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've not read the full thread - but have read and posted on many like it.

I have no issue with the charitable status so long as the Charity part is properly enforced.

That means ALL bursaries going to children whose grandparents, parents and siblings did not attend fee paying school

That means ALL facilities that are covered by the 'community' clauses being available for 10% of the whole year - ie ALL of the holidays, not a few days
That means trustee expenses being open to public examination.

Several fee paying schools are not charities - it works either way.

The politics of envy is a well used and potentially over used phrase but it is pretty spot on here for some posters. Wrapped up in fairness and all its good works but its there all right. Look at the terms of abuse hurled at the kids who are in the lucky position - spite, envy and a desire to control.

Expect more of these threads over the next few weeks. The state schools are breaking up and the teachers will be out in force.

The expression "cutting off your nose to spite your face" comes to mind.

blueshoes
You took the words right out of my mouth

Talkinpeace - controlling? your stipulations would remove bursaries to nil. For the red tape associated - all communities would lose. Is that what you want - cos that is what you will get.

School broken up?

But opening the paying fields and facilities to local schools. Nope shut that off. Let em whistle Fine! Too many children from state primary schools get trooped off across town to use the swimming pool at the private, largely I suspect because that enables the private to keep its 'charitable status'. (They do insist the little unwasheds wear swimming caps, though ). There are plenty of state schools they could walk to and whose pools they could use - at the moment it's just quid pro quo.

I make sure my children go to anything the private schools are made to offer, actually, just to make 'em work for the charitable status. But there's nothing they do that couldn't be done in the state system, if we didn't have to go through this lip service of being humbly grateful when actually we're just helping them keep their identity as 'charities'!

Freudian slip there with the 'paying fields'!

Blue - but it would be a fairer face for it. I mean it would smell terrible but it would be fair.

Look at the terms of abuse hurled at the kids who are in the lucky position - spite, envy and a desire to control which 'terms of abuse' are you thinking of?

The originalsteamingnit - oh i laugh. So the state schools are in it with the public schools now?

Its all a conspiracy isnt it - to keep you in your place. Your chains are of your own making. a nit indeed

Talkinpeace - controlling? your stipulations would remove bursaries to nil

eh? do they only give bursaries to children whose parents did go to private school at the moment, then?

Er, yeah, sorry about the terms of abuse and everything!

Yes, it's quid pro quo if the state primary walks to the private school rather than the state to swim. The private wishes to keep its charitable status. Why is that problematic to understand?

Bursaries go to those that deserve them. If you make the hurdles to doing good too high, they wont do it simple.

Nit - they insist their own pupils wear swimming caps too . Round here, my DC's school not sharing use of their pool would mean 4 primary schools not swimming, as the nearest public pool is several times the distance away (so between 7 and 10 miles depending which primary school) and already oversubscribed with schools, and no local state schools have pools of their own.

Thesteamingnit

You have just basically put nasty words into the mouths of people at private school by saying "They do insist the little unwasheds wear swimming caps, though"

There is also the comments from Mini "Nobody wants to rob the rich of their handbags that cost as much as cars, their holiday houses, their laboutins, holidays abroad etc. I'm sure the wealthy would still have an AMAZING quality of life even if they paid more tax towards improving the life chances of some of the unluckiest children in the country."

And it would be 'too high' to say that they were for state educated children of state educated parents, and this would result in zero bursaries? So there are no children 'that deserve them' who would also meet this condition? And when asked to find some kind of overlap between 'the deserving' and 'those from poorer backgrounds', the private schools would throw their hands in the air at the impossibility of the task?

I mean, it seems like that's what you said, but I'm sure I'm just too dim to have grasped your much more intelligent point.

Yeah, ok, the swimming caps comment, though tongue in cheek (as I'd thought people would realise) was a bit snidey, but hardly constitutes a sustained diatribe of 'terms of abuse', does it?

TOSN - you last post doesnt make sense. The charitable status is kept by making facilities open to state schools. How they get there is irrelevant. the state primary avails itself of the facility.

You imply that in your post above that the kids are "trooped" to swim there to allow them to keeps its status. That somehow the state primary is in on the great conspiracy. Certainly, they benefit - but I am sure if there was a pool next door they would use that.

nit

"if we didn't have to go through this lip service of being humbly grateful when actually we're just helping them keep their identity as 'charities'!"

I don't remember anyone ever starting a thread about how people should be grateful about private schools facilities. I think this thread was started angrily about how private school's shouldn't get cheaper fees through tax reductions. Like, they are robbing the state and should "Pony up the dough you private fuckers"

Which was charming

your stipulations would remove bursaries to nil
How?
Over 90% of the children do not attend private school.
The vast majority of parents did not attend private school.
The vast majority of grandparents did not attend privat eschool.

If bursaries were genuinely used to "widen participation"
rather than subsidise the fees of the middle classes who are willing to jump through the hoops
see the regular threads on Education about how to fit into Bursary criteria to get a private place without paying in full, rather than giving a bright poor child the opportunity
many more people would object less to the faux Charitable status

Look - the point is simple. If you make charitable status predicated on a complicated system of bursaries (i.e proving that no relatives ever received a paid education etc) then the schools will simply say "fine - we wont offer them, put the fees up by £200 a year and be done with it".

Un intended consequences of over regulation and control

I think it makes sense. As you say, they keep the status by making facilities open. So the primary schools use them. Thus meaning the private school has fulfilled its criteria.

I think you've read it wrongly if you think I'm arguing that the verb 'troop' is central to the process. That's an incidental word choice to describe the motion, en masse (in a troop, if you will), of children from one location to another.

Neither is a quid pro quo arrangement a 'conspiracy', and that is neither what I think nor what I said.

Anyone remember Harry Enfield and Paul Whitehouse's 'is that what you want? Cos that's what'll happen' sketch?

I also read your post TOSN as oddcommentator did.

you wrote "Too many children from state primary schools get trooped off across town to use the swimming pool at the private, largely I suspect because that enables the private to keep its 'charitable status'."

Sounds as oddcommentator read it to me.

Bursaries go to the following:

• families who are determined and savvy enough to apply for them
• children who can cast glory on the private school offering them.

It happens because it's offered; it's offered because it maintains charitable status.

I can't really put it any more simply than that.