
Boarding schools hit by fall in number of international pupils
The figure has fallen by almost 14 per cent since its peak in 2020.
The Independent Schools Council (ISC) shared figures from its annual census with The Times. In January there were 25,500 non-British pupils with parents living overseas at private schools, down from nearly 29,500 in 2020.
• Private school exodus of 13,000 dwarfs ministers' predictions
There has been a 2.6 per cent drop in the year to January alone, amounting to almost £29 million in lost fees. Ninety-three per cent of foreign pupils whose parents stay in their home country choose to board; 54 per cent are at an independent school sixth-form.
Hashtags

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles


BBC News
35 minutes ago
- BBC News
Wales' papers: Tributes to 'Mr Wrexham' and hope for missing man
Copyright 2025 BBC. All rights reserved. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Read about our approach to external linking.


The Sun
an hour ago
- The Sun
I was virgin before university but ended up sleeping with five different guys since… I feel disgusted
DEAR DEIDRE: WHEN I arrived at university less than a year ago I was a virgin, but now I've already slept with five different guys. I used to have a boyfriend when I was living at home, but my parents are very strict and religious and frown on sex before marriage. They rarely let me and my boyfriend out of their sight. I'm an 18-year-old girl. When I applied for university my parents insisted I had to live in halls as they thought it would be safer than a house but they don't know the halls I'm in are mixed. On my first night I went to the student bar and ended up drinking far too much and going back to one guy's room and having sex with him. I felt guilty but managed to get over it. I had sex with him a few more times but he stressed it was just for fun. Although I really liked him, I acted as if I was happy with that. He would come to my room late at night and let himself in, then return to his room afterwards. I don't see him now as he has changed course. I started seeing another student but he was controlling. He reminded me of my parents so I dumped him. There was another one after him but we weren't compatible. Then I've had a couple of one-night stands that haven't gone anywhere. At the weekend I bumped into the first guy in a bar. Dear Deidre on relationships, jealousy and envy I told myself I wasn't going to have sex with him but we ended up in my bed. I feel disgusted with my behaviour. I have gone from having no sex to doing it just for fun. I'm so confused. DEIDRE SAYS: Casual sex risks both your emotional and sexual health but don't beat yourself up. You grew up without being given a chance to develop a sense of responsibility to decide on healthy boundaries for your sexual behaviour. You're giving off vibes that you're up for a casual fling, rather than spelling out what you really want. No-strings sex is unlikely to lead to a relationship. The good news is you can do something about this. Set your boundaries firmly. Only have sex with men who are as open as you are to the possibility of it leading to a relationship. Drinking too much alcohol is seriously affecting your judgment so keep your boozing in check. I'M FED UP OF MOVING HOME AS HE BUILDS HIS CAREER DEAR DEIDRE: I AM sick of following my husband and his job around the country. Is it time for me to break free and move to another area? My husband works in construction and he likes to be near his work. He's currently involved in building a huge estate a few miles from where we live as part of the Government's new housing plan. It's been going on for three years, with shops and schools all in the mix, and my husband is part of different phases. We are both 52 and I've had enough. The area we live in isn't great. Nobody goes out at night because it's not safe. My husband loves his job and simply says it is paying the bills so I need to get on with it. I would love to develop my own career but because we move so often I can only offer cleaning or waitressing. DEIDRE SAYS: If you don't have to work then it is easier to stay where one of you is working but is there no room for compromise? Find a moment to talk to your husband about moving further away from his work to somewhere still accessible but a nicer environment to live in. Could he use public transport or even car-share to the site to take some of the strain off a longer commute? If you can't agree, then see (020 7380 1975) who will be able to help you find a compromise through couple's counselling. DEAR DEIDRE: MY mother's house is absolutely filthy and I've come to realise that she doesn't keep herself clean either. While my wife and I were renovating our really old property, we spent six weeks living with her, along with our two children. My brothers and I have all lived with her at some stage, and the house is always messy. We've had discussions and jokes about having to clean up when we go. This time it was worse. The house was piled up with old newspapers and things she had bought but never used. Mum smells musty too and there are rooms you can't even enter because of everything that's piled up. My dad died 15 years ago. I'm 31 and I have realised that things started to get bad when she was grieving him. DEIDRE SAYS: When people start to let their personal hygiene slip, it is often a sign of depression. You must talk to her. If she's feeling overwhelmed with the property, arrange a clean-up with your brothers. Ask if she has spoken to her doctor about this or whether she would consider bereavement counselling. Check out Cruse Bereavement Care ( 0808 808 1677). You can find more advice through which helps anyone affected by a hoarder or hoards themselves. SHE THINKS ONCE A WEEK IS PLENTY DEAR DEIDRE: IF I didn't initiate sex, my wife and I would be living like housemates. I'm fed up with always being the one to suggest it and feeling like a sexual predator. I've no interest in cheating on her. I love her and she is my world, aside from my three kids who are pretty special, too. We have busy lives with the children's activities, cooking and cleaning, but we both work at it. My wife is 41 and I'm 45. We both have good jobs and sometimes work from home. With our companies both relaxing the rules on being in the office, I thought it would be our opportunity to get physically intimate during the day sometimes when the kids were at school. My wife sees it differently. She thinks sex once a week is enough, so if we've done it one evening, then I worry about asking her again. She's always got the excuse that she is tired or the kids will hear if we do it at bed time. I think we have lots of time when we are alone so why not take advantage and have sex three or four times a week? My wife doesn't agree. DEIDRE SAYS: A good sex life is more about quality than quantity and a good relationship is making sure that you both compromise if there's something you don't agree on. Rather than letting this fester, find a moment when you're not going to bed and ask if you can talk to her. Explain that you feel unhappy with the way things are right now and ask what you can do so she commits to sometimes initiating sex. Having a date night once a week, when there are no distractions like phones, can help. She might feel like sex afterwards. 'Diarising' intimacy often helps couples to make time to ensure that connection. My support pack Different Sex Drives will also help.


Daily Mail
an hour ago
- Daily Mail
EUAN MCCOLM: Thirty years ago I had my first clash with a member of the 'lanyard class'. Sadly, it was only a taste of things to come
It was supposed to make my life easier, but within an hour I was the most loathed man in the room. Thirty years ago, while working as a reporter for a newspaper in the North-East of England, I was compelled by my employers to attend a 'stress management' course. Over two days inside a stuffy meeting room at St James' Park, I would be taught techniques to make me happier and more efficient. The course leader decided to begin proceedings with a general knowledge quiz. This, he said, would place us in a real-life stress situation. The quiz was not in the slightest bit stressful. The aftermath, on the other hand… I came top in the quiz, by some distance. I'm not saying my fellow stress managers were idiots but I'm hardly the fizziest drink in the fridge and I didn't get a question wrong. Having marked myself out, by knowing the name of the capital of Brazil, as having airs and graces, I was treated with suspicion by the others. Over the following two days, we sat in that airless room listening to a man with the most punchable face I'd ever seen suggest a variety of ways in which we might reduce our stress levels. What he did was this: every night, as he drove home, he'd pass a service station a mile from his house. At this point, he would tell himself that he was no longer in 'the work world'. If this wasn't enough, he might light some candles and have a long soak in the tub. Reader, I am what you might call a smart-a*** and so I took great pleasure in irritating this charlatan, who was being paid handsomely so that my bosses could tick a box that said they were doing the right thing by their staff. When he asked whether, if I was in a plane and the engines died, I'd parachute to safety, I played it deadpan. 'Dunno,' I said. 'But if you don't, you'll die,' he said. 'I get that,' I replied. 'It's just I don't know whether, in the moment, I'd be able to jump.' 'But the plane's going to crash,' he continued, his exasperation mounting. 'Yeah, I know,' I said. 'And I hope I'd be able to do it but, you know, how can I say I would?' I was annoying everyone in the room by this point. A woman from advertising sales snapped that she'd jump and the course leader told us all this was evidence that, under terrible pressure, the human mind can find reserves of strength. I went for lunch alone on the first day and then let the afternoon drift past in a hoppy haze. On the second day, the stress management expert managed his stress by ignoring me. When I returned to my desk after two days of sessions, my news editor demanded to know what stories I had for the coming Sunday's paper. Well, none, I said. I've been on a stress management course. Under pressure to catch up, I felt more stressed than before. It isn't healthy to hold grudges but, three decades on, my contempt for the man who ran that course has only intensified. He was at the vanguard of the trend for employers to bring in consultants and workshoppers. Rather than creating genuinely comfortable working conditions and paying decent wages, companies could run a series of expensive – and pointless – courses and declare themselves committed to the Government's 'Investors in People' scheme. The contemporary equivalent of those consultants are the activists who, over recent years, have been let loose across the public and private sectors to conduct courses on equality and inclusion. Just as my bosses didn't give a hoot about my stress levels 30 years ago, today's employers don't care about the damage these consultants cause. This lanyard-class is perfectly personified by Isla Bumba, equality officer at NHS Fife. In evidence last week during the tribunal of Sandie Peggie – suing the health board and trans-identifying doctor Beth Upton for sexual harassment and discrimination after she was suspended for complaining about the presence of a biological male in a female-only space – Ms Bumba exposed the vacuity of these box-tickers, employed to ensure their employers comply with whichever target or objective is currently in vogue. In the case of Ms Bumba – a £60k-a-year equality officer with seemingly no understanding of the Equality Act – this meant giving advice that not only left Sandie Peggie victim of a shocking witch-hunt but also left her employers, funded by the Scottish taxpayer, open to costly legal action, such as the tribunal now taking place. But the hapless equality officer cannot be a scapegoat for her employers. The chief executive of NHS Fife, Carol Potter, and the board –chaired by Pat Kilpatrick –must all go. And they must go as publicly as possible. This is not only necessary for the good governance of NHS Fife, it is essential if the grip of gender ideologues on public bodies is to be loosened. Carol Potter, Isla Bumba, Pat Kilpatrick and every member of the NHS Fife board must become examples of what happens when those in authority ignore their responsibilities to both employees and the law. Right now, lurking in offices across Scotland, there are overconfident and under- qualified men and women who hold in their hands – and seem indecently eager to exercise – the power to destroy careers. These people, with their courses and their talk of 'best practice', are a danger. Fortunately, there already exist robust equality laws which, among other things, protect the sex-based rights of women. There should be no need in any organisation with a functioning legal department to employ someone to ensure compliance with the law, especially when that individual doesn't have the faintest idea what they're talking about. For decades, workplaces have been invaded by clipboard-wielding, power-tripping consultants and experts who – in order to justify their salaries – make life unnecessarily difficult for the rest of us. Once you've clashed with one of these exhausting little tyrants, no number of stress management courses will help you forget.