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?

I think for many mumsnetters, "failing" and "comprehensive" are interchangeable when followed by the word "school"

I was trying to make Topsy's question clearer to TheOriginal.

Did anyone apply for Jayden?

I'm not proposing closing down private schools

You wouldn't need to as they would probably be sold by the people who owned them to developers who would turn them into luxury apartments.

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

Now you are being deliberately obtuse. All children would benefit from these things but at the moment only those that can get into a private school or a 'wealthy' state are benefiting I agree this is wrong. However, I don't agree the solution is to remove these things from those that already have them.

Jayden would benefit from some aspects of independent education of course. But he would still suffer from the lack of appropriate support for him. Support that the children in the independent schools already don't need and so the school hasn't got.

So yes, extend the charitable aims of independent schools, increase charitable revenue and help Jayden, don't abolish it!

Please ignore my failing schools post. It was me who read it wrong. I thought Topsy was talking about this utopian future not the present.

My nearest school was put in special measures not that long ago and I know there are a few mumsnetters near me. Another local school narrowly avoided it by removing the head but not before a lot of damage was done. It still has hasn't fully settled down yet. Those are my only realistic choices for state education. Private looks very appealing.

A charity raises money to do good. My dd is currently on an Outward Bound course which costs £1400 for three weeks. Outward Bound is a charity. They raise money (partly) from those paying full fees to give a wide range of scholarships. Is that fundamentally different from a school that gives a percentage of its income in bursaries? Universities charge £9000 per year and use some of that fee income in bursaries, they are charities as well. I don't see why private schools are singled out as not being charities, there are many charitable bodies raising money through charging fees to the privileged. I don't see how universities could keep their charitable status if the schools lost theirs, for example, their charitable status must be "costing" the country much more than the schools.

"I'm not proposing closing down private schools

You wouldn't need to as they would probably be sold by the people who owned them to developers who would turn them into luxury apartments."

Market forces.

I would prefer we increase the spending for state schools to bring them up to good private level or at least closer than take away from children.
Perhaps take it from the £4 billion wasted during the RBS fiasco and the £20billion odd Loss due to public sector fraud. Ok too late now for those ones but the money always seems to be there to fuck other things up.

For applying for him, we would have had a hard sell :) He was 12, his writing was way ahead of his reading but neither were exactly fluent. His parents would not maybe have signed off, one we didn't mention and the other was in the jail and he was under the care of social services. They're pretty busy and "I think, having spoken to Jayden, that he would benefit..." would have got you a "Yeah yeah" response at best or outright LOLs at the worst.

People pay ££££ to have their DC at these schools. They don't want Jayden. That is why they are not charities, even if they give some PFBs lessons on the harp.

Losing charitable status would shut down private schools because the charity would have to be wound up and its assets sold. Presumably they would be bought by either profit making educational bodies or local authorities. I don't see that either option helps anybody.

YABU,
these children wouldn't have the opportunity for a private education as their parents couldn't afford it.
I know lots of people can't afford private but some of these schools you refer to gain funds from donations and bequests etc, it doesn't all come from the tax payer.
Also, what about the G&T if the only alternative are local schools that can't meet their needs, should they just be over looked because their parents are poor.
All bursaries and scholarships are means tested, so by definition those awarded are in the greatest need financially.

""Losing charitable status would shut down private schools because the charity would have to be wound up and its assets sold. Presumably they would be bought by either profit making educational bodies or local authorities. I don't see that either option helps anybody."

Wouldn't, you know. Amending legislation would be perfectly possible if the will was there.

I actually chose for ds to go to a failing school after looking at many outstanding and good schools in and around the area. We travel 11 miles each day to get there.(It is the 2nd nearest school to where we live) Ds and I are really pleased with the school.

When going around the outstanding and good schools during the day we were struck by how bored and miserable all the children looked. It became a bit of a game to find a happy child, when we went round ds's school the children looked like they enjoyed learning, there are only 12 pupils in ds's class, there is a new head teacher who has been given a large budget for hiring new teachers and the renovation of the school.
Might I suggest that instead of having a go at private schools and bemoaning the fact that your child has not got into any outstanding or good schools, according to OFSTED, that you give a failing school a chance.

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?

I don't think Jayden is a very good example of somebody who would be ideal for a private school place. How many private schools have the appropriate support or can access the local health support services that Jayden needs in order to meet his emotional needs? I can't see how Jayden being placed in a school where the vast majority of parents are very interested and involved will help him. He will surely realise how different his own life is. Having somebody sit with him and provide 1:1 educational support in a small class would not take away the fact that he has a very troubled home life. He would be aware that the other children in his class have the funds to do things he cannot when he is out of school. I don't actually feel that he would benefit emotionally from being in that type of environment.
Thare are some private educational establishments that can meet Jayden's needs very well, but most places at theses are allocated and funded through the LEA.

Jayne I'm just reading back from where you say you're making a question to me clearer - but I can't find it. Which post?

Do you mean the point that presently 'failing' schools would be fuller if there were no private schools and, in that instance, would anybody fight to go to the closer 'failing' school that the better one further away?

There are too many imponderables there, I think!

Wouldn't, you know. Amending legislation would be perfectly possible if the will was there.

Well campaign for those amendments, I'm sure that lots of private schools would be very grateful to have charitable status removed but not have to dispose of their assets. They would probably be happy to give up their £200 per pupil tax saving in order that they can have reduced paperwork, less interference and have to offer less bursaries. They would be very thankful for that change in legislation.

shockinglybadteacher I honestly don't think a private school would assist the Jayden's of this world any more than state school would.

I work as a SW, i see the Jayden's all the time. They need an entirely different provision which should be made available but sadly isn't.

TheOriginal- that's why I wrote my post of 11.25

You know shockinglybadteacher you and i would probably get on really well in RL despite my DD's having had (in part) a private education.

I want the same things as you do for children who have very few choices in life.

You might not like my choices for my own children - i can accept that. But my family do not sit around in some ivory tower oblivious to what is happening in real life.

Oh, sorry - that one slipped the radar as I was reading back from 11.20.

I think Topsy was asking if anyone would fight to attend a school in special measures that was closer to them than a more successful, if I read it properly - and the only answer can be that they wouldn't need to, because it wouldn't be oversubscribed.

Schools fail partly because people don't/won't send their children there, and that becomes a vicious circle.

"Wouldn't, you know. Amending legislation would be perfectly possible if the will was there.

Well campaign for those amendments, I'm sure that lots of private schools would be very grateful to have charitable status removed but not have to dispose of their assets. They would probably be happy to give up their £200 per pupil tax saving in order that they can have reduced paperwork, less interference and have to offer less bursaries. They would be very thankful for that change in legislation."

Really? Why aren't they campaigning for it then?

Littlewhitbag-
My privately educated children mix with state educated children. They have no choice. They live with them. Ds1 will probably be going to state secondary in a couple of years (unless he wins a full scholarship) so it'll be 3 to 1 soon. I think there's this idea that privately educated children all have this 'other' idea about themselves when most are perfectly normal nice children.