All staff meeting end of day - handhold

Lots of private schools have been advertising SEn provison and taking local authority funding as an income stream. It’s not altruistic, it’s revenge to keep their business going.

our Ladies Abingdon eeeked out a few more years operating by trying to sweeep up experience Sen places

There are loads of spaces in the state school system so your tax was going on an empty space. Better to fill it up and give the tax payer vfm!

Op I’m sorry to hear this. I’m a consultant working on a similar project for a university and the sector is similar. It doesn’t help but there are too many schools/ unis and not enough people to take them at the price they cost to provide. A reset is well overdue

In today’s ‘education ecosystem’, which one of these options is the most needed? I would argue that more SEN schools are exactly what is required.

And how many of those that opened were mainstream private schools (largely funded by the parents) and how many were specialist SEND schools (largely funded by the taxpayer)?

The increase in fees outstripping wages is surely such a huge factor. I went to a private day school, none of my friends from school are privately educating our kids because we can’t afford it, despite being in similar jobs to our parents.

PG girls school North London. Hard for the pupils and staff but when you look
at the stats they are nearly all small undersubscribed schools.

For the school I am aware of, long term decline in student numbers leading to low current and projected student numbers are cited as the main reason for closure, with the school having made a financial loss for years (ie before the current Government was in power).

The OP says her school had been in trouble for years and VAT was not the main factor.

Sorry to hear this op. It's happening everywhere. I am being made redundant soon. Fixed term contract but was hoping it might be renewed but no ! Redundancies announced this week at dh's work , just hoping he can hang onto a job.

Other factors are definitely available; increased NI costs, increased minimum wage costs, removal of business rates relief, increased TPS contributions. Because I am a reasonable person, I will point out that the last one was under the Tories.

Exactly. Whereas back then, the potential market was much larger (though the facilities MUCH less glossy!)

Boarding schools also now seem to cost £50-60k a year, which is astronomical for 99.9% of people.

Even a ‘1%’ earner would struggle to fund a place.

I would say that ‘destroying the private sector’ is an overstatement. Struggling private schools with falling rolls are closing faster than they otherwise might have done - as a PP put it, VAT being a catalyst for final closure not the cause of the long term failure to thrive.

Whether the closure of those struggling schools and the consolidation of the private sector into a smaller number of thriving, fully subscribed schools is a genuine loss to the education system as a whole is a moot point, though I agree that the transitions are very painful at the time. Whether the pupils at the OP’s school suffer long term ill effects in their education, or whether in fact they thrive in the surviving schools that they transfer to, is yet to be seen. It would be interesting to track ex-pupils of closed schools to see their longer term progress.

As an example, when I was at school, there were 6 private secondary boarding schools - 1 all boys, 5 for girls - in the town, which was meant to be a healthy unpolluted place within easy reach of Birmingham and the Black Country. Each of the girls’ schools had their own niche - from highly academic; and selective to small, nurturing and domestic.

Today, there are 2 schools in total (1 mixed, 1 all girls), one of which is struggling and seems unlikely to survive much longer. There isn’t the need or call for boarding schools in the ‘healthier air’ so the size of the ‘ecosystem’ has shrunk. It’s not a political issue directly, just a change in demand as well as a reflection of the fact that private school fee inflation has so greatly exceeded wage inflation in the intervening period.

Sorry but I can completely blame them for the VAT policy of envy which is destroying the private sector for no benefit to anyone. Up until yesterday my tax paid into the school system while I relieved the burden on the system by using a private school. Well not any more how does this help exactly

I think it is sad when a school closes - it is the ending of a community, a formative place for many, which will have developed its own traditions and to which current and past students / staff will have a level of loyalty and affection. Equally, it is very difficult for those losing their livelihood and for those in mid-course for exams.

It is not necessarily ‘terrible’ that a school that has been in difficulty for years, with falling numbers and therefore a falling budget to pay for excellent teachers and other provision, has to close.

Ultimately, what is desirable is a strong ‘ecosystem’ of thriving schools - state and private - that are full, well-funded and sought after for the specific things that they provide. The overall size of that ecosystem will change with demography, and new niches may emerge (eg the Maths schools; more SEN schools) while others will decline.

It is in nobody’s interests for struggling schools to stagger on with falling rolls.

You can't blame them for the past, but they are clearly making things far worse.

The attack on private schools was just a policy of envy, and has had a real detrimental impact on children.

The people posting stats trying to pretend the policy is not having impact is just not true. Schools are merging, girls schools accepting boys to try to balance the books, and the real impact is yet to come, parents with children with couple years remaining or in middle exams are having to suck up the additional cost as not to disrupt their childrens education, but is preventing new children joining schools, and other leaving after primary age.

This will just put pressure on state schools, and put prices up in catchment areas of the better schools.

Doesn’t make Labour’s policies acceptable…..

Is this Rendcomb OP?
I teach in Cheltenham
it’s terrible I’ve been thinking of you all xx

Yeah...most private schools are in the same boat tbh.
Sorry to hear it, though, op.
Good luck.

Hopefully the LEA is not involved as it is a private school (sorry OP).
A couple of new private schools have opened near us but they are SEN schools and fees are paid by various LEA's and there is some sort of VAT exemption. Parents do not pay anything (the fees are much higher plus the transport costs)

Sorry to hear this op. It’s a frightening situation to find yourself in, but as someone who has been made redundant twice in my career, you do get through it.

Oh, I've been through one of these, I am so sorry.

It’s years of Tory policy that has wrecked education - insisting schools fund everything from their budgets instead of centrally. While Labour isn’t doing enough to reverse it, you can’t blame them for them for the shitshow they inherited.

So sorry to hear this has happened to your school @Backtoreality1. My DH is a teacher whose school is massively in the red and struggling with falling rolls and a friend of ours who is also one went through the same thing last year. He did get an excellent payout though so hopefully your LEA will give similar. But this is going to happen more and more as birth rate continues to fall.

Ypu know more independent schools have opened than closed since the election?
It’s horrible for the OP and the rest of the staff and pupils of this school, but let’s not pretend it’s something it isn’t.
I would hope the OP can get a new job in a stress free way. There is a recruitment crisis in education.

edit: I realise this is a reasonably old article, couldn’t find the more recent figures I know are there because I was looking at them recently. They bear this out.
https://www.theguardian.com/education/2024/oct/26/no-rise-private-school-closures-england-since-labour-vat-proposal-data