Private Schools- hear me out before you judge!

This policy was just designed to give a spanking to the rich, out of spite. It was sold to voters by saying some rubbish about the money raised being used to get more teachers/breakfast clubs at state schools etc. It actually hoodwinked people into thinking that the state sector needed money from private school parents in order to get better - NO - the state sector needs government money to get better. It isn’t the responsibility of the only people guaranteed not to benefit from it!

Money isn’t going to be raised in the short term anyway - govt is going to need to pay Eton £5 million on the VAT they can now reclaim on their spending. And the kind of difficulties the OP mentions over school closures - yes, also a natural consequence of this idiotic policy.

Labour always excuses awful policies by saying “few/minority of people impacted”. I wonder how much longer the public will drink up this bullshit. I guess it depends on whether you find yourself in a minority that gets hurt. And you don’t have to be a private school parent to fall into that minority - OP is going have a much rougher time at work with increased pupil numbers.

again with the farmers - labour simply say “most not impacted”.

i can’t believe people fell for this shit

....but were divided in their opinions, so split that vote.

10 children are going to the local grammar school from our independent this year. Normally 1 goes and the rest stay in private. That’s 9 grammar places that will be taken up by wealthy children that would have usually gone to other children. It will be more next year. We have hardly any children going to start in reception now so we are changing to only taking children from year 3. That is now so many children going into the state system and costing taxpayers a fortune. Some parents are taking their children out to homeschool and mom is giving up her job to do it! One mom was on 60k Barely any children are staying for 6th form now and are taking their places from loca children as they often have better GCSE results. Absolute shambles!

My childs school is in so much debt, they are having to get rid of a lot of TAs, the government want schools to have more sen children and also more children in general because of what's happing in private schools.
I am really worried for schools and I can see a lot more teachers leaving due to stress of having to have a large class including children with sen with no money for extra staff!

And even if EHCPs include 1to1s the money is just not enough to cover and then they end up having to look after other children which they should not be.

So the reality is that state schools will be absorbing a couple of children per year without funding for two terms in order to make things fairer for everyone going forwards?

Our Scottish school is absorbing the increase for the spring term.

There’s also a paper going from the Scottish Council of Independent Schools to highlight the negative consequences and a KC has been engaged to take legal action as the Scottish Independent sector is nothing like Englands and therefore imposing blanket legislation is extremely punitive.

@Yolo12345 Gordonstoun? Where our king was educated?

@Heatherbell1978 no it wasn't Fettes - it was in rural Scotland

@Yolo12345 as a charity they are very limited as to what they can make a profit on. Any profits need have a charitable purpose ie put back into the school. If you're talking about Fettes, as you're well aware the parents of those children won't be batting an eye at paying VAT. It's in the same league as Eton. Those schools aren't the ones anyone is worried about. And my DS certainly doesn't go there.

The staff are often paid less than the state sector. Many private schools are also withdrawing their staff from the TPS. Many private schools do not have marketing departments.

You said that you grew up next to a “very prestigious” school in Scotland, probably somewhere like Fettes. Most private schools are nothing like that. Most are not “very prestigious”.

@Heatherbell1978 lol, they don't make a profit...!? Well someone is profiting as their staff are well paid and their marketing departments must be well funded with all the costly advertising they do.

Perhaps it depends on the school but I grew up next to a very prestigious private school in Scotland and nobody I know ever set foot in the place. What they did do was poach the brightest students from the local system and offer them scholarships to boost their results.

Our private school has provided a theatre, playing fields, peripatetic music teachers and computer science teachers and translation services to the local state schools. We also recently built a lovely new theatre and 3 boarding houses one of which has taken 14 Ukrainian refugees.

All that will stop. They have said it will stop. The state schools can pay now. Bursaries are reduced. The loaning of teachers for free ends. The provision of various rooms for exam overspill will stop. Plus when I went in last week (I am an exam invigilator for the school as well as a parent) the finance team were literally on their hands and knees with boxes of documents from the last 10 years trying to work out what we can claw back on VAT for capital works.

It;s an ideological policy, not a fiscal one and this Labour government are fucking nuts who do not give a shit about the consequences.

They put ideology before practicality.

The biggest own goal for the LP so far.

In Scotland nearly all independent schools are charities. So they don't make a profit. And yes they fundraise and their facilities are shared with communities and state schools. It's quite a different landscape up here. But of course Labour didn't consider that.

I don't think they are just closing due to VAT.

Brexit has pushed up prices for everything

Staffing is problematic

Parents are increasingly demanding

They are not making the profits they once were...

They could choose to fundraise and offset some of the rising costs but of course thst would be a lot of work

It's awful and the snow ball is just about to start rolling.

Seen a thread on here today about a school closing but anyone who is anti private school dismisses such concerns.

Well pockets are only so deep even for private school parents.

My ds' fees are going up £400 a month in January. He's in year 10 so we will see him to the end of year 11 and then we are out.

Dd isn't going to private (current year 6) and we are going to put the earnings which are taxed at a ridiculous % into our pension.

So it's definitely won't be a net gain from our family.

They didn’t even get a large number of votes. Only 1 in 3 voters voted for them, suggesting that 2 in 3 voters don’t agree with their policies.

This policy was always about ideology.

What's wrong with that ?

And as with all ideologies some will agree. Some will not.

Loads of Tory policies were also about ideology. Sauce. Goose. Gander.

If you want evidence based policies, you are living in the wrong country. If not planet.

It worked to get Labour votes and popularity from jealous people though. Who cares about the children?

The census day for this academic year has passed. Any additional children this academic year will be completely unfunded. That's how it works in England.