Private schools to go bust in the coming recession

I’ve nothing against private schools, in fact there is a major private school in the town where I live and they invite local state school students in for academic conferences and social events. They employ a lot of people locally and they hire out facilities out of term time. They’re good neighbours. I also happen to know that many of their students are international students, so that’s a much needed financial import and brings money into the country.

I work as a teacher in the state sector and I’m happy there. We have a lot of happy, we’ll adjusted children who will go on to university and good careers or any other route that suits them. And some that are not happy for many reasons … poverty being a major factor.

My daughter attends state school and I like to think she’s happy and well adjusted. She’s highly dyspraxic so I have bought singing lessons for her speech, riding lessons for balance and muscle tone plus Brownies/Guides/Drama. It’s all made a massive difference to her and I’m so proud oh her achievements (now a prefect).

I do feel sorry for kids where there’s SEN and also poverty or other issues such as being young carers or addiction in the family and so on. We do our best for these but FSM doesn’t make up for enrichment they miss out on because their parents can’t afford it or just dont do it. Behaviour often deteriorates and this has a knock on effect on all others in the classroom - leading to lower achievement all round. It’s a viscious cycle.

I only wish I had a solution to poverty.

There is a big difference between "some private schools to go bust in the coming recession" and "all private schools to go bust in the coming recession"
There will be a recession at some point though timing is always uncertain. It's also likely that Labour will make the financial environment less friendly to private schools. Fees will go up, but not by 20%. Some consequences can be predicted:

1. The schools that go bust will largely be less viable preps and seniors near bottom of academic league tables. Those which are old or well-established enough to own their premises outright and/or have endowments squirreled away will survive. So also will all the top 100-200 senior schools, which are all oversubscribed.
2. The mix of pupils in surviving schools will change. A few single-sex schools will go co-ed to drum up numbers. Numbers of those trying to get into the most selective schools will fall, so overall they'll become less selective by academic ability, and more determined by who can pay. Numbers of foreign students will probably rise.
3. Schools will economize but pass on the rest of costs to parents. fees will continue to rise above inflation. Some parents will be unable to keep up with the cost and withdraw their kids. As the birth rate has been falling, and the withdrawals from the private sector will be staggered over a few years, the state system will probably be able to mop up the extra numbers without too much difficulty.
4. The proportion of kids in private education may fall slightly from around 7% currently to something more like 5-6%. That's still above what it was in the late 70's / early 80's (rates of private schooling around 7% didn't occur until the mass closure of grammar schools in the 70's caused an exodus from the state system).
5. More very rich and foreign students will be educated in the UK's academically most selective schools, whereas very bright UK-resident kids from middle-income or poor families, who might previously have attended the most academically selective schools on a bursary or scholarship, are more likely to end up in their local comprehensive.
6. numbers home/online schooling, which now significantly exceed boarding, will also probably continue to rise, also reducing pressure on the state system.

I work at a very rural private school; it is the main employer in our fairly deprived market town.

I dread to think what the effect would be on local employment if it were to close. The teachers will probably be fine - it’s all the back office staff, all the cleaners, laundry people, dinner ladies, gardeners...all the local suppliers that rely on their contracts with the school.

The pool and theatre and sports facilities are also all used by the local schools, and they run popular holiday clubs for local children.

Everyone will be worse off if it were to close.

There’s not much they can do. This is it but it won’t do much, if any benefit over damage to sector

Let’s also be clear. This is about Labour clobbering the better off and it’s politically motivated. It’s class warfare. Most parents will already pay huge tax bills. Education is a requirement. So it’s been VAT free. I think private health is vat exempt. Dental services are vat exempt. So schools are targets. Health is not. So it’s 100% political.

It really doesn’t factor at all for most! Oxford only has 3500 undergrad places each year. That’s hardly all privately educated 6th formers. Many people choose private schools for entirely different reasons. No one ever thought Dc was a shoe in unless you were from a very academic family and attended a tiny number of private schools.

Link to Times article from last year.

Other private school heads said their pupils felt disillusioned at their chances of being accepted at Oxford and Cambridge because of universities’ focus on increasing the number of state school admissions.

And:

Stephen Toope, the vice-chancellor of Cambridge University, said in May that private schools should accept they would inevitably get fewer pupils admitted to Oxbridge and that their “premium” would reduce over time, as more state school pupils attend the universities.

Independent heads say that the message has been absorbed by families, with growing numbers now focusing on the US as a destination.

That a private school education no longer provides a shoe in for Oxbridge places is definitely a significant factor, no matter how you want to spin it.

It's not going to be any better under any government. The world is a whole different place post-Covid and no government has cash sloshing around. I mean Labour had enough to be handing out Child Trust Funds back in the 00s.

Also agree with PP's that even if you got rid of all private schools, people will still stick together.

DC is at a state comprehensive. In Y7, we had a zoom call for all the parents in each tutor group. I messed up the times and logged on to the wrong one. Half the parents didn't show up, the usernames were things like 'BigGoldieBitch' rather than 'Mrs Smith', questions in the group chat were devoid of punctuation and written entirely in text speech, and the questions were mainly around detentions and how unfair x, y or z was.

Logged on an hour later for the correct group. Every parent was there, and based on the questions and topics you might as well have been at an entirely different school. And that was just down to form groups being set based on CAT scores! Turns out that year groups are split in two halves and they rarely mix.

We could have afforded private - we were lucky enough to have a great state option, and spend what we would have done on fees on extra curricular - and have some set aside if we need to get tutors in GCSE years to target top grades.

Interested to know what those in favour of scrapping all private schools would do about places like The Royal Ballet School (White Lodge), the Purcell, Chets, specialist SEN schools and how they will provide boarding places for children of Crown Servants and service personnel?

Plenty of politicians were state schooled, and plenty more send their children to state schools. Also, even if private schools ceased to exist, there would still be huge discrepancies in the state education offered to kids in different areas, as is already abundantly evident. So the education system still won't be the same for everyone.

Same

Different people will always have different reasons. The parents I’ve spoken to have said it’s because they realised that the cost was pretty much the same. It’s not as black and white as you were suggesting.

That’s one take but not the feedback I’ve had from private school parents 🤣

Zero sympathy. People are starving and can't heat their houses. Why should elitist and pompous schools get any sympathy

I went to a private school and out of my friendship group of 7, my parents were the only Tory voters, the rest voted Labour...just saying. It's nowhere near as black and white as people seem to think.

Or in response to the realisation that it now often doesn’t cost much more to go overseas. There’s greater choice and people sometimes like a more international education.

Private schools are already increasingly sending students to overseas rather than UK universities.

Only in response to UK universities finally levelling the playing field and not disproportionately giving places to the privately educated.

Maybe more private schools need to be non-selective. Plenty of people who could afford it but whose children don’t pass the tests - that would mean teachers who can actually teach a wide range of abilities, though, shock horror!!

Tax subsidy is not the free market. I pay stamp duty for my house. VAT subsidy is not justifiable.

That's how it goes. We can't justify a tax bung and the public don't want an outright ban (I personally don't agree with banning things).

Subsidising inequality through tax loopholes is unethical.

That’s the point. The very wealthy won’t have a problem with paying the VAT. The middle classes who are stretching themselves financially, often because the state system has failed them, will be the ones who can’t afford it. The private system will become even more elitist.

My comment was in response to a previous poster who said

“also think the same for private golf clubs... or at least they should be converted into public parks. In my area, we are land poor and there's a huge golf club taking up miles of space”

I totally agree with your point that taking things away from people doesn’t help.

Well if they can still afford to send their children when the schools are correctly taxed that's surely there's no problem with closing the tax loophole then?

Right, exactly... and you absolutely can say "I disagree with this system but this is what I have to do right now"... and it's what we do.

Someone earlier asked if I won the lottery, would I send my kids to private school... I said I wouldn't based on my present circumstances... I do strongly believe in high quality education for all... so if I had millions (in this fake hypothetical world- I don't play the lottery) I would actually use it to campaign for better provision for all children.

I watched a documentary about a state school for autisitic girls, what a wonderful school it was. Those girls had had a tough time at their old state comprehensive schools and were thriving in this specialised environment. This is an option that should be available for all.

Except they won’t be forced to attend. The prices are similar at international schools so the rich can decide to just send the kids to those.

also, politicians who do send their kids to state schools magically appear to be able to engineer entry to the most sought after state schools. They aren’t about to start caring overly about the rest.

I didn't say I like the free market or otherwise.

We may live in a free market economy, but there are regulations and laws... which is why cigarattes are heavily taxed... and why you can't walk into any old shop and buy a handgun etc etc etc ad nauseum.

I can of course pick and choose what elements of the society I live in I agree/disagree with, as is my right as a voter, tax payer and member of society...

Simply throwing your arms up in the air and saying "well, it's totally shit for (XXXXX insert demographic here) but what can you do, we live in a free market, to hell with them" isn't what I choose to do.

I would also point out that society evolves, improves, worsens, changes over time so you can't say we can't change things. We can, if enough people want it.