to want to abolish private schools' charitable status?

[minifingers]

Which costs the tax payer 100 million squids a year.

Schools justify having charitable status by saying they offer financial help to 'disadvantaged' children.

The 'disadvantaged' children they refer to are actually, almost to a boy/girl, highly intelligent, academically successful children who have outstandingly supportive parents (otherwise they wouldn't be researching bursaries/applying for schools/preparing their children for exams). In other words, not at all disadvantaged. These are the children who generally succeed very highly in the state sector too.

I personally think that tax-payers money should go towards supporting those children who are failing in education, not to those children who are already succeeding. Surely it's more beneficial for the children who are currently failing most severely in the state sector to have tax payers money spent on them, as these are the children who the tax payer ends up supporting through benefits/the prison system.

In addition, 'skimming off' this top layer of very clever children and sending them to be educated separately from other ordinary kids impacts on the learning of all the other children in the state sector - any of us who have done a degree/been in education know what a difference it makes to be in a class where there are a lot of clever/motivated people, how much more enjoyable and productive learning is.

Just to draw a mumsnet analogy - imagine if all the funniest and most interesting posters here were offered their own site - 'mumsnet gold', where they could be funny and interesting all day long and those of us who are not as funny and clever would be excluded. Imagine how much of a loss that would be to everyone here? we could rename the new non-gold site 'netmums2'

So, AIBU?

Take the £100000000 currently given to private schools and give it to state schools with the largest number of underachieving students to spend on supporting their education instead?

Yep - but none of that means that private schools are charities, does it?

"I'd get rid of all private schools, all academies, all free schools and all religious schools. This society is fucked up until everyone can learn to be together as human beings. And I'd bring in a postcode lottery system to stop certain comprehensives becoming middle class enclaves."

I would be in favour of this, but I bet a lot of people bashing private schools on this thread wouldn't be. They want advantage when it suits THEM. They like to pretend that the fact their children go to good state schools is just an 'accident' (nothing to do with the catchment area, oh no!) or the fact they just happen to be Catholic. Try to take away their choices by making it an even playing field for all and there would be uproar.

On the contrary, Topsy, I think most of us who are opposed to private education, and, specifically in the context of this thread, to private schools having charitable status, are very much opposed to faith and free schools. And I would definitely be in favour of a postcode lottery where catchments are exclusive.

If charitable status enables private schools to keep their fees slighly lower than they would otherwise be, is the argument that private schools are charities based on the fact that they exclude slightly fewer children than they otherwise would do, whilst still maintaining their raison d'etre - ie, to exclude most children?

Because that doesn't sound very charitable to me. It sounds as though charitable status would exist, in that case, to subsidise the fairly wealthy and sometimes the very bright, to have what the very wealthy do have, at the expense of the not wealthy at all.

In Scotland all children go to their local states school. Every child in the catchment will get a place in their local school. There are faith schools but as far as i can see they are very different to the faith schools in England. They are still LA schools. Placing requests to different schools can be made but not always granted.

However in the poorest areas the schools are often not so good and in the wealthier middle class towns and suburbs the state schools are better. This is because it is very much dependant on how the parents of these children view education and the support the children are given. The better schools also attract very good teachers who want to teach well behaved and well motivated children.

So making an even playing field is all very well but there will still be good schools and not so good schools even within the state system.

Of course they would Original. I can just hear the cries of 'I paid X over the odds for my house to get into X school and now can't!'.

You may feel that way Original, but I bet a lot of people wouldn't. You only have to read the bleating on here about so and so's child getting into a particular school and someone else not. Of course there's the usual posturing about travelling distance etc, just to make out that that's the actual reason they are so outraged, but it's obvious the real reason is they want that particular school because it's better than the alternative.

I don't see how you can make all state schools equal. A postcode lottery wouldn't sort it unless you were mixing schools up from a large area.

I'd get rid of all private schools, all academies, all free schools and all religious schools. This society is fucked up until everyone can learn to be together as human beings. And I'd bring in a postcode lottery system to stop certain comprehensives becoming middle class enclaves.

If we do close private schools where will the 4bn needed to educate them in the state sector come from?

But are those people opposed to private education? I don't think you can base your projection on the cries you can hear in your own head!

And are you really saying nobody cares about travelling distance, and that's just a lie? You seem to have a lot of 'obvious real reasons' and cries in your head, but I'm not sure what they're actually based on.

I can see why you would want this. And this helping other children is a bit dubious to say the least. Only a select few will be helped. But it isn't really an issue I could get very worked up about.

Oh sod off Original.

Can I ask you then. Do your children go to a failing school? If so, would you send them there if there was a valid alternative?

Travelling distance doesn't seem to stop people driving miles to a 'good' school when there's a worse one closer in distance. I've yet to hear someone fighting to get into the local failing school as opposed to the outstanding one they were offered, simply because it's closer.

You get to tell me to sod off then ask personal questions? Seems a bit rich!

jacks365 - this is repeatedly ignored on these threads. Its all very pie in the sky thinking with no actual practical plans.

Why would you be offered an outstanding school that was further away than the failing school near you? I assume by 'failing' you mean 'in special measures'?

The thread didn't set out to make 'actual practical plans': it asked whether the OP was unreasonable to think private schools aren't charities. And they're not, so she isn't.

Presumably if everyone goes to their local school and the failing school is in a densely populated area it may be full so others may have to go further afield.

'Failing' schools aren't generally full to the rafters!

shockinglybad

The independent school one of my children goes to has a high % of looked after children they also have quite a few kids who nobody else will take.evey child has 1:1 or 1:2 at all times it's full of children like the one you describe has quite full on security etc,i won't say exactly what it costs as it does make it instantly identifiable but its more than 60k a year and afaik less than 5% of parents have to fund placements.

It also happens to be fantastic with the other schools in the area with facilities use direct support (supply of staff) provision of school trips use of transport and other significant support.

Its most certainly a charity. As are the indie schools my other children go to

To be eligible for charitable status the schools need to make available their income and assists for helping others (or something like that).

DD's school offers bursaries and also offers teaching staff and the premises to the community and the local schools. It also hosts a variety of inter school events for local schools. It also has a music for all scheme for all local children.

On the flip side they also have great links with the local university. It is a key institution in our community.

Not at the moment no
But if everyone has to go to the local school they are allocated then maybe that would change.

Yes, definitely!

"Jayden needs the support of qualified and appropriately trained adults far more than he needs nice playing fields and access to a swimming pool."

Children of wealthy families need those desperately whereas Jayden didn't. So that's what the charity was for.

It's about the fact that these schools have charitable status. It's not that I hate the children of wealthy parents or anything else. It's the fact that "charitable status" is dishonest when you are not a charity.

It's interesting how many mumsnetters live near schools in special measures. Considering that there aren't that many such schools, they must trip over each other every time they step out of their front doors!

I love this:

"To be eligible for charitable status the schools need to make available their income and assists for helping others (or something like that).

DD's school offers bursaries and also offers teaching staff and the premises to the community and the local schools. It also hosts a variety of inter school events for local schools. It also has a music for all scheme for all local children. "

You know not what you're speaking of, you do not at all. When I was Jayden's support I used to pull him out of class and sit him in a back room while I asked him to think about why he shouldn't punch people in the face or why I had taken sharp items off him. (To be fair to him, he did have an attempt at doing that. Some others didn't).

It's not about "Oh we can make provision for students who want to learn the violin even if they're from...state schools" That's not a charity, that's indulgence. If you're offering to be an educational charity, why not step right up to the plate and offer the school which future Jaydens attend one to one support?

Some parents here are honest and say "I don't want Jayden anywhere near my precious DC." Yeah, I get this. Stop kidding on the private school you've sent your DC to at is a charity then.

Hakluyt - it sticks though doesn't it? One near us is no longer under monitoring but was last year. Everyone still refers to it as a school you wouldn't pick though.