How oversubscribed are your local schools? Will they be able to take on students who are currently privately-educated?

This only matters for those going into Y7 though so won't be an immediate issue.

Almost all parents who are sending their kids private will continue to do so

At any price

Even if they have to cancel their Sky subscription for a bit 😨😢

People don't realise, those people who work hard to put their kids into private school will not just let their kids go to any state school. They will look for the best state option and move within the catchment area. Already know people doing this. That will in effect push out lower income families as house prices go up. Furthermore, tons of people saying they should just cut this and that so they can afford the VAT. that's fine. and people will do that. Just as long as these people also realise it will just hit other parts of the economy, like small businesses when these parents do start cutting back.

Where I live the only secondaries will be some very, very poor state schools. There are some really good ones, but they are massively over subscribed. There is a little more flex at primary but not so much in the good schools. I also imagine children will have to travel a long distance. At the private school I teach in we have received lots of children from some of these schools because they just haven't thrived there. Within a term or 2 of a different setting, it is notable how much improved they are. I guess only time will tell how it all pans out.

Wouldn't surprise me if there were fewer private pupils in grammar school areas

( well at least private school pupils as opposed to private tutored )

Some of the biggest issues with this policy are actually going to be for state school parents.

Increased competition for places at 11+ and 6th form, especially in grammars and competitive 6th forms. We've seen an increase this year for DD's comp to 6 GCSEs including English & Maths at Grades 7-9 to apply for a place and they only have enough places for 25% of current Y11.

Increased competition will mean that if you get a 6 rather than a 7 in that 6th GCSE you'll be looking for a new school, leaving behind friends and the environment you know. Last year they only asked for 6 at grades 6-9.

The children who are most likely to move will be the very able who will go for the grammar places, and the SEN kids whose parents would not normally have considered private education and who failed to get an EHCP in place.

Given the current situation with SEN in state schools, adding a load more SEN kids is not something that any parent should be happy about. SEN kids with no proper support is not good for anyone's education.

@paasll

There's 6400 students in private school in Bristol this year apparently. There's 82000 children (some obviously younger than school age) whilst that's quite a lot in private school, remember many of the children in those schools will actually live in N Somerset or S Gloucestershire, possibly BANES. My friends gdc live in n Somerset by school is Bristol and the school bus picks up from Weston Super Mare then winds its way through the villages.

It'll literally be fine. Most schools aren't oversubscribed. The poor lil rich kids will find places in state schools, most likely good ones cos let's face it, people who can afford private schools don't live in deprived areas.

There's spaces here, and it's a good school, very few choose private anyway because it's an hour by bus or a 45 car journey to the nearest one. My friends grandkids are at the private school and are a little worried but as it will only really affect the younger one (eldest is GCSEs this year so by the time the law is enacted it's one year max) they will just have to pay, they chose to privately educate despite local comps being good or outstanding

There’s lots of spaces in schools in my area, they just wouldn’t be first choice schools. But if private school pupils apply now for this year then that’s what they will be given, and it will help those undersubscribed schools as they’ll get more funding so it’s not a bad thing if they get placed there.

@Macaroons in Lewisham the schools are not all oversubscribed. My DCs secondary school has places and has reduced its PAN to match its intake, as a PP said this helps with budget planning. If necessary they could increase the PAN again.

Nope . Local schools have waiting lists already- for every year!!

🤔 You are reading something that isn’t there.

Spaces - lots. Just not in schools they'll want

Loads of spaces.

People round here are more scared of immigrants taking school places. But they also think all immigrants are single men who should have stopped in France. Mind you, they also think our local schools are prison camps where staff routinely abuse the children, so I'm not sure round here is where private school parents are going to want to send their kids.

Our primaries are all at capacity, but the local senior schools have plenty of space.

There is very little 6th form provision locally.

@Macaroons you have to remember that some place planning goes on to try and roughly match applications numbers.

I'm not saying nowhere is actually oversubscribed in terms of physical space as some are. Particularly in the bulge years, but schools reduce thier places available to help with budget planning.

So the school I worked in used to have 90 spaces In each group. But now it has 60 places. They don't need to magic up extra classrooms. They are already there. This happens in loads of schools at the younger end now.

Our outstanding rated primary school is under subscribed too, even after taking in DC from the neighbouring town and villages (because it is the best school according to ofsted, not because their good rated schools are oversubscribed). They'd certainly welcome the extra money that would be ploughed into the school if more DC attended.

Our outstanding -rated ( inspection was this year) state primary is actually under subscribed and has spaces so no bother.

Less than 6% of students are currently privately educated. And of those, a relatively small proportion will pull their kids out. 🤷‍♀️

Gillian Keengan said 25% of my county's pupils are in independent schools. Some are at special schools and wont move, some are boarders from far away, so wouldnt be our LAs responsibility to educate, and some will stay at independent school anyway. So it won't be a case of expanding the state sector by 25%

On that basis I am confident that they can be accommodated from about year 3 down easily as so many schools have reduced PAN over the last 3 years, by whole classes. It varies a bit around the county a bit but with a bit of a shuffle they'd fit. Some of the schools with reduced PAN are lovely village infant schools that 13-10 years ago were oversubscribed.

I am less confident from year 4 onwards that it would be easy, but possibly doable.

I think the current years 8, 9, 10 and 11 are pretty close to full with just random 1 or 2 places coming up a year per school per year group, as people move around. Plus the odd less popular school.

This

I bought my house 3 years ago in a very specific place to be within the catchment of a specific school that was very oversubscribed. My son starts school this year but both this year and last year the school was no longer oversubscribed.

Same with a few other primaries as well. This is the reason they are changing the now empty classrooms into nurseries. Dds

What do you mean? When does it happen? Of course people care. I do. I certainly wouldn’t mock it.

Yes, and that estimate is tiny. And, as the IFS concedes, it's based on guesswork.