Closing all private schools would benefit state schools

And where do you think that 'government funding' is coming from? There's nothing left in my pockets for increased taxes.

Do you want them to get on their knees and make a public confession or something? Ask forgiveness for not being poor?

Many of our local state schools are run by an academy trust as are many other schools in the some of the poorest areas in the country. All these academies are registered charities. Would it even be possible to distinguish between those schools funded independently through private fees, those with some Government and some private income (e.g. many SEN schools) and those with purely Governemnt income (academies). It would be interesting to know how abolishing charitable status would impact them.

@Sherrystrull yes, petty envy. That's what I meant. This is not passive aggressive - snarky maybe, and possibly a bit rude, but not passive aggressive.

Passive aggressive is where you say

"I prefer to be humble though and recognise my privileges. It helps me empathise with others."

But what you mean is, "other people boast, do not recognise their own privilege and cannot empathise with others."

I concede that it would be slightly passive aggressive of me to point this out to you if I didn't think you didn't understand it for some reason, but I can't actually tell if you do or not.

@squinker45

That's a whole lot of assumptions.

Anyway, passive aggressiveness isn't only something you can accuse me of.

@ntmdino OK in that case I would support your suggestion, especially over dismantling the system in favour of petty envy and things that make no logical sense

This is your message. Petty envy?

@Sherrystrull you said it frustrates you, so therefore I can surmise that if you decided not to be bothered by whether or not people with privilege acknowledge it as such, your life would improve. Unless you enjoy the feeling of frustration?

The other issue with your frustration (and that of many, many people who feel the same) is that feeling this way leads to action. Voting for those who support the destruction or targeting of private schools, supporting such action when it happens. BUT this action, which would have the result of more people using the state sector without an increase in budget, reduces the quality of education for all. A disaster for my kids, so I don't want it.

So yes, I would say that other people's choices do affect you, but perhaps not in the way you think.

Also stating that you prefer to be humble etc is super passive aggressive and only increases my view that you are bitter about this issue. Don't worry though, you're not in the minority.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/james-dyson-donation-gresham-school-b2449552.html

https://www.churchtimes.co.uk/articles/2023/3-november/news/uk/department-for-education-says-no-to-dyson-s-6-million-donation-to-church-school

So Dyson could donate to his old private school but hasn’t been able to donate to the state Church of England school.

If Starmer gets in and does not sort this out all that will happen is that private schools will increase donations and structurally change their approach to increasing fees (thereby indirectly swallowing the VAT). HMRC will lose on gift aid/inheritance tax and not gain overall on the VAT. They cannot do anything about charitable status anyway.

Look at Dyson trying to give money for a state of the art science block

”Trying” is the key word here! He’s trying to gift £6m to the state system but is finding it extremely difficult due to ridiculous reasons given by the local authority and department for education. Many are claiming that the state education system could be improved hugely with extra funding, and yet people trying to help with this are met with obstacles. The state education system as a whole needs an entire overhaul.

The problem with that is it will create even more of a geographical divide - more affluent areas will end up with state schools rivalling the independents, and poorer inner-city areas will be stuck with the bare-bones funding that the government will keep reducing year-on-year as the donations flood in; on average the picture will look rosy, so the government can make ludicrous claims of "no child left behind" in headlines, but the postcode lottery will sink any prospect of social mobility.

I don't disagree that your idea would be fantastic, but it relies on a utopia that is incompatible with the real world.

“I simply wouldn't have had a chance in our state school, and I wish more people had access to that educational environment.”

All higher rate tax payers can gift aid to private schools and it is inheritance tax efficient to do so. However, placing an obligation on a small private school to have to have X % of bursaries is unreasonable. The trustees will decide what they can and cannot do. The rich schools tap into their alumni and others to raise the donations for bursaries etc

What the Government can do is create more of a culture of people giving to their local state schools in a similar way, in their wills/as donations and make sure if schools are given the cash, that they then do not underfund them. Look at Dyson trying to give money for a state of the art science block. There is the will to do this kind of thing. This is what they should be encouraging.

That's true enough, and I wouldn't support changing the law to apply to all charities. However, independent schools are a very specific class, and so it would make sense to me to change the specifics applying to them.

I say this as someone who benefited greatly from just such a thing - I was a scholarship kid at our local private school, back when scholarships covered 25% of their places (the LEA funded much of this, because it was cheaper than building and maintaining another school in the area). I wouldn't be anywhere near as successful as I am now without it - I'm not talking about the Old Girl/Old Boy network (I always found that useless), but rather the environment itself; I simply wouldn't have had a chance in our state school, and I wish more people had access to that educational environment.

It's great if people do recognise their privilege. I'm specifically talking about those that don't. I have come across some in personal life, professional life and by reading threads on here.

I've got a lovely life thanks.

Other people's choices don't affect me.

I prefer to be humble though and recognise my privileges. It helps me empathise with others.

Why do you think people who send their kids private don't appreciate they are privileged to be able to do so? What is your evidence?

@Intergalacticcatharsis from your link, this is key: what people think 'charity' is or ought to be

"As has been noted in several cases, charity is a legal term of art the definition of which, including the public benefit requirement, does not always accord with the general public understanding of what is and what is not charitable: see, eg, Inland Revenue Comrs v McMullen [1981] AC 1, 15 per Lord Hailsham of St Marylebone LC."

@Sherrystrull I still don't see why it bothers you in the slightest whether or not people recognise their own privilege. It won't stop them having it. It won't provide you with any. You can't control how other people behave and on this basis you might have a better life if you didn't care whether privileged people realise how lucky they are and then make it clear to you that they do or don't.

Also they are only making the best choice according to them. They might be wrong

”Public benefit” can never be prescriptive for charities. That is what all the case law mandates. For some schools, it may be appropriate to provide bursaries, for others, it may be far better to partner widely with state schools (for example, Eton etc because they have tons of cash).

The Supreme Court case of Nuffield Health vs LB of Merton is important. https://www.supremecourt.uk/cases/docs/uksc-2021-0138-judgment.pdf

A whole lot of people with their own opinions of justice/fairness are just not relevant. That includes our politicians of whatever colour. Thank God for the actual law sitting behind all of this.

@ntmdino OK in that case I would support your suggestion, especially over dismantling the system in favour of petty envy and things that make no logical sense

Bursaries are not the same - they're means-tested, and rarely cover the entirety of the fees. When I say "means-tested", I mean that on fees of £11k per term, they'll get something on the order of 75% remission if the family income is £50k or less (this is a common number), and these places tend to be available to around five pupils per year.

Based on that, and two parents earning £25k each and taking home £42k between them, they'd still have to find £10,500 yearly to pay the remaining fees (25% of their entire take-home income).

That's not remotely enough - not enough places, and not enough fee remission. The legal requirements are also very vague - they only have to prove that they provide "public benefit". I'm talking about mandating 10% of places be entirely covered by the school, across the board, no exceptions.

I don't begrudge anything. I also haven't said I don't agree with private education.

I just take against any parent saying they are making the best choices for their children by choosing private WITHOUT recognising the privilege in being able to make that choice when many others can't.

@ntmdino They do this already. It is a requirement of charitable status to provide bursaries to those who cannot afford the fees. Very surprised you don't know this

Far better than closing all private schools would be to require them to provide 10% of their places as scholarships. It lightens the load on the state schools in the area (which often can't really accommodate their top pupils anyway) and provides a nominally better education for the children who get them, all at zero cost to the taxpayer.

Also you obviously do begrudge it, very much indeed

@Sherrystrull I understand that you don't have the choice, I don't either, and neither do most people. I get that when people say this about choice they might not realise you would choose that if you could, which makes the comment insensitive.

But them have the money to choose private and opting out of state while still paying tax directly improves YOUR children's education. If they had chosen or been forced to use state then the system would need to provide for them too, with the fixed resources it currently has.

Why would you want to create a situation where they can't afford it either, or where the option doesn't even exist? It simply makes no logical sense.

They've got something nice that you can't have, so we should destroy that thing so everyone can suffer?

Do you also find it frustrating that people have huge privilege if they can afford to live in the catchment of good schools? Because for us, private school was cheaper than moving house.