To wonder if you are against private schools…

I also disagree with exposing children to those from all walks of life. There are definitely some types that no child should have to associate with.

In parts of London and Edinburgh the idea that being at a state school exposes children to those from all walks of life is risible.

Blaming the private sector is such misplaced anger and vote grab headline - with no substance.

If the state school available is excellent/good, then parents don’t go private (unless they feel specific needs are met privately: music, sen, sports, religion, curriculum).

IMO -

1. tabloids love to stoke division, fear hate for clicks which are converted to advertising dollars. Proof is how often the headline doesn’t match the story, or there are no facts “well placed source” “Royal expert”
2. Diversionary political tactic (vat) shifts the blame /attention to parents rather than the terrible state of many state-funded school onto the people who should get blame: Ofsted, gov ministers, education authorities.
3. Private schools relieve government of funding 554,250 pupils. Should be applauding these parents for saving gov from funding the education for 1/2 million children per annum. (7,460 x 554,250 …. )

“Hiring more teachers” is no plan to improve educational outcomes, “fixing crumbling buildings” doesn’t improve outcomes (Quotes are Labour promises) … birth rates are dropping - more teachers doing what? If Labour guaranteed smaller classes, better results, they might have my attention. But core of better education is … better education. Not more teachers, and not repairs.

What other country does Gov & Media hate on private education???

It would be great if every child could be provided with a similar education but this will never happen.

Any one who sends their child to a state faith school without being of that faith is a complete hypocrite.

Everyone I know who has been to state school is bitter, entitled and is unaspirational. Ok, not true, I am being sarcastic. But this poster clearly has an inferiority complex and is unfairly pigeonholing us privately educated folks.

I also disagree with exposing children to those from all walks of life. There are definitely some types that no child should have to associate with.

This is already happening. Private schools are more expensive now so more families are now moving into the right catchment area pushing up house prices. For us it’s cheaper to send DC to a private secondary than to move to the right catchment area (and we would have to downsize). No brainer!

We get told that VAT on fees doesn't matter because only 4% of children are at private schools But the VAT paid by the parents of this 4% will magically transform the state sector. The school my son was at had a music department and a classics department. Most Scottish state schools don't even a single teacher, let alone a department. You're in cloud cuckoo land if you think that's going to change.

Private schools will now be able to reclaim the VAT they pay on everything they buy which they couldn't do before.

It's driven by spite and envy.

But they don't within the state sector itself & the government / no one appears to be taking any steps to rectify that.

It's widely acknowledged that many state schools in the U.K. provide a poor quality education. Instead of focus being creating more equality in the state sector and improving the quality of state education, the focus is to make private school less affordable for parents.

All bizarre and quite self defeating for those who want it.

I for one am thrilled it doesn't affect me or my kids, but it is a real own goal for the many state school parents who rub their hands in glee at the thought of richer peers having to move their kids halfway through a school year

‘namely gumption, independence and self sufficiency.’

So this bullshit is often trotted out … and yet private children are cosseted and coached, bussed into school in private minibuses, kept away from any real competition with local state schools, handheld through everything…
then last thing they are, as far as I can see from the children of friends is ‘independent’

They have so much less freedom, every second is scheduled.
Unless Of course we’re talking about the famed ‘independence’ of sending young children away from their families to live at school… some called it fostering independence, some call it child neglect…

In this case, trying = make things even worse. So… yeah.

Why would you want to make it even more difficult for average families to access good state education?

I'm with you OP. My DS was miserable at his state primary. Bullied for being a nerd (liking maths and reading novels), he came out angry, demotivated, miserable.

He got a scholarship to our local, non-selective independent and within 6 months, different child. Happy, engaged, keen to go to school, He's just got 9 good GCSEs and is studying for maths, physics and DT A'levels. Has friends, does sport. Planning to be a civil engineer. Such a relief.

Why would I disapprove of something that my child needs and the state system couldn't provide? Even though I've had to mortgage my soul to keep him there, I would do the same again.

Precisely.

I don't think it is the same thing – not by a long shot. I think there is a chasm between buying an expensive (though that's not always the case) house in the catchment of a good state school and going to a private school.

Firstly, the premise of the state system is that all state schools have the equality of opportunity to operate as well as any other state school. This could be down to an excellent head or senior leadership, it could be down to efficiency of the trust's finances, the quality of their governors or their success in fundraising. Harder to control is the demographic, but none of that changes the fundamental premise that they have the opportunity to be equal. No state school, ever, will reach the same levels of opportunity as a private school, and that's what makes it so different to purchasing a house next to a good state school.

State schools are also often change quite rapidly in the quality of their function. Badly performing schools can turn around in a matter of 3-5 years. Good schools can also do the same. Whatever state school you are able to get into, nothing is guaranteed. What is guaranteed is that they are built on the premise of the opportunity to be equal.

Music lessons or extra curricular activities do not contribute to generational wealth and excess of privilege in anywhere near the same category that attendance to private school does.

I'm not against them - I believe in choice - but I don't use them because I feel that what the state offers my children in our local area is excellent and I do not think my particular DC would get enough value added for the cost of private school.

However, I do think that they should have to pay VAT 🤷‍♀️

So therefore all children should have shitty state school education. Fantastic logic.

@FrodisCapering why do you say adding VAT is ideological? If you mean that they recognise that private schools are businesses and as such they should pay VAT, then yes I think you are right. But what I think you are suggesting is a more resentful, jealous attitude rather than ideology. I went to state schools and have worked in private schools. I see no reason to ban them, but they are not charities. Many have overseas students, Chinese in particular, why should they not be treated like the businesses they are? Parents are paying for a service that they select. They have a free at the point of use education system available. If they choose to buy another product, so be it.

In a perfect world they wouldn’t exist as we should have high quality state schools that allow all children to thrive. In reality though, inequality will always exist because schools in deprived areas face far more issues than schools in middle class or wealthy areas. I can also see why parents send their children to private schools as the education system in our country is broken.

I think these threads are started every so often to get a lot of traffic. Yawn

I think it’s more the attitude of the parents than the school. Parents who send their kids to private schools obviously have ambitions for their kids but so do some state school parents who will instil the same ambitious streak into their kids. Cream will always rise to the top but you can’t buy intelligence, talent and ability.

Unless we find a way to break up the postcode / catchment issue and have an enormous funding injection into schools, CAMHS, SEN and family support in the very early years, hammering or abolishing private schools will not achieve anything positive.

The ideal solution is to make them unnecessary because state can provide the same thing that a normal, small day school does (not Eton etc, but the far more typical ones which most of the public will have little experience of). Small class sizes, lots of extra curricular, flexible and humane pastoral systems that are not driven by fear of LA attendance figures. If this was achieved, natural market forces would reduce the schools down but yes you would still have the super elite who will continue out of entrenched wealth, endowments and tradition. Unless we are going to bring in very un-liberal rules on wealth, not much to be done there but its still our choice not to elect them to parliament.

The idea that the uber wealthy would bring their influence to bear is a really odd one - deeply contradictory on many levels. a) how insulting to those already in the system that they can't or won't do likewise and b) unrealistic in assuming that they would. They uber-wealthy would find ways around it or set up enclaves around certain state schools - do you really think they'd suddenly all turn up in the failing comp?

Ultimately, enormous, sustained investment is required along with a frank acknowledgement that a lot of the poorer schools are so as a result of parental disengagement and robustly tackle it but no government so far has the balls to do or say that.

What, so ‘can’t win, don’t try’?

But this still happens all the time in the state school sector where the best schools often have very expensive catchment areas that only wealthy families can afford to buy in.

If private schools were abolished I suspect the scrabble for the right postcode would become even more expensive and competitive - and therefore out of reach for most.

Then your friends' children went to very poorly-run schools. That doesn’t change the overall principle. If more children of articulate, influential people went to state schools there would be much more pressure for those schools to be given the resources they need, to cope with disruptive pupils, and to change their curriculum if enough parents objected to it.
I've forgotten what the percentage is of journalists who were privately educated, but it is ridiculously high, hence the lack of pressure in the press for better provision in state schools.

We have the money to send our children to private school and didn’t for a second consider it.
Having such a 2-tiered system is detrimental to U.K. education in general. Only the very well off can afford ( despite the denials on MN!) it which means the children all look, and sound the same in private schools, people are trying to buy influence and connections and privilege for their children - I don’t think that’s good for anyone, certainly not for the cosseted children who go to private school.
State school, IMHO, is a much more realistic and richer experience.

Having a government run by public school boys and girls, who sent their children to the same private and boarding schools, was the works thing that could have happened to our state education system.
The assumption that private schools are automatically’superior’ in some way is an illusion. If anything the politicians that it has produced should be proof that the private school system kills creativity, and churns out arrogant, self centred, self interested, not very bright students.

The reality is that, yes I am buying a better education and contacts and all of it for my three. The school they are at encourages all the qualities I want in my children: namely gumption, independence and self sufficiency. Plus, they will get a good education. The reality is that an education can only take you so far. You can have all the A grades in the world but if you don't have any drive it ain't gonna get you a good career or a good life. The state system does not, at this time, really follow that model so I buy it in.