Discussion over private schools brings out illogical viewpoints, sheer hypocrisy and the worse traits in people?

This

You are just as privileged having an outstanding state school to be able to send your obviously bright/driven children to (which they must be if they’re getting top grades) while also being able to sit right up there on the moral high ground and look down on parents who don’t have that opportunity due to terrible state options. I’m genuinely happy for you, but don’t criticise or question the, often hard, choice of private school parents who don’t have those two natural advantages to start with.

But their alternative is not free housing.

Also, many people who have done that have been shafted by rising interest rates in recent years. Standard advice seems to be they should have planned better.

I dislike the hypocrisy of high earning Labour voters moving house to maximise the chance of their children getting into outstanding schools. One family I know were unhappy with DC’s state primary so moved and are currently paying in excess of £6k a month to rent in an exclusive area and get DC into the local outstanding primary. 6k a month out of taxed invome.

That’s the thing, those parents who have moved their kids to private because of issues such as lack of support for SEN and bullying also believe they shouldn’t have to pay for the right support.

But Labour hasn’t clarified that they will use the funding from VAT to tackle these specific issues. The only thing i’ve read is more teachers. But if they do get more teachers, nothing will work unless policies and processes also change. So no point charging the VAT unless something valuable will be done with it.

I hope Labour feel happy they’ve pitted working class parents against a small section of middle class parents.

It will be the parents who are driving a banger and never go on holiday who’ll have to pull their kids out, not the genuinely rich.

Private school will now only be for the super rich only.

The great state schools catchment areas will be dominated by the types who would have put their kids on private schools but now just use the money to buy a house closer to a better state school, taking up all the places.

Meanwhile they’ll do nothing to claw back the Covid fraud money which will genuinely make a difference.

It’s all culture war bollocks.

That’s because the majority of parents think that sen doesn’t effect them and I’ve also seen threads in the past with people moaning about sen children taking funds away from the majority instead if the same funds being used to benefit a larger amount of non sen children. This government has every much been about divide and conquer so people blame each other rather than the government. So when an autistic child is throwing chairs round room and the class has to be evacuated instead of recognising the fact that the child needs to be given support in school or to be given a special school place, both of which are now extremely hard instead it suits the government that other people blame the parents and the child

Oh look, another whiny, trying to be stealth braggy, private school VAT post that has no question for AIBU, being postdd on AIBU 🙄 MNHQ should be moving thus posts to the relevant boards like they do for other recurrent topics like GE and Royal family. It's becoming clear MNHQ kids must all be in private school for continuously allowing this middle class moaners to incessantly post in the wrong place.

The thing is no one is looking to properly fund and diversify the system. SEN has hardly been mentioned by any political party and none of the schools i work in are expecting any significant change to funding overall.

Labour have said curriculum review and changes to accountability measures will change. They've also said they will recruit more teachers and fund breakfast out of VAT.

So I agree that the state shoukd be providing sen education and its wrong parents feel forced into paying. But I dont actually think we are looking towards a situation where they will be supported.

Well the £1.5k a month it costs is about the wage that people earn for a full months work.
There are many places in the spectrum between haves and have nots.
Your ability to pay this to many people is astonishing. You simply need to open your mind to that fact and own it. What other people write on line will not impact you or your life. Simply people will think that if you can afford 1.5k a month you could stretch to 1.8k. And most will.

Exactly this

I think the private school posters are missing the point. They are not taking your choice away from you. Private schools will still be there. What they want, and a lot of people want to, is that all children have access to the same standard of education

Because of the Tories having different priorities (cough Rwanda flights cough) investment in the 93% of children that go through the state system has been decimated in recent years, and this started before the pandemic before that is rolled out as an excuse

To ‘level up’, to use a good ole Tory phrase, it needs to be paid for and that comes from taxes. This will pay for support for those children that many say are disrupting their kids, more teachers so there are smaller class sizes like private schools and more resources like private

I don’t think any decent adult, parent or not, can argue that all children deserve a decent, good quality education and opportunities regardless of background

You're right that the OP isn't going to get anywhere with this argument, but not for the reasons that you suggest. It really isn't about resentment, it is simply that many of us think your arguments don't stack up.

I have no reason to resent you. If I had wanted to send my dd to a private school, I would have done. We could have comfortably afforded it but we chose not to. DD did fantastically well in state, and I have no regrets. Likewise, having been state educated myself, I am no less happy or successful than my friends who were privately educated. I genuinely can't see why you would assume that I have anything to resent.

I suspect that the default reaction of "oh, they're just jealous" prevents many from actually engaging with the points that people are making because none of you seem to get it. This isn't about envy.

But it doesn’t, address that point first get state working for all kids then introduce the vat

'I see plenty of people on the school run/dropping kids off at state schools in cars that would cost in excess of £800 a month to lease and that is not far off private primary school fees'

How mad to know what every car may cost to lease a month!

All I know about cars is that big ones probably cost more than mine that I bought for £500 and they get from a to b. If I see one that may be leased, I couldn't care less. Some people like big fancy cars, some don't. It seems wholly irrelevant to a discussion about private school fees.
Maybe people pay more for cats because they want to keep their children safer in one (another argument but let's not go there today!)

But I forgot!! Us plenty non private school parents what was it? Aren't doing our best for our children

Do go back to your bubble, love, and let us do what we can. I could start telling about how well my adult children have done academically and in life generally despite their second class education, but there's no point.

The trouble is the more exemptions and complications you introduce into a system the more loop holes you get and the richer parents have more money to pay legal fees to look at ways of exploiting these loopholes where there is a financial incentive. Dla for example the lowest care rate only requires your child to require care over and above a typical child their age of one extra hour a day. Linking the vat exemption to dla would result in increased claims for dla. Richer parents are in a much better position to obtain private reports as supporting evidence. Private schools already have a higher percentage of pupils that get special accommodations in GCSEs/a levels such as extra time compared to % of pupils in mainstream and that’s not because their is a higher percentage of sen pupils in private schools but because the private schools know how to game the system more in certain instances so a child with slight sen in a private school may get extra time whereas in a mainstream that child may never have even been identified as sen

I agree completely. As you've said, real change would require massive investment, on a scale not seen since post WWII and it's clear Labour have no intention of going down that route.

It’s envy OP. Nothing more, nothing less. And that’s the way society has developed - people glee at children’s lives being uprooted by having to change schools.

They have, they estimate that even with a 3-5% drop out it'll raise over a billion. I don't have any faith it'll be spent wisely though, it's going to go on plugging the gaps left by decades of underfunding. The state system needs a massive investment and rethink and I don't think Labour are overflowing with the radical thinkers to do it.

You sound very judgemental on people "only" affording 1 bedroom apartments, and what car they drive, and having nice cars but putting kids in state school. Jeez! So what if people have expensive cars and put their kids in state school, there's nothing wrong with state school. I personally wouldn't dream of spending my money at private school my kids have both had an amazing education at their outstanding state schools and came out with top grades on everything. Funnily enough their friend at private school didn't do so well, so it's clear there's no guarantees either way.

I absolutely agree. But this policy will not provide that nor go anywhere NEAR it. As I said upthread, we need multiple billions invested in physical infrastructure, teachers, training, CAMHS, It's all related. This will do fuck all to address that but catch kids like mine who are finally settled and able to attend a school. But so long as it's only "a few" I guess that's ok. Even though wrecking their current fragile mental health is the cost.

Voted YABU even though I disagree with charging VAT on school fees because it won’t bring in any money and will make inequality in education worse and not better - not just my opinion but that of the Adam Smith Institute (https://www.adamsmith.org/news/applying-vat-to-independent-school-fees-could-cost-as-much-as-16-billion?format=amp).

Choosing a private school is clearly buying educational privilege. In my opinion paying over the odds to buy a house that means you’re in the catchment of the school you want your child to attend is buying the same privilege but bizarrely is seen as fair game where private is not. Personally I’d rather be honest about it and pay the money directly to the school.

Regardless of your views on private schools this is a bad policy. The Corbyn era policy of the state taking over private schools might have improved equality in the long term - this will make it worse but looks good in a headline so they’re doing it anyway.

See, THIS is the type of private school parent I can respect !

‘we have money, we chose private’

That's undoubtedly true. But that's what a properly resourced and diversified state system should be able to address for all kids.

I've been surprised in the other direction, op- I'm a private school parent and part of a school-wide Whatsapp group where VAT is being discussed. The number of parents who have suggested truly appalling things has horrified me, eg that we should all register for a state school place even if we have no intention of taking it up just to mess up the state system. People slagging off state schools, suggesting the school saves the VAT by cutting teachers' pensions- you name it. I've found it quite shocking TBH. Feel a bit like that Mitchell and Webb sketch- "are we the bad guys?"

I think people generally would be far more sympathetic if worried private parents were just honest- they are scared they won't be able to afford the fee increase and that their DC will have to move schools as a result, and at the moment it's all unknown. I think all parents could understand that's a worrying thing. Instead people have doubled down on some pretty unconvincing and obnoxious political arguments.

My own view is that I don't particularly object to VAT on fees but hope the new government has thought through the impact, especially in areas where there is already pressure on state school places. There will be unintended consequences, as there are with everything, so I'd suggest they implement it carefully rather than just rushing to grab a headline, and I hope they make some concrete announcements about timing soon.

‘First off, not that it should impact an objective debate, but we do send our son to a private primary school but would consider ourselves middle income earners.’

First off - you AREN’T objective! ‘I loathe the idea of my child’s private education costing g more money’ gives you a huge bias!

My coming from a WC background has given me one - I could afford fees but choose not to.

My career in Education has also give me anorher bias - I don’t believe that private schools are good for the U.K., are worth the money, or used by ‘Strivers’.

So, I’m afraid you lost me at ‘First off’ -
this tax break is going.