Private Schools- hear me out before you judge!

Even the government admit it will cause private schools to close. The VAT hasn’t taken effect yet. Most weren’t expecting it to come in until next September. You can’t say a policy isn’t causing school closures when the policy isn’t even in force yet.

Because the assumption was that we would "put up" and that noone would move their DC mid-year so Labour could then claim it didn't have any impact on kids moving.
1000s of parents have called Labour's bluff and now we have a serious situation whereby schools are closing and LAs are saying they have no spaces.
Labour and Phillipson refuse to acknowledge this. Hence why there are now 2-3 legal challenges in England and 1 in Scotland.

It's a fucking shambles and the ones who suffer are kids but they are sacrificial acceptable collateral damage for Labour. This policy was only ever about revenge

And a lot of them aren't. They're not a hive mind.

I feel sorry for the children who have to switch as well. A lot of state school teachers are very vocal about their hatred of the private system.

Calling voters jealous isn’t going to win the argument or get people to change their mind about this VAT policy (most people don’t care enough either way - but they might if you name call)… stop insulting people then you might have the chance to change things.

93% of children are already at state schools. Surely quite a few of them care about the quality of education, and it’s still dire. Even if half of children leave private, that’s only 3.5% of children. I’m not sure they will manage to change anything if the 93% haven’t achieved it.

This policy was always ideologically based, and the sums don't really add up. Where privilege is really an issue is with the top public schools, and they aren't really going to be affected - yes, they might lose a handful (but I assume they do every year, as people's circumstances can change,) but they'll have others on their waiting lists, and they're operating in an international market. If you're paying £45K a year for your child to go to school, you were never going to be looking at state schools, just slightly cheaper private schools.

Whereas the small, local day schools, where parents have sent children because they weren't getting on in the state sector, where parents struggle to pay the fees, where they probably aren't adding much privilege, they're the schools which will ho yo the wall.

Longer term, it's right that a lot of those children should be catered for in the state sector, but that requires funding, which isn't currently there, and I any case, many issues in state schools can't be fixed overnight and just with extra funding. Adding extra pupils (which will affect some schools more than others, simply due to the geographical distribution of schools,) without funding won't improve anything.

It also seems an odd decision to me to bring it in in the middle of the school year, when September would be the obvious time. It was obvious this would lead to pupils moving schools, and having to do that mid year isn't helpful to anyone.

I feel sorry for the kids who've had to move schools - sounds like the teachers clearly resent their very presence

Anyway it won't matter because Labour are going to lower academic standardsand results in schools and then adjust the entry requirements for university admissions. So instead of upskilling our kids to be able to compete with China etc, our top schools and universities will be full of foreign students and our own kids will be unemployed because they won't have the skills or knowledge to compete.
Plus they are going to force mainstream kids to keep SEN kids because it's cheaper than funding specialist provision. They will gradually reduce the numbers in specialist settings and then close them. Then give mainstream schools a tiny % uplift in order to keep kids who actually need those specialist settings.
They will limit, even more, schools abilities to expel kids.

So please don't tell me they care about improving standards in state schools!!

Thank you for that. That's actually really interesting.

Also, other children go there, not just hers.

I'm sorry to dash everyone's hand wringing with annoying and very recent data that shows there is NO increase in private schools closing. In fact the opposite is true.

Private schools close every year. They also open. VAT hasn't caused closure in previous years. So why pretend ? when 46 closed and 77 opened.

Facts are so annoying !

www.theguardian.com/education/2024/oct/26/no-rise-private-school-closures-england-since-labour-vat-proposal-data

Why would she not? It would be a matter of public record so anyone who lives locally would know already.

The one in her small town which would be immediately outing? Why on earth would she tell us that?

You design the catchment to take in from all kinds of housing, therefore varied incomes and social groups.

I know! Nonsensical 😂

Your issue is the legal limit on class sizes. I'd focus on that

I mean the one central to the OP's post obviously.

So is it down to ex-indy parents to improve the quality of each state school? Are we that influential?

Indeed this. What a mess. Nobody doubts that state schools need money. But the way labour have gone about dressing up this raid - from the pockets of the only people who won’t benefit - is absolutely ridiculous. I’m glad mine adult/almost adult.

You mean the 4 that have closed this week?

What is the name of the private school that is closing due to VAT changes?

It does sound good doesn’t it. But instead of soundbites, let’s check reality - OP’s school is deluged with a ridiculous number of pupils and it’s going to struggle.

The children absorbed by some state schools are going to be in massive blobs of 10s-100s as the OP is experiencing. Other state schools won’t need to absorb any if they aren’t in areas where there are school closures etc. It might be an average of 2 per school - but that’s just the average. It’s not reality for individual schools.

How exactly will the education system be fairer if everyone is schooled based on house prices - “catchments”? It’ll still be grossly unfair - possibly even more unfair.

I guess there will now be more parents out there that really care about the quality of state school education. Sounds good to me.