If you're worried about rising private school fees..

[CurlewKate]

... why not just get a better paid job? It apparently works for poor people.

From what I’ve read, Labour haven’t actually done any of their own calculations. They are apparently relying on an IFS report. It’s a fairly crude calculation. For example, as far as I can see, it doesn’t take account of any parents who would switch to state and then give up work or reduce their hours, thus leading to reduced income tax and NIC revenues.

We???

Blimey it's a school not a way of life.

@MintJulia I would suggest that your school is the exception.
Many of my friends have educated their children privately and could not list one contribution they have made.
Don't get me wrong, I am not anti private schooling and was a recipient of a scholarship (which came with exceptionally high criteria) to a grammar school - realise that's a whole other horror. So, I probably had a 'private education'.
I believe that many private schools are pretending to be charitable when it is tokenism, for example DH was at a very inner London school but was allowed to 'enjoy' Dulwich college playing fields for 30 mins a week

I have never voted before (apart from Brexit where I voted to stay) because I view both parties equally bad. But if there is a general election tomorrow I will be the first one at the ballot box to vote conservative. I am sure every parent with their kid in a private school will do the same.

What about schools which don’t have charitable status? Is VAT on the school fees for those schools?

Iknow a lot of teachers who work in the indie sector. Some have left to go back to state and most have gone back to indie in a less than a year! These teachers won’t be returning to state school if their schools go under.

I think if parents choose indie they give up most things before schooling as it’s something they really believe in. Many will take on extra work to pay the school fees. I know people who’ve remortgaged their houses to pay school fees.

State Ed needs so much to get it back to where it belongs - Labour’s tax on school fees won’t touch this.

Funny!😂

I'm enjoying watching snobs get a much needed reality check. I'm with OP on this one.

I'd assume the majority of parents with kids in private school always voted conservative and always will.

Education is exempt from VAT; the charitable status of a school makes no difference. There are lots of private schools which aren’t charities.

Out of curiosity - how is this going to make society fairer? No one seems to know the answer to this? Despite what labour say, the money raised will not be ringfenced. There is absolutely no facility to do this. Like any government it will have competing demands for the money and I don’t believe for 1 minute this money will end up in schools. All that will happen is more children will end up in the state sector, with bigger class sizes all crammed into existing buildings. The tutoring industry will explode and those children will outperform the ones who can’t afford it. When applying to university they will have no way of distinguishing the more privileged children from those more disadvantaged and ex private school kids will End up taking the top university places that would have gone to the existing state school children. I 100% think that this will backfire spectacularly.

My kids are in private SEN schools. I will just slap it out of them and they can go to the local state school.

You seem yo be assuming that private schools are evenly distributed round the country and the pupils will be shared out across all schools.

That is obviously not the case. Some counties have very few private schools, and could probably cope even if there was a major exodus from those few.

Other areas (mainly cities) have far higher numbers off private schools and consequently a higher proportion of pupils currently in the independent sector. Those areas may well not cope. Not least because the birth rate did not begin to fall until 2012, and the first major pinch point will be year 7, when a smaller than typical number transfer to the private sector. The "surplus" school places are currently concentrated in primary schools - an age bracket far less affected as a much lower proportion start in private schools at that point. And because of shortage of land, and therefore cost of acquiring, it is likely to be expensive to expand secondary provision. Plus unfortunate to need to do it now, when (if birth rates continue to fall) it'll all be mothballed in less than a generation.

And they can't just fling up portakabins - not after they pilloried the Tories for saying that was acceptable for classrooms.

My kids are in private school (which already charges VAT) as stated above, not because our local schools are bad- they aren't. But because they are seriously over subscribed. DS was supposed to go to the local very good state primary until we found there'd be 33 kids in his reception class. Yes, it's supposed to capped at 30 for infants BUT if the local authority has insufficient teachers and classrooms for the number of children they gave to educate them that supposed max goes out the window. Thankfully we are furnished with a number of local, reasonably priced and good private schools so could choose the alternative. And the school that DS was supposed to go to had already built on all but a small yard, so even if they could find a teacher, there would be no space for a classroom.

I don't know what my local area will do if there is a mass exodus of private school kids. There's already insufficient school places.

I’m not sure the private school parents would necessarily know the added benefits to surrounding state schools. Why would they unless they specifically enquired with their school?

I help out at our local primary. The closest public school shares its playing fields, swimming pool, music and art departments and theatre with us. In my opinion it would be a crying shame if our school lost access to these fantastic resources.

not at my school….. lots of arty Labour voters (ex I now imagine).

The majority of parents are arty labour types - now that does not sound quite true.

I’ll keep the lad in his fancy pants school for now, I’ve bought him a ginormous blazer which I want to get at least three years wear out of
I shall indeed move to a better paid but morally dubious job
Start cackling at people who live in modest semi-detached houses in average areas whose mortgage rates rose by a hilariously unaffordable amount
Start voting Tory
Maybe start wearing furs
Fell a couple of ancient trees
Remove the water sources from my garden so the frogs all have to fuck off somewhere else
Hang some poo bags on branches - amusingly I don’t even have a dog!

Errrrr…. It’s not true because I didn’t say it? I said ‘a lot of’….… very different to ‘majority of’…. Wouldn’t you agree?

Arty Labour types - well you mean silent Tories I think. No change there

We had lots of creative parents at one school. No idea how they voted though

I find the concept of private parents voting Labour a bit at odds tbh

If they do and post on here you’ll probably find out by their second post

Ok I said the majority are Tories and you said not true, lots are arty labour. So is the majority arty labour or tories - they both can’t be majorities can they?

Does there have to be a majority? Half and half?

to be honest I couldn’t say actually, as I wouldn’t ask how someone votes, but I also wouldn’t make assumptions.

the way people are on this thread makes it seem that no Labour politician has ever set foot in a private school which is hilariously not true.

I know so many Labour voting families using private Ed. That’s why I think this is a total Labour own goal….. I doubt they’ll vote labour now.

I suppose the likes of Diane Abbott and Emily Thornberry and Valerie vaz are happy to support adding vat to school fees now that their children have benefited from a private school education?

I don’t particularly care what your view is - you were the one who started debating my use of majority and now you couldn’t actually say either way! 😂😂😂

Yeah I mean I dared to hope when I saw the thread title that the post would be ‘ha ha’. But that is petty of me.

Having spent the last five years listening to every left wing right on save the pandas mate I have tie themselves in INCREDIBLE knots to explain why their specific child could. Not. Possibly. Go. State with the poors I was on the verge already but the litany of ‘well just you wait til we come and take all your houses / vote Tory / give up working (?) / home ed and you’ll be SORRY’.

Guys, we are all (mostly) on the same team. Some of you are potentially literally my friends. You are, I am so sorry, a bit rich and so am I and that means we’re gonna have to help fix what these Tory fuckers have done in ways that might, again, I’m so sorry, personally suck, and maybe in some situations, not even work that well!

Let’s just get our shit together and vote the cunts out shall we? I’ll donate to the gofundme for the kids fees if that’ll help. But let’s get the cunts out.