Closing all private schools would benefit state schools

Children sometimes travel miles to private schools, though

They do. Because their parents can afford it. And because if you’re paying, the school bus can stop close to the end of your road.

@Nimbostratus100 you are living in cloud cuckoo land about suddenly have lots of extra teachers. Even independents are struggling to recruit staff. I work with quite a few who vow they will never work in a state school again for a variety of reasons.

The real problem we have now is that teacher training recruitment has been falling especially at secondary levels. That’s the problem to solve (oh and retention)

Why would they do that?

Socialists tend to be ideologues meaning they will sacrifice things such as children’s education on the altar of their ideals. Plus they love a bit of soak the “rich” - red in tooth and claw. Revoking the charitable status of private schools is a nasty, impractical idea that will cost more than it generates and do untold damage. I expect the Labour Party will enact it in full.

@gwrachod another misconception...many private schools are not selective. The one I work in is not and we provide an all round education for those at all points on the academic spectrum. People do travel a long way to us, because we can help their child who would be lost in a huge comp achieve what they are capable of, even if that's just a handful of GCSEs at grades 3/4. They get loads of sport, over 100 clubs and activities and small classes.

Where I live there are 4 main private schools and some smaller ones. There are also 4 (I think) state schools that are over subscribed. All of them are over subscribed. They are building entire housing estates (over 1,000 houses) in this area. There are no more secondaries being built. If the private schools folded, where will these children go? The government won't be able to fund the extra children because that 'spare' tax money is already allocated elsewhere. There is no space to house extra children in the secondary schools. Teachers would probably leave in droves. Teaching is hard wherever you do it, but teaching smaller groups is much more enjoyable. I think you are being a little naïve to be honest. Sad though the situation is. I work in a private school and I pay nearly all my wages to send my child there. For the small classes, and for the fantastic experiences. Freeing up my tax for other things.

Cost? Source of additional funding?

JFC. This has been done to death. Leave it alone.

OP please could you tell me how the needs of pupils like my DS1 will be met in this new system? Our LA pays for him to attend an independent special school over an hour away from us because it is the only school anywhere remotely near that meets his needs. His needs cannot be met in any of the more local state specialist schools.

What will happen to my son’s school, and its students, and its highly specialist teachers when independent schools cease to exist?

Yet, other countries manage it.

Children sometimes travel miles to private schools, though.

Much further than your typical states school, as entry is on ability to pass the entrance exam / impress at interview, not on distance like at state school.

So, although you're right the influx of kids wouldn't be evenly spread, it might not be where those private schools are, necessarily.

In places with good transport connections like London it's not uncommon for some DC at private schools to be basically commuting into school as you would for work. They all don't live locally in the same way.

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 so sad, but so true. The massive elephant in the room is that education, good behaviour and aspiration are not universally shared values in this country. I honestly wonder if many of the people posting actually have any experience of the education system.

During Tony Blair's "Education, Education, Education" government, two of the private schools in Bristol (the Bristol Cathedral Choir School and Colston Girls School) converted from independent schools to being state Academies. They are now among the most sought-after state schools in the city. I don't have stats for how many other schools elsewhere in the country did this.

It would certainly be possible for more private schools to do this but it does require use of the Magic Money Tree. If a private school is a charity then they are obliged to use their resources in accordance with the charitable objectives but creating a new Academy Trust as a charitable body can be done within that remit, so the buildings and equipment can be transferred to the academy trust (not to state ownership though) but the state has to commit to the ongoing running costs, which were previously paid for from the disposable income of the wealthy (who now get to spend that elsewhere).

We know from the covid crisis that the Magic Money Tree exists, if the political will is there.

However it couldn't work for all private schools. Not all ancient buildings full of classrooms designed for small classes can easily be converted to be able to run 30-pupil classes, it would have to be run on a case by case basis.

And obviously it wouldn't work for the private schools that are profit-making businesses - they do have the right under the rule of law to own their property and dispose of it how they will.

You could only get rid of private education all together as part of a total revolution that also got rid of all the rich people, because you would need huge amounts of draconian totalitarian rules to ensure no one did anything to educate their child beyond what the state provides for free. History of countries that tried to do this hasn't been entirely positive, I am not sure we really want that future.

Exactly. Most independent / private schools are completely different from the elite, super selective public schools. My dd’s school doesn’t even offer boarding so it wouldn’t be suitable for your needs. Many private schools aren’t even selective at all. Dd’s school really doesn’t make loads of money being a charity. The fees go on additional teaching staff. Incidentally her school doesn’t have a school nurse either.

@Everydayshouldbe , I don't think anyone can claim to be "left wing" and send their dc to private schools (barring some reasons connected to disabilities perhaps)

thanks for clarifying that, I’ll let my husband know he has to vote Tory on the next election.

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

. I ‘hacked it’ for many years in a state school in a deeply deprived area with all associated social issues that go with that. I am in no doubt I could ‘hack it’ again if I wanted to. But I don’t want to. But more importantly, teacher’s shouldn’t be having to ‘hack it’ regardless of the school they work in - independent p, good state school in middle-class suburbia, awful state school in massively deprived area. Having to ‘hack it’ is one of the major reasons we can’t keep teachers.

Behaviour in independents is generally better, I’ll give you that, and there is a threat of removal that doesn’t exist in state schools. However, children are children and hormones rage the same in those with money as those without, they still have friendship issues, self-esteem issues, eating disorders, problems with drugs and alcohol, parents who are abusive, etc etc.

For one thing, state schools are frequently in a situation of having to accommodate 7% more pupils and they just stretch and cope. It wouldn't be any different.

Can I see your working on this, OP?

I've checked, and the number of pupils in England has been increasing, but by less than 1% per year, so 7% isn't normal there.

And 23% of secondary schools are at, or over capacity. But most are over capacity by less than 10 pupils, which would be well below 7% of capacity, so they have been able to absorb more pupils, but nowhere near 7%.

Private schools are also not evenly distributed throughout the country, so the likely influx would be way more than 7% in some areas, that are already at capacity.

Schools that are well below capacity are usually below capacity for a reason and are unlikely to be ones that previous private school parents would be happy to send their children to.

What does your idea of 'stretch and cope' look like?

This proposal has “Brexit Bus” written all over it.

@Favouritefruits what a ridiculous and insulting post. I've taught in both and "hacked it" in a really tough school as a student teacher. It's not really teaching though, it's crowd control. Being able to face down a 15 yo with a shitty attitude is a totally different skill to encouraging and guiding keen learners. It's possible to do both but I know which I prefer. Kids who value education shouldn't need "controlling" .. they're not zoo animals.

OP, sorry I don’t think your post reflects reality. In my personal experience, private schools are needed, and getting rid of them won’t solve anything.

I attended 2 different state junior schools and then a private secondary school (my mum got into debt to pay for this). I lived in a fairly rough area and I was badly bullied at both junior schools, mostly physically by boys, including an episode of me having to climb up a fence to escape being beaten up with a scooter. My maths teacher had a nervous breakdown and quit because she couldn’t cope with the badly-behaved kids.

The state secondary school in my catchment had even worse problems. It was across a field from my junior school, and one night some kids from that school broke into my junior school, stole some computers and set them on fire on our field. I also constantly heard stories about knives and drugs in that secondary school. It has since changed name, changed to an academy and is still under special measures.

This is why my parents chose to send me to a private secondary school, where I was never beaten up and felt safe. All my teachers were qualified. Otherwise yes, like PPs have said, their other option would have been to move home to be near a state school with fewer problems.

I understand many parents are wealthy and private school is the default choice, but Labour is failing to acknowledge that many parents scrape by to pay for private school due to bullying issues in state schools that aren’t addressed. I don’t believe many private teachers would go back to state schools either (think about it, increased workload for the same or lower money), so there would still be a recruitment crisis.

We’d need a bus system like the US. Bonus is that it would create some jobs.

That’s funny. The ones I know who left state are professionals who take pride in their work and have self respect. They decided that being threatened, having chairs thrown at them and seeing bright kids get bullied for being academically ambitious wasn’t appropriate. Since they can’t fix the entirety of society, especially unsupported by both government and the general population, they left to somewhere they could teach rather than do crowd control.

Maybe we do need to balot places and not have catchment schools. Now that would level it out nicely. You can be placed anywhere within 2 miles

The issue with that is you impact lower income families, single parents etc who are up against it trying to get kids into school or childcare and get themselves to work. 2 miles is a long distance if not on public transport links and you have to walk it, particularly through the winter. In urban areas, it might work but in suburban and rural areas it does pose potential problems for some.

All children should be given the resources they need at their 'local' state school.Imagine if everyone had no choice but to send their kids to the local school. There would be so much outcry that school funding would have to increase and standards would have to increase.

The initial and biggest outcry would be about the government removing parental choice by forcing everyone to send their child to the local state school, which is why no government would do it.

There is no doubt that everyone sending their child to the local school would be the fairest and best system... if and only if you were starting from a position where all schools in all areas were already of equal quality and catchment areas were not already skewed by the local demographics created by house prices driven up by grammar schools or historically excellent 'leafy comps'. Otherwise 'sink schools' would remain bad and great schools in rich areas would remain unattainable for any but the wealthy.

Yes I think a lot of people are missing the point. They’re only thinking about their own child and that if they can afford private school, tough shit on the rest.

Whereas the truth is, their privately educated child will one day be interacting with and indeed depending on society in general - society’s nurses, police, roadsweepers, builders, train drivers, neighbours, care workers, shopkeepers, teachers, farmers, social workers, lollipop ladies and criminals. The better educated and socialised all of those people are, the better life will be for ALL of us.

I haven't read the whole thread but OP I hope you aren't a maths teacher.
FYI
A number of private teachers were trained in the private sector. Lots of independents have training schemes now.
Even if you ideologically like the idea of banning private schooling, it has to be funded. That 7% of pupils will cost the state billions to educate. It makes no financial or economic sense.
Yes, conditions and pay are often worse in private schools.
No, class sizes aren't much smaller actually in most. Our local independent has maybe 2 kids less per class than the state? So it wouldnt double the teacher power because that assumes class sizes of 50%, not 90%.
Private schools are owned by trusts. You can't just take them.
Your proposal would cost the government billions which no party has budgeted for. And the catchment system is even less fair than private schooling in some areas. (You can get a bursary to a private school if you are low income but if your parents can't afford a £1million house in a nice catchment you aren't going to that state school).