Closing all private schools would benefit state schools

Move there?

I would love reforms along the Finnish model.

Finland also has no super-wealthy due to a fiercely redistributive taxing model, and incidentally they have noi gendered pronouns - just a single one-size-fits-all set of pronouns.

I would be totally delighted with a revolutionary reform of the UK along the same lines which abolished all capacity to be super wealthy and had excellent schools for all.

Half-measures which outlaw accessing a suitable education for those who are failed by the state system, whilst still allowing the superwealthy to exist and find loopholes, aren't a step towards that.

Being blunt, a lot of top tier private school parents don't want their kids to mix with state school kids, so they'd just find a way around it. Personally I'd be delighted to live near an excellent state school, but as my local comprehensive is like a Borstal I've gone privately and very happy.

This is where I was mentioning upthread - it would be carnage. And most of the kids live close to the schools, they're largely not commuting in from far away (some are, but a huge porportion are close by IME). There's no way they would be able to accomodate them within the existing state schools.

I thought the Finnish model had been less successful recently

A better and fairer education system should absolutely be possible - but it doesn't start by just forceably closing non-state schools and flooding the existing system with children.

If they want to reduce private school use then they need to make state school better across the board and that needs massive investment. That needs to happen before any move on private schools is considered, not after. There are some private school parents who like the fact their kid goes private - but in my experience they aren't the majority, most who I know would prefer that their kid went to the local state school but for a variety of reasons it doesn't work. This includes quite a large number with ASN.

20-25% privately educated in Edinburgh. Yeah good luck squeezing them into state schools.

Do you really those private school parents are just going to roll over? You underestimate the sharp elbows and the resulting legal challenges.

If you ban private schools, what else?
Do you ban faith schools, SEN provision, home schooling?

Do you ban private healthcare? Cars costing more than 10k? Cashmere jumpers?

I wonder just how many of the people who want private schools banned would send their kids to one if they won the lottery! Politics of envy.

This!
It isn't a Utopia it is a society that prioritises education and interestingly, their education overhaul was part of an economic recovery package....
Sometimes though when you are accustomed to privilege, equality feels like oppression. I entirely understand why people send their children to private schools if they can afford it, but that doesn't mean a more fair education system isn't possible to achieve.

Additionally, many private school teachers wouldn't last 5 mins in a state school. I've worked in both sectors. In private I encountered some appalling teaching (and also some brilliant) but the level of behaviour management and differentiation required in many state schools (including in 'good' areas) as well as the reality of teaching classes of 30+ pupils would understandably put many private school teachers off (many start in state as I did and then move, though Ive also worked with some who'd never taught anywhere but private and boy was their view of the world narrow).

Once you've worked in the private sector it's very unappealing to go back to state. Smaller classes, longer holidays, less challenging behaviour, more freedom around teaching style and curriculum - what's not to like? It's hard work too in private, don't get me wrong, with longer days often and extra-curricular expectations but overall the experience is more satisfying.

One can actually 'teach' as opposed to managing behaviour and trying to be all things to 30+ children with a host of unmet needs with little or no funding for additional adults to support SEND pupils who are thrown into mainstream in the hope that they'll survive. Many don't. This breaks my heart as a teacher as I know there are children whose needs I can't fully meet and who are struggling.

A bit of a rant but what I'm trying to say is that without considerably more funding, state schools simply do not have the capacity to take in more pupils and any private school teacher in their right mind would not go work in state!

"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."

^This! This is the elephant in the room. This is one of the main reasons parents send their DC to private schools. To be with likeminded families who value education.
For various reasons, there are many families who are not interested in education. Maybe because they're struggling just to survive or because they didn't have a good education themselves. Maybe because the curriculum is wholly inappropriate for many children and turns them off learning. However, disengagement manifests in challenging behaviour which makes working in state schools bloody hard. Things like the Surestart centres helped with this but have long gone. So unless there is significant societal and curriculum change and investment, we're never going to be able to create excellent schools across the board. Not saying we shouldn't strive to provide the best we can, of course we should. But closing private schools isn't going to magically make this happen.

The figure of 7% of children in private schools is often bandied about. But that's the nationwide figure- this will differ greatly between areas. Some counties, eg Surrey, Berkshire, have a much higher proportion of children in private schools. It's just under 20% of children in Surrey. Fitting all these young people into state schools would be one hell of a task - even with a long lead in period and lots of cash being thrown at the problem. Schools can't just stretch - they don't have the space.

And to think they could is naïve in the extreme.

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.
That's why people like me can be assaulted by a pupil and in a meeting the parent, the mother victim-blamed me. It was my fault their teenage boy (who was bigger than me) assaulted me. I should have known better. It was apparently very unreasonable for me to expect a safe classroom where other pupils could learn free from verbal abuse and physical threats towards them.

What chance does a child have when that's their parents' attitude to education?

It’s a bit off topic but, blimey, could you imagine the MN threads if this actually happened? I remember one from someone who complained about all the “braying” from other holidaymakers in Norfolk. Do you really want your WhatsApp groups filled with parents who wanted to send their children private but weren’t allowed to?

My DD is a teacher - her teaching qualification was funded by the private school not the state. Teachers move from state to private and private to state - both pay for training. The issue is that there are many unqualified teachers in the private sector (often highly qualified academically, ie. with PhDs etc.). They cannot switch to state so easily.

A quicker recipe for destroying what is left of State education in this country you could not come up with. Flood State school with thousands of new pupils with zero guarantee that privae school teachers would be willing to transfer to the public system.

The Treasury gives the DfE a fixed budget per year. It usually increases it below the rate of inflation. The DfE then has to divide that budget between the number of pupils it thinks will be enrolled in state schools before sending per-pupil funding out to schools. If the number of pupils increases and the DfE budget doesn't increase to match then the money available per pupil will fall further.

I wouldn't return to work in the state sector. I would private tutor instead.

So true - we have lost a PE teacher and a Physics teacher to overseas schools this year

I can only speak for my own limited experience here, but we're back to funding, I'm afraid.
I was state educated myself, and it never occurred to me that the independent sector was any of my concern.
But.
Back in the day, I was employed by ILEA, who took over from the LCC.
Funding was such that, things which would now astonish parents existed. Just a few:
I was involved in its last days, but at one time musically gifted children would have free instruction in their chosen instrument until they left school.
I participated in a holiday scheme, as a tutor, where players form across London came together for ensemble coaching.
On many occasions, I took pupils up to the Royal Festival Hall, the London Coliseum and the like, to see live performances.
On a day-to-day level, I supplemented my teaching salary by doing sessions at after-school sessions and holiday play schemes. The parents did not pay for this provision.
I was given a grant towards tuition fees and paid study leave, to improve my qualifications with a second degree. ILEA valued well-qualified and experienced teachers.
We were offered in-service training and professional development without considering paying out of our own pockets,
But when the cuts began to bite, this became a perverse incentive; I basically priced myself out of the market by becoming eligible for a higher salary!
After a spell abroad and some time supply teaching, I happened by chance on a job in the independent sector; a temporary post became permanent!
And lo and behold, I was in an establishment where the experience and qualifications of my colleagues and myself were seen as a selling point again!
If independent schools were to close, some of the personnel released "back into the wild" would come at a high price, which could not be afforded.
The state sector would be facing the need to provide physical accommodation for extra pupils when there is already a huge problem with the state and capacity of existing buildings.
As it is, the independent school at which I used to teach leases some of its sports facilities to a local sports academy which lacks its own playing fields (they got sold off, but that's another story!)
Parents of children at independent schools are currently paying twice; some of their taxes fund the state system, which they do not use, and they also pay their fees.
If a good state school was available, this would be a great saving, freeing up funds to facilitate "selection by mortgage", which already occurs.

ALL state schools would have access to a MASSIVE new pool of teachers applying for work.

Or private school teachers would continue to do what they do now when they fancy a change - fuck off to Dubai for a spell of much more generously paid, tax-free teaching experience.

If there's enough spare money / political will to find the state funds to educate privately schooled children, why on earth aren't we using some of that already? I should imagine that a fair number of kids being privately educated at the moment wouldn't be if their local state schools were better.

This exactly @jeaux90 . Keeping children (especially neurodiverse children) in a school that they can't cope with, for a long period of time is extremely damaging. It can be highly traumatic and in my daughter's case, it lead to an extreme reaction of her OCD.

My daughter is currently at a private school for children with Autism/ADHD/dyslexia/Epilepsy, and if it were to be closed down, we would be absolutely screwed. She does not cope at mainstream education and a change of schools would cause an extreme amount of anxiety and trauma. She already has a lot of bad experience at her previous schools and is still healing.

It's not as if Private schools aren't necessary for some children- they aren't all about upper middle class/higher class family's. Even if they were, it wouldn't change the fact that Public schools or mainstream schools aren't always the best option.

Other countries do not manage it. This was a reply to someone who stated that all schools should be exactly the same and people should be banned from buying houses beside good schools. No country can do that and no schools are all the same.

This sounds like utopia. I don’t think their starting point bore any resemblance to our current state though. So I don’t think we could emulate it.