Partnerships between independent schools and the state sector offer little benefit for the state schools involved, a report has claimed, according to The Times.

Of the state schools polled for the report, only 3% said they benefited from access to private schools’ facilities and just 1% benefited from teacher secondment.

Many of the partnerships involved little more than joint football matches or invitations to school concerts, the report stated. On the plus side, some state schools reported events aimed at helping state school pupils with university applications, and week-long summer schools at the private institutions.

Freedom of Information requests were sent out to 400 state schools, with 277 replying. Of those, 36 (13%) said they were involved with a partnership with a school in the independent sector.

The research was conducted by Tom Fryer, a researcher at the University of Manchester’s institute of Education and published by think tank the Private Education Policy Forum.

Fryer said: “Our report suggests that charitable partnership work from private schools is often unevidenced and does not involve deeply collaborative or impactful work. This is worrying given how often partnership work is cited by the private schools sector in defence of the charitable status, and huge tax breaks, many private schools enjoy.”

Independent Schools Council chief executive Julie Robinson commented: “State schools and independent schools work together in a variety of ways to broaden educational outcomes; it is important to encourage more of this work so that the best examples ban flourish.”

Read the full report here