Closing all private schools would benefit state schools

@MintJulia same position as you as a lone parent. Private school with flexi board is the only way for me.

But more importantly my DD13 has SEN. She has ADHD and ASD.

Local state school is absolutely shit at catering for kids that have SEN. They need small class sizes and additional attention to thrive.

The state school system is not fit for purpose for ND children.

Oh and the best part, phoned up a parent to discuss lack of engagement and progress: told to fuck off.

My db has taught in state and private. Main difference is private can expel badly behaved pupils. He was unsafe in state - assaulted, classroom destroyed. He wouldn’t go back. He would become a private tutor if his school was changed to state. Or join a resource producing company or work for an exam board.

I’m not sure how banning private schools would force private school parents to contribute in the way that’s being envisioned. They’re going to spend their money to benefit their own children, unsurprisingly, as those children are the ones they’re actually responsible for.

Also, some parents genuinely don’t care about the quality of education their children receive. They don’t care that the school their kids go to is failing. That’s a problem in itself.

There are no private schools in Finland, and yet Finnish students have some of the best school outcomes in the world. they also don't have tutors.
This is a really interesting article about the Finnish system. We could emulate it if we chose, but the government will never do so

https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2018/09/10-reasons-why-finlands-education-system-is-the-best-in-the-world

Abolishing private schools will not fix the state system. It will not force anyone to do anything. You're talking about the most privileged families. They aren't dumb!

A far better strategy is to fight for an increase in state school funding and standards including facilities and extra curricular activities. Level up our state schools to be on par with the private schools and the private schools will fold on their own!

Different factors apply, surely? Geographic size of the country, population, laws, and established culture all play a role.

This is exactly the point.
No one wants their DC in failing state schools.

But the schools are allowed to continue to be underfunded and overstretched as it doesn't affect those writing the policies or their friends.

All DC should get a decent education, appropriate to their needs.
I agree, but at the moment the direction of travel is for large MATs with one size fits all.
It would be great for all services to be properly funded so properly funded and inclusive schools can get on with teaching, but that hasn't been the direction of travel for a long time.

While the rich can opt out of our state schools,they will contribute to be neglected.

But this isn't about the 'rich' Vs everyone else.
That's my point. It's very easy to try and draw the lines as the super rich with 6 figure salaries sending their DCs to Eton whilst Mum and Dad knock around the corridors of power ensuring state schools are underfunded.

But the vast majority of people sending their children to fairly standard local private schools are parents (who are obviously comfortable) in middle income, professional jobs.

In my area it would be cheaper to send your child private than to move into catchment for the outstanding secondary schools. Yet countless people on this thread would argue that the parents who can buy a house in catchment and supplement with tutoring and extra curriculars are normal folk, but the families who live in a different area of town, can't afford to move in catchment and have to choose between a sub-par secondary, homeschooling or private education are part of a rich elite.

Like you, I believe every child should have access to a high-quality and appropriate education.
Maybe I'm jaded from too long in the sector, but I can't see us getting to that point until there's large scale social change and investment in a whole range of areas outside of schools (and too many people won't be up for that because it would mean getting tough on the problems of poverty and dealing with social deprivation so that families and children can all thrive).

This is exactly the point.

No one wants their DC in failing state schools.

But the schools are allowed to continue to be underfunded and overstretched as it doesn't affect those writing the policies or their friends.

All DC should get a decent education, appropriate to their needs.

While the rich can opt out of our state schools,they will contribute to be neglected.

If this change happened, they would be mad to close the private schools overnight and give the state system no time to prepare, so your DC wouldn't have to suddenly go to your local school.

If I don’t manage to get one of the 4 state schools I will be putting down (still a very real possibility as they are all oversubscribed) DD will have to go private.

If private were not an option, I’d rather move to homeschooling than put my child in the school we will be offered.

Other countries manage it, why are these things only impossible in the UK?

At least one of your examples is not a great success for state takeover of a private school. In fact, it looks much more like a failure.

Colston Girls’ School (renamed to Montpelier High School) was rated inadequate by Ofsted and (if you don’t rate Ofsted) the headteacher was convicted of sexual assault of a 16yo.

https://reports.ofsted.gov.uk/provider/23/135581

Some will send their kids to be educated abroad, and some with either homeschool with tutors, and/or form homeschooling cooperatives with other parents in the same situation.
This
We are far from rich, but even in the current situation we would consider homeschooling with tutors if we were allocated certain secondary schools in our area.
As a teacher myself it's not that I think teachers in those schools are bad teachers. I think those schools have to spend more time and effort dealing with the impact of cuts to other services and trying to undo decades of poor community views of school than they do getting on with educating.

The idea that people with the resources to choose otherwise will start settling for poor quality education for their children is unrealistic. There are lots of non-rich parents who don't want their children in schools on the brink of collapse or in a large MAT chain that police children looking out the window.

Yes and no. Of course money can be redirected, but where will it be taken from? Something else will suffer to accommodate the greater number of students to be paid for. The wealthy will still give their children an advantage through tutoring/extra curricular. There still will be no equality, nor an improvement in the current standards, merely more children to educate.

I agree with this too. I would love for the state provision to meet both of my children’s needs. Currently it doesn’t.

@IncessantNameChanger that would only work in urban areas.

My DC attended an outstanding secondary school. It was a fantastic school, great teaching and great pastoral care. It was the only secondary school in a 10 mile radius, so took every child in catchment. That included children from middle class homes, children who lived in social housing, children in receipt of FSM and PP. Very few people sent their dc to private schools because there wasn't a huge advantage. One of the villages in the catchment area was seen as less desirable as it was a new build village, and so house prices there were considerably lower than in areas in a different catchment.

Many people live in areas where there is no real choice about schooling, because there is only one school in the area.

There is so much wrong with your thinking that it is hard to know where to start. Putting aside the legal and democratic issues regarding choice, I take it you are not a teacher. Schools are currently so overstretched that they really would break if your suggestion were to happen. Not all private schools are full of top performing, beautifully behaved kids. They have their share of behaviour problems, additional needs and so on too. Some children has switches from state to private precisely because they could not cope in a class of 32 for a whole variety of reasons.

There are over 600,000 children in private schools in the UK. This is in the region of an extra 19,000 classrooms and 30,000 teachers. Or are you suggesting that the state also forcibly takes the private property of these schools and, with them, takes on responsibility for the maintenance of the many listed buildings that they own?

I agree with this. 🙈

Also, the state education system needs significant investment just to bring it up to an adequate standard (in terms of teachers, school buildings etc). This needs to be the focus. The idea that a government might fanny around with the private system, potentially putting even more burden on the state system instead of putting all their energy into the state system is really depressing.

Plus, any change like this wouldn't happen overnight. I would imagine there would be a transition period, allowing those DC already at private secondaries to finish their education, and for the state sector to be prepared - including significant investment

This is imagining that any policies in education happen on a sensible timescale. They don't, they happen to election timetables. So if, say, a Labour government wanted to enact this, they would have less than 5 years to get it through parliament and actually enacted otherwise they would risk a Conservative government winning the next election and just binning all the changes. This is why Gove rushed all his curriculum changes at ridiculous speed.

The rich wouldn’t just shrug and send their children to any old state school. That is a fantasy. Some will buy up property in catchment areas of excellent schools and essentially privatise them. Some will send their kids to be educated abroad, and some with either homeschool with tutors, and/or form homeschooling cooperatives with other parents in the same situation.

You're mudding the point. The lack of money is a political decision. The government choose not to prioritise schools.

If the rich had to send their DC there, that would change. That's the whole point.

The government can’t ‘just’ close private schools, any more than it can ‘just’ strip private schools of charitable status. The latter is the remit of the charity commission, which does recognise the charitable nature of private schools (affirmed by a court case). If a government attempted to do either then it would result in a lengthy and expensive legal battle, which they would in no way be guaranteed to win.

The fact that other charities are closing down is irrelevant. A charity dissolving itself is a different matter entirely to the government dissolving one on purely ideological grounds.

There is already of lack of funding for state education. Increasing the number of students won’t generate extra resources, it’ll just mean that current resources will have to be further divided. The pot of money won’t just magically increase because there are more people who need it.

I don’t want teachers from private school teaching my children, the ones I know who teach in private are the ones who couldn’t hack it in state school.

Well that's pretty silly imo. Just because many private school teachers might not want to hack it in state schools, it doesn't mean they can't. Many, like me, will have already worked in state schools anyway. Many of the ones who defected private schools will probably be the ones who have great references and cvs and excellent qualifications, otherwise why would a good private school choose to employ them? So they are a loss to the state sector, and a state school would probably be only too happy to have them back!
Of course there are also less good private schools which might have attracted less good, less well-qualified teachers who aren't great at classroom management, but those are certainly not exclusive to private schools!