Flooding of state schools by ex indie students fails to materialise

Poor reporting as usual. It's too early and there was no mention of birth rates in that article.

IMO it will be very spread out, probably so much so that Labour and the Guardian will declare it a victory when they just look at pupil numbers. Except when all the new shiny teachers don't appear and everyone starts asking why the financial detail will give the true picture.

Private schools are not only having to increase fees through VAT but also due to increased NI and price increases across the board. Many will have to drop 'extras' and increase class sizes this will also lead to parents questioning value leading to a gradual decline in places. Of course we should also remember that all the shiny new teachers will mean more people will want to choose state.

As a parent of a child at a specialist SEN school, wow.

In my area the number applying & securing places at selective privates (high) is up not down. I've not heard of any dc leaving privates to join a comp at all; I have friends at a variety of schools

Most other European countries have education systems that discourage or disincentivise private education. In France, for example, it is only for the very thick and very rich.

Agreed.

Best bit is the introduction of VAT on the child-run tuck shop at DC’s school. Such a great way to earn some coin.

We are the envy of Europe!

Yes- and has been said a million times- the government lied when they said they would bring the VAT in in September 2025. By bringing it in mid-academic year they were cynically skewing the stats because it is much harder to change horses mid stream. many of us. Many many many said this was a deliberate attempt by the government to say 'see, no change'.

It was predicted.

It’s only closed a handful of schools and has been running a full 9 weeks, this is great news. I think Brexit Britain has found another winner in introducing education tax. European parents must be looking at the U.K. and cursing EU rules from preventing their state from taxing their own children’s education.

The families of these children probably live in lovely homes but not anywhere near an outstanding school, it may actually be cheaper to ride it out and keep them at private school. In some parts of the country, a house move nearer to the best schools, can easily be another £200k on your mortgage.

Everyone I know whose children go to independent schools had all applied to state schools as well. So this is just normal. Too early to say anything. Will know better only when the new year starts.

How is this news? It’s way too early. Giving a full term notice means Easter is the first exit point and inter year admissions are nightmarish. I wouldn’t expect any change for another year ish.

The majority of parents who apply for private schools for Y7 entry also apply for state as a back up.

Therefore you won't see much of a difference until the second round of offers as potential private pupils will have both state and private offers at this stage. We're in an area with a relatively high number of private secondaries. DS got his 6th choice as we expected. In a normal year we'd expect to see a lot of waiting list movement, particularly in the big shuffle on reallocation day.
Hopefully this will still happen but we are worried that perhaps this year less places will be given up by families going private and DS will be in a school that will suit him less well than the one we'd like him to be offered.

Another media outlet has an FOIA with the LA I work for asking about private to state transfers. I've identified fewer than 10 from Jan 24 to present. This is a large city in the north and in year transfers.