What is The Rossall Foundation?The Rossall Foundation is a company limited by guarantee, registered as a charity, whose aim is to build a network of support for the development programme of Rossall School and to raise funds for projects beyond the reach of fee income surpluses.
The School is especially seeking, in co-operation with The Foundation, to increase its corpus of capital funds, on which the interest earned, will with careful investment provide financial security for the longer term future of the School.
Men did not love Rome because she was great : she was great because men loved her. The Rossall we enjoy is as good as it is because of the generosity of generations past. That is how places of this kind grow and flourish, and new donors contribute to the circle of generosity so that others will enjoy the place even more than they did. This is the basic thinking behind the Rossall Foundation. Headmasters are often surprised to find themselves, humble schoolmasters, in control of large businesses; something for which forty years of exposure to the perils of teaching Latin or the delights of patrolling boarding houses had not prepared them. But schools run on a revenue basis : our fees are set to generate modest surpluses which we plough back into the business. This allows us to deal with routine maintenance, and occasional local improvements. But the big projects will always be beyond us.
In the past the need for new facilities was met by Appeals. The problem with Appeals---and I ran one twenty years ago---is that it often involved cold calling, a letter out of the blue after ten years suddenly asking for money, and also the fact that it was easy for potential subscribers to say they couldn’t support the project because they had never enjoyed Maths or Sport or Music. The idea behind a Foundation is twofold : first, possible subscribers and supporters are pretty constantly engaged in the progress of the school; and, second, the Foundation will run a string of projects, catering for a range of interests: a games project, something artistic, the upgrade of a domestic building, an academic area, or----and this is increasingly popular----scholarship funding.
The Rossall Foundation deserves your support. We have a wonderful school which is doing great things. Our academic performance is improving fast; our games are improving faster; recruitment is increasingly strong. We have a fine new Foundation Director in Kevin Hookham. Please support us. I am always happy to talk to sponsors. Many people have passionate feelings about Rossall. That is what made it great in the past. Together we can make it great again.
Rossall School has changed markedly from the 1970s. No longer is it a predominantly boarding school for British boys but includes large numbers of day pupils. It has broadened its pupil base to include girls, opened an International Study Centre for foreign pupils and educates from the age of 2 to 18.
Most independent schools today are unable to balance their books from simply fee income, nor increase the number of scholarships and bursaries available, nor carry out the necessary refurbishments to the 'plant'. Rossall is particularly sensitive in this respect because of its geographical and economic location.
It was for these reasons that, on my recommendation as Chairman of Council at the time, it was decided to set up The Rossall Foundation, to raise funds to support the school in a variety of different ways. These projects include maintenance and development of the 'plant'; bursaries and scholarships for deserving or needy pupils and to help build a secure financial future for the school.