby and introduce pupils to local clubs.
It is also hoped that “T1 Rugby”, a non-contact version of the game that still includes scrums, line-outs, kicking and a breakdown, will be available in 5,000 schools within four years.
All the while, one senses that further disruption to rugby programmes in independent schools, which the taxing of fees threatens to do, would be harmful. Savage boils it down succinctly.
“If independent schools aren’t doing what they’re doing, rugby struggles to exist in England,” he says. “I don’t think that’s overstating it at all.”
VAT on school fees may not cause English rugby union to collapse, but it certainly seems likely to stretch its fabric and inflict damage in the process.
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