To think there must be tons of private school

I am concerned about putting VAT on because ultimately it won't be good for the state system.
It won't raise that much revenue, and certain not enough to compensate for a number of extra pupils coming over to state.

Most of the people locally I know who send their dc to private school are cutting back on most things to do so. Often they've chosen private school because their dc has some form of SEN where smaller classes will help them, and they've struggled in the state system. They're the children who will be losing out by not going to private school, not the super rich. They're children that really benefit from it, and the parents are making sacrifices to send them.

But locally we have 3 state secondaries. Two are full. The third is failing. What's going to happen when they get an influx of ex-private school pupils? Are you thinking they'll all have to go to the failing school? Because disproportionally they won't. It could be your dc who is the one bumped at the year 7 admission into that failing school.
And don't try arguing that will bump up standards. It won't. They can't recruit enough teachers. They're advertising regularly, even in the two full schools and getting no response, or poor candidates. And yes, I do know the latter is true.
The failing school has far more money poured into it, and still isn't improving. All that will happen is they fail more dc.

On the local board, which is where you’d find parents who know the schools you want to discuss?

But then how on earth would anyone be able to discuss the comparative merits of State School A and Independent School B - which is an overwhelmingly common query on the education boards? Countless parents - often including those who never thought they’d face such a dilemma, find themselves having to think about this every year. Generally at a regular transition point, but often when there’s a change in circumstances or dissatisfaction with with their current school.

This, really. So many of them seem straight from CCHQ, and not just on this subject. There’s no doubt that this forum is targeted for mooting policies and testing reactions.

I have wondered if all the threads frothing about VAT on private school fees are even from parents, or just from Tory propogandists because the Tories are really running scared of the polls and know they'll have to have an election soon.

I'd deduce from the numerous threads by people asking if there's a line on their pregnancy test prove there's a large cohort of the less educated on MN too.. whether they're WC/MC/other I've no idea...

there seem to be very few average people on mumsnet ie have household income of 30-45K live in suburbs or a town have kids that will get gsce's but not all 9's but are not SEN either
either it seems you struggle on minimum wage or are skint on 80K, you live in zones 1-5 or SE at a stretch or else you live 10 mile round trip from nearest supermarket
the same with schools either all local schools are outstanding ofsted or are so bad your kid will be a drug abusing smoker with 3 kids by 16
I exaggerate slighlty of course

Have you ever looked at the Secondary Education board?
I started looking there when my first started state secondary, thinking there’d be some interesting discussion.
I’d say on any given day half the threads on first page are “private school A vs private school B - opinion?”
And most of the other half are other private school questions.

The Secondary Education board demonstrates how heavily skewed towards London the MN population is. Not only in the request for information about individual schools (state and private) but in assumptions about transport, distance from school, the way the admissions system works ...
The fact that many of the posts contain local school acronyms also indicates how many of these posters assume that everyone else lives in the same bubble.

I heard a yougov last week say the policy has overwhelming support in all demographics bar those who were privately educated and have children who are - which is a very small group. It really surprised me because I spend too much time on here and had got the impression it was largely reviled.

So I take your point completely OP and don’t know why it’s being called goady. Sometimes MN is wildly at odds with the country at large and it’s always interesting. Brexit is a notable example.

Mumsnet has around 8 million users a month - if 6% of them use private schools (per national statistics) that's 480,000 people who might start or post on a private schools thread each month.

I wish there was a private school board instead of Secondary Education being clogged up with all those tedious Radley vs Sherborne threads, you have to skim past so many threads to find an actual conversation.

Not sure from you OP why it matters really…? Whether there is a small noisy proportion here or a large proportion… how/ why does it matter either way?

Mumsnet tends to appeal more to more middle class people, so you are going to get more private school parents.

Does it matter?

Remember also that the 6% stat is I think the % of all school children that are in private schools. A lot of children spend only part of their schooling in private schools and the rest in state. Up to 20% may be in the independent sector for 6th form IIRC. So in fact it is plausible that 25% of children do some of their education in the private sector. Which starts to make more sense of the prevalence of private school discussions.

Agree with this including the last line

But also what is there to say about state. Usually you have a top option you can get in to and put it as first choice

Or a fair few threads on private v grammar which is state

@Enuffs “Have you ever looked at the Secondary Education board?’

no, I’m going on the threads that have popped up elsewhere”

I’ve just had a quick look… scrolling through the first page 50 threads, looks like about 14 are not about private schools, and a further 3 are not directly private school topics (e.g. avoiding rugby) but are written by private school parents.

So two theories:

(1) on a forum where private school parents are not over represented, they are more vocal on school matters (possibly because they have more choice)

(2) maybe there aren’t many good forums for parents to ask questions about private schools, and as a result the Education boards here are like a gateway to MN in general, pulling in a disproportionate number of private school parents. Come for SPGS vs Wycombe Abby, stay for AIBU 🤣

Maybe a lot of parents with kids at state school don’t write threads about it. It’s the most common type of schooling, it’s a one size fits all, so if their kids are mostly ok, parents feel there isn’t much to say. They should be more vocal about the state of school buildings and schools being short of teachers but most just accept the shit, aren’t aware of it or are not particularly interested.

There is bound to be threads on the subject of VAT on private schools at the moment with an election soon, this is a forum and people use it to discuss topical issues. What’s the problem with that? In general, people should be ‘noisy’ if they disagree with things that may impact their lives. Whether you agree or disagree with VAT on school fees, I can respect people for not just rolling over and accepting things they don’t want to happen.

Don’t have kids, did not go to private school, don’t earn £100k, don’t live in the SE. Still think the vat on Independent education is a populace vote grabber rather than anything that will make a difference.

Its not going to fix the state education systems, it may add slightly to the numbers attending state schools, so in some areas that will make things worse; it won’t stop those with the money funding a private education.

Maybe it’s that those with children at private schools will be attracted to a thread about such.
Sometimes it seems everyone on Mumsnet is earning £100k, other times everyone is claiming hardship. It’s my impression that a very high percentage have DC with special needs, ASD diagnoses etc.
Either way I think your post is spiteful and ‘goady’, though I dislike using that word.

Have you ever looked at the Secondary Education board?
I started looking there when my first started state secondary, thinking there’d be some interesting discussion.
I’d say on any given day half the threads on first page are “private school A vs private school B - opinion?”
And most of the other half are other private school questions.

I think they’re just vocal.

Maybe a slight bias towards money on this site - so maybe 7-8% not 6%. But negligible. This is a site where you have to read and write so you’re going to push a slight bias towards those with higher level of educational achievement, and that correlates slightly with more money.

But still - I think it’s a combination of being vocal and having something to talk about. People don’t talk as much about things happening to state schools, because of a resignation that there’s fuck all you can do. So you’ll get a flurry of threads about new announcements like Rishi and his maths til 18… but then they just die out, as no-one is actually going to do anything about that.

London and the south east are densely populated. If the use of MN is evenly spread across the population (not necessarily the case) then London / south east will be heavily represented on here.