THE public school famously branded “a hell hole” by the Prince of Wales is so concerned by a fall in the number of boarders that it is paying for prospective parents to be flown from England to visit.

Gordonstoun, the £22,000-a-year school once synonymous with cold showers and early morning runs, is paying up to £800 for parents and their children to attend open days, including a two-night stay in local accommodation.

In what is believed to be a first for a British public school, Mark Pyper, the Headmaster, said that the full cost of a weekend in the Scottish Highlands would be offered as an inducement for parents to visit the school near Elgin, 180 miles north of Edinburgh.

Describing the scheme as “sound marketing”, Mr Pyper said he believed that it was necessary because parents in England were being put off by the school’s remoteness. Because of its strong international reputation, the school has had no problem marketing itself to wealthy foreign businessmen, many of whom arrive in private jets at nearby RAF Lossiemouth to drop off their children at the start of term. About a third of Gordonstoun’s 484 pupils, most of whom board, are from outside the UK.

The latest initiative is designed specifically to appeal to parents from England. Mr Pyper said: “We have always been a UK school and not just a Scottish school, but it is becoming increasingly hard to maintain that at at a time when boarding is not so fashionable, above all distant boarding.

“If you are living in Cornwall or Dorset and you say, ‘Gosh, I don’t want to send Johnny or Jemima all the way up there,’ then this scheme is for those parents to have a look.”

Although demand for sixth-form boarding places is so intense that Gordonstoun has had to turn away pupils, it has been suffering from falling numbers enrolling at 13. Of its target of sixty boarders to join at that age each year, about half come straight from Gordonstoun’s junior school, with another ten from across Scotland and ten more from abroad.

The remainder have traditionally come from England, but a decline in this market has led to there being fewer than 50 new boarders entering at 13 in both 2004 and 2005.

Mr Pyper said: “We are very keen to remain a boarding school. With this scheme the prime purpose is to sustain the English part of that entry.” Visiting parents have no obligation to sign up for the school, but Mr Pyper said that it has a conversion rate of around 85 per cent from such visits. An open day will be held this month, and another in April.

The Prince of Wales is the school’s most famous old boy. A glowing report by HM Inspectorate of Education this year paid tribute to the standard of pastoral care.

FAMOUS AND MODEL PUPILS

Lara Croft, the fictional heroine of the film Tomb Raider, was a sixth-former at the school. Mark Pyper, the Headmaster, is said to have a Lara Croft model on his mantelpiece

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