Private Schools- hear me out before you judge!

What an absolutely disgusting comment !

Do you think it’s an increase in less-affluent old people dying from cold home and are you assuming THEY are Tory?

I’ve heard Tory old people live forever …

It’s a day in January in Wales. Either way, you get funding per pupil.
Edit: I think the AI added academies. It’s about state funded schools.

Some of these types of schools don't exist in Scotland. We just have schools - which may have academy / grammar in the title, but are just schools.

Funding is decided on a single day in September, based on the roll on that day. Any influx. / loss of pupils mid year makes no difference to funding.

There is very little movement beyond catchment schools. Kids go to their school and should get a place there. Placement requests from further afield only happen if a year group is not full.

I think the thing that makes me most cross about this policy is it is aimed at parents who have made a choice. But it is really, really shit for children.

It is bloody awful for kids being moved mid year, losing friends, teams, teachers and their "home."

And I don't care how wealthy parents are, their kids should still matter to politicians.

I don't think I said it was? It’s not all about VAT is it? It’s about wages and inflation and cost of living and burnt out teachers and burnt out parents and kids with SEN and neurodiversity. It’s a whole bin fire of life.

And there are not enough school places in some villages, towns, cities or counties.

A factor directly impacting schools, funding, enrollment is the declining birth rate.
It could be suggested that some private schools had robust enrollment 10-15 years ago, perhaps driven by competition for places in “outstanding” state schools which were difficult to get into.
With less children entering education every year, there is shrinkage in both state and private with some schools feeling the effect more than others. Parents weighing up available education & cost. Some areas state school gains or loses, others private does.

There is no doubt that “government” is aware of population shrinkage which is possibly why just shrugging at the unplanned immigration. Hoping that people start entering employment to pay takes to support the population.

Reading the actual trends might also make one consider that VAT on schools a Spin-driven distraction to get the population focused on “inequality” and the vat in private schools to fix it. Rather than focusing on the ever growing bigger bottom of the inequality with more and more new arrivals without skills required to drive modern economy. More students with parents (assumptions here but read the attached) born outside the UK which could put more pressure on teachers / classroom. Two thirds, that’s 66% of births in “London” are to foreign born parents … and 33% rest of UK.
Sure it could be that all those parents, are English speakers, familiar with UK education system, and striving for Oxbridge … and they will drive education standards upwards. Or will it be like Finland where they report widening of inequality driven by immigration driving the bottom downwards.

www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/livebirths/bulletins/birthsummarytablesenglandandwales/2023

It is decided by pupils on roll. Just a quick google shows it. What’s your motive here, OP?

How does it work then? It works like that in Wales too. How do they decide how much money to give each school in Scotland if it isn’t based on numbers on roll?

i haven’t called anyone despicable- I DO find the mindset that some kids aren’t worthy of concern despicable, though.

so far you HAVE called me ‘silly’, ‘entitled’, ‘nauseating’ and ‘holier than thou’. I just think your a hypocrite to take umbrage at a perceived slight while hurling all manner of personal insult.

That's a bit insulting to the 93% of parents whose children are already in the state system, don't you think?

Are you really suggesting that none of them care about state education? Or that a few extra parents per school will make a difference when the hundreds of parents already there couldn't? Bizarre.

I haven't called anyone despicable. Your holier than thou attitude is quite nauseating as usual. Your sentiment does not apply to me but I still don't give a toss if you judge me or not.

Great hypocritical point about name calling. To clarify, I find it despicable to disregard the potential negative consequences on children from any walk of life. If you find yourself judged by that sentiment, so be it.

It is this ‘everything will sort itself out’ attitude that I find maddening - it is an attempt to remove all responsibility for considering the consequences of policy, both positive and negative. Yes, people will find a way through it - some will do so with minor adjustments and for some individuals and communities the impact will be much more profound. But if you cannot bring yourself to examine the potential negative consequences of the policy then you cannot really say whether it is a good or bad thing for society more broadly.

A tad silly to expect people care about what you demand them to and then call them names if you think they don’t? That kind of entitled stance tends to have the opposite effect.

Never let facts get in the way of some good old dirt dishing propoganda. So predictable isn’t it.

It is a very mixed picture across the UK. There have always been some smaller struggling private schools. My own private primary which started in about 1905 where I went to school in the NE closed about 10 years ago presumably due to falling numbers and that there are other private schools in the same town and decline of NE (my siblings and I all left our home town for work). Down here in London there are many thriving very hard to get into private and state grammar schools where there are vast numbers of pupils per place and most who want to go there do not get in.

My London borough had a 9% population increase between the last 2 censuses and population grew more than inner London even - we are full to the seams here and very popular and one of the most mixed London boroughs.

So it is quite hard to say across the whole of the UK VAT on school fees will have XYZ impact as areas differ. However I am against the measure and I hope the courts strike it down.

@FloofPaws, you do realise that it takes years before an EHCP is put into place and without it there is no additional funding.

Blame Labour. I see 2 schools closing in paper today. It was blatantly obvious this would happen and it's often DC with SENs that have to be pushed back into mainstream schools where they might struggle to cope.

I suspect they will be fine. Parents are going to find solutions, not leave it to the local authority.

So the decline is nothing to do with VAT then.

Exactly

Sibieta’s IFS report was funded by the Nuffield Foundation.

Not sure how you can spin ‘chummy-pals-getting-paid for bespoke research’ when the research in question was not funded by a ‘chummy pal’?

Are any Left-leaning news outlets covering the story …. If not, I suggest they aren’t reporting because they cannot spin it to look like it wasn’t a chummy-pals-getting-paid for bespoke research…with an expected result.

What evidence?

All that has been provided on this thread is a Guido post saying that they know each other (a fact) and a Telegraph article saying that a complaint has been sent to the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards.

The PCS says that the complainant must provide evidence for a complaint to be investigated. There is no allegation against Pennycook under investigation listed on the PCS website.

So again, where’s the evidence of collusion? Because just saying that they know each other isn’t evidence of collusion, is it?