To think if you can no longer afford school fees...

In the small rural hamlet we live in everyone sends their DC to private schools. The local alternative is a failing school with no sixth form and no buildings as they were condemned at the start of the year. The pupils there currently attend alternative sites on a rota. The parents here aren't massively wealthy and will really feel the pinch, but it's not exactly a choice between private and a decent state school, so I guess they will find the money. Hope that makes you feel good OP. Fwiw I am a labour voter but I don't agree with the policy. Education of any kind should not be taxed.

Sorry you seem to be under the misapprehension that I think its a good idea? I think its batshit, and incredible that Labour are happy to throw away a million odd votes over a plan that wont actually improve public servcies.

I also think all the people constantly starting threads on it are desperate.

It doesn't do anything it aims to do. Savings willl be minimal due to offset and pupils moving and the administrative cost.

The true wealthy won't blink an eye, The not quite there (like us) will stay for the exam years if imminent and then will move from an area we love but is at best some years off levelling up (with the only state school provision having no sixth form and not the range of subjects particularly music my children want) to a grammar/good school area where I can afford to bump someone out of distance. That family who can't afford the house costs loses out. We'll bolt onto the provision tutoring etc.

The bursary/scholarship/doing it close to the line dependent will move - parents who are being asked to pay more are going to reluctant to pay for example the extra % we pay each year specifically for the bursary fund.

Working in full partnership to take the best of both sectors would be the better plan - and ensure it is being fully leveraged.

On the other hand, once those children are ensconced in their nearest state school, it will do them no harm whatsoever to realise that they are no different from any of the other children in said school.

Yep.

Tough shit.

OP, you are obsessed. Get help.

Well, since the UK will be an outlier in taxing its citizens for buying educational services, it is the logical extension of the principle. Which other country equates buying a luxury car with buying an education? One benefits society, the other doesn’t.

Well yes it is tough. Particularly on the children involved. Yours is an unkind, goady post that really serves no purpose at all OP.

This issue does not affect my family personally. And I do agree with the tax. But it gives me no pleasure at all to think of the heartache it will bring to families, and in particular children, were at private school just by a tiny margin and who will have to move.

There will be a human cost involved. And the properly wealthy will be insulated from the fall out. So, whilst I support the tax, a bit of empathy would, in my view, have served you better OP.

Maybe Labour will then build more state schools if the need for places is clear ?

@EwwSprouts I do, actually, have a lot of sympathy for those children. It's not their fault that things might have to change for them.

So you are in an area of wealth and aspiration? DS has left school now but we live in an area of fairly dire state secondaries, requiring improvement. We also didn't want single sex which was our catchment.

OP is right it is tough. But you can still sympathise with the children who will likely have their education disrupted. Different exam boards for example.

I live in an area where there's a very high proportion in private schools - it will be absolute chaos if there's a significant drop in private school intakes because the state schools those children would be entitled to already tend to be very full.

There are also (at least in some) a lot of children with ASN. My daughter was at one (moved back to state, so I know this isn't always a huge drama) and a really quite high proportion of the kids were there because they had been in state and hadn't coped due to ASD in particular. There were a number of parents only just making it work who will have to pull out, but it's also the factor that with fees having gone up about 20% in a couple of years anyway and then adding on VAT the equivalent parents in the younger years simply won't put them in which will cause issues with a lack of state school spaces.

Some areas will be fine but in others the issue will be really concentrated.

There’s a big difference between not wanting to pay more and not being able to pay more. What intelligent person would actually put their child into private education knowing it was leaving them with no financial buffer whatsoever ? The problem is I would bet anything in the majority of cases that parents of privately educated children are just irritated by this rather than the increase would mean them going without necessities (and if that was the case then it was poor financial planning to opt for a private school and they need to cut their cloth accordingly).

Froth up support for Labour's mad plan to tax education.

I have an idea! Let's start yet another thread saying the same thing 🙄

They're good where you live.

Sometimes it's just luck to live near a good state school but often it's dependent on being able to afford to live near a good one (hence why house prices are higher near the good ones).

If people were genuinely concerned about inequality, they'd look at the wider picture. Housing, for example. Want to address educational inequality (and societal inequality in general)? Want mixed income state schools (presumably that's what those against private schools want)? Then achieve that through building more social housing that's spread out evenly across every part of the country.

I think you’ll be laughing a bit less when VAT is added to university fees.

Yawn, arent you bored of trying to froth up support for this?

Yes, cry me a river. We’ll be saving £30k a year and the money will go on foreign holidays, saving for university costs/ future housing for the DC, tutoring, cultural enrichment, riding lessons, tennis lessons, music lessons, etc. DS moving to a leafy state grammar from his leafy prep. Best bit - you lot fund it.

@EatTheGnome has it all cured to you that other stuff may have had a financial impact and this is the final straw?

The amount of people gleeful at children losing their school places is awful.

Why are people so angry that some privately educate their children?

But where I live is where there will be a disproportionate number of private schools/children in private schools.

So there's plenty of very good provision for them.

Children move schools all the time. I did multiple times as a child. It really isn't that high a deal.

State schools where I live are actually very, very good. So I have no sympathy with any parent who thinks that their child is going to suffer from having to go to one.
Where you live. And there are other parts of the country (assuming UK) where they really are not.

Honestly? I'd remortgage, downsize or, to be absolutely honest, not have put them in in the first place if it wasn't absolutely comfortable. It's the same reason I bought a house I could afford, not just within my price range. Because life isn't predictable.

The modern day middle class seem to have the idea that private school should be accessible necause you can scrape over the line. Ignoring any risks of ill health or job losses that might occur and result in the same problem.

Fee changes are not the sort of thing that bother parents woth kids at Eton.

It's a fable, and frankly poor planning, to have thought it was ever achievable or a safe bet that said child would have a pernament space if parents are that close to the line.