School fee hike - freaking out slightly

I'd argue cohort above leadership.

If you're really, really selective, then you're always going to exceed a school that truly takes everyone- assuming you mean raw outcomes and not progress.

I think we have to get away from the idea that a good education is necessarily about outcomes.

If you're measuring by outcomes, then obviously schools that select in various ways (this can be academic, financial or social) will almost definitely have better outcomes.

But if you look at progress or other, harder to define things, then I think it's different.

But most of the things the poster I quoted was mentioning weren't about cohort. Some of them were things that might be impacted by funding.

Obviously some of the things are difficult for any school though.

For every parent who wants more homework, there's another who wants none. For every parent who wants more maths, there's another who wants more art, etc.

@FacebookFun The only people that say yes to free tutoring are the ones that come from homes where education is important. You'd be very, very surprised how many turn down free tutoring.

Who would say no to free tutoring?

You might be surprised. For the same reason some parents put in a lot of effort and others don’t.

I’m not ashamed to be British but I’m weary at the idea those who do put in effort can soak up all those who do not, usually via more taxes.

If it gets even more pronounced people will try to avoid it and things will get worse for those who can’t.

It's the main reason I think we need really wholesale admissions reform - no faith admissions (which distort catchments and are de facto social selection), no feeder primaries, no grammars, and preferably far fewer private schools so that schools much better reflect the areas they're situated in. I'd also go for something like a system of lotteries for different catchment radiuses, a quota reserved for FSM pupils, and other demographic smoothing factors to deal with house price selection. But I do think that house price selection is exacerbated by academic selection and faith selection reducing the number of schools/places that are on offer to many people - making the competition for those places even more fierce.

@MarshaBradyo Its an uncomfortable topic but in my opinion cohort, after leadership, is the biggest determining factor in the schools success.

I’ve thought about this a fair bit as I’ve used both sectors but what I think gets overlooked somewhat in this argument is how much cohort impacts outcomes.

Ie you can absolutely get a state school with better results, the funding isn’t higher but the intake is different. This doesn’t lead to pressure on the government though. Just more jostling for a place via house price.

I think the point is that if parents were complaining about state provision on mass to e.g. the government, they might be persuaded to invest more in education.

But I don't think that's the case for the current government.

Schools themselves are very limited in what they can do, really.

@JassyRadlett Exactly. And it's also how much control the government want to lose in a way. In the state's you have far more choice as to how you spend the $ you put towards education. Families can use them to enroll their children in online schools or even home ed co-ops. In Poland there's an option to send your child to a private school and the government sends their funding to that school. There's a huge controversy there as parents with money are getting any diagnosis they can, the school than claims additional SEN funding from the government. It's making the SEN pot smaller and smaller for state schools.
There's no perfect system but it's a universal truth that parents want choice. In the UK that choice is reserved for those with money.

I suspect it's a question of whether taxpayers' money should be focused on overall outcomes or individual opportunity which is deeply steeped in political ideology.

@YouSoundLovely exactly. I do think that's a far better system than whatever this country has. This idea that private education is only for the very very rich is quickly becoming a reality. The middle classes have long been out priced. Now the upper middle is struggling too.
Subsidising isn't a bad thing, it opens up choice for a lot of parents. A choice they already pay for when they buy up housing next to good schools.

Not a surprise but have they been increasing at the 5 percent in recent years that you budgeted for - the saving from that should sort of help

@pimplebum oh shut up it's not a race to the bottom. They have money and could obviously use it to have a more luxurious lifestyle. They've chosen to spend it on education, they have every right to worry and have a moan. They're just pointing out that the money is a sacrifice and it's not a drop in the ocean.

We can not say that every state school will have financial difficulties. I work for public sector finance. I know some grammar/state schools have reserves. There are many ways to have an income stream, such as donation, events, and fundraising. My kids went to outstanding state primary; the school even provided almost instruments for every kid to bring home(Cello, violin...). Government funding was good, plus all other incomes. Parents are willing to contribute occasionally. If schools have good treasury and finance management/budget, it should not have a significant impact.

I think that was just a way to point out that they don't have lots of extra cash to pay for schools. To say that they can pay for the necessities and school fees but that is all. Of course it's still a privilege to be able to send your kids to private school, but that doesn't mean that we can't talk about private schools.

One private prep is closing this summer in the area I used to live in the UK due to rising costs and the parents not being able to cover the shortfall. They would be left with too few students to cover costs if they were to remain open. I suspect their attached secondary school isn't far behind.

On top of this there will most likely be lots of nurseries closing once the new rules on free hours come into play as a lot of them are already struggeling. Where are all the kids going to go? Both young and older. When the prep closes this summer there will be 168 children without a school place in an area with oversubscribed state schools.

Shopping at Aldi , no new cars and no holidays are for some the lifelong norm, not a sacrifice but thanks for acknowledging your privilege

Two of mine are at a private school* abroad with this system and it means fees (or 'parental contributions', as they are called) are extremely reasonable and means tested. Parents with the lowest incomes pay a low two-figure sum per month.

*It has to be a state-approved school, though. Not all schools qualify for this. Ours is a faith school, which can't be a state school as education is constitutionally secular, but effectively acts as a fairly 'normal' schooling provision in our town, with a very broad socio-economic mix. Somewhat smaller classes than the state schools and a few additional things but not massively sparkling facilities.

It wouldn’t do much more than it does here already. Parents pay through house prices and access the better state schools that way.

What would happen is that a whole privileged and capable sector of society would have skin in the game and would both engage with and give to their local state school, and also would be far more demanding of government and the education system and the government would have to up it's game in response.

I absolutely don't agree that schools for privileged families and children should be state funded. I find it mind blowing that grammars already are.

Yeah the Australian system was basically a fudge with the churches in the same way as the UK fudge was arrived at - they just took different models ie Australia said 'your faith schools need to be outside the state sector but we'll enable ongoing state funding, and higher for Catholic schools' while the UK said 'we'll keep your faith schools within the state sector and pay nearly all your costs but you have to give up a little more control.'

Both have the same outcome of class-stratified schools (recognising that faith schools with faith admissions criteria in the UK have a disproportionately wealthy intake) which then has a big knock on to other schools.

@JassyRadlett I agree completely. Poland has an new middle class post communism and there's a lot of private schools popping up. They have the same system as Australia in terms of funding and it's screwing up the public school system that was previously excellent.

I think it really shifts the accessibility and therefore the argument shifts - eg the Australian system where all children get a baseline funding and therefore private schools are cheaper and less 'elite' as a whole - a third of kids in private education in Australia vs 7% overall here.

There are still massive anomalies in that eg funding for Catholic schools is higher than for other private schools. But at least it gets faith schools and faith admissions out of the state sector.

That said, overall, the systems with hardly any private schools and much broader take up of state education seem to get better outcomes overall than either the UK or Australian systems.