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?

The schools frequently tie the bursaries to specific conditions as in many cases they are set by the benefactors who "pony up the dough."

Many are academically and means tested. They have hoops because they are rationed. Scholarships are almost exclusively talent related

Take the Leverhulme undergraduate trust bursary. You are means tested but have to be related to a grocer. Similar schemes exist for the haberdashers, masons and other old guild schools.

TOSN

I don't think a state primary is going to do something (which requires their pupils to be trooped off) largely to allow the private school to keep their charitable status.

Gah, I didn't say they did! It's because it's offered, and it's offered because it does that!

which was my point. Your comment alluded to a collusive activity requiring children to be trooped. Which has its own connotations

"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"

SIL has bursaries for two of her dc's at well-known, big private schools.

While the first was at this school on a very very generous bursary, she still managed to find the funds to pay for the second and third to do two non-bursaried years in a different private school, complete an extension on the house, and have two holidays abroad. Two of the boys are now on bursaries, the 2 years of regular tutoring and private schooling for the third has paid off as he has now got a grammar school place at a super selective state grammar.

The private schools which gave her the bursaries wanted her sons because they are exceptionally good at sports, and worked with her to find a way to 'make it happen' on the bursary front, while still enabling her to live a middle-class lifestyle completely indistinguishable from all the middle class families around them.

I suspect that this happens a lot - the school wants the child, the parents have incomes amounting to between 50 and 80K but would still struggle to pay full fees, so the school finds a way of doing a deal on the bursary front.

Of the other people I know who were offered bursaries, one is on a household income of about 60 - 70K. They were offered 50% off the fees. Another has a household income of about 40K. None of the people I know who have applied for bursaries are a) unemployed b) in manual/minimum wage jobs, although I'll give you that it sometimes is the case.

I suspect that the vast majority of bursaries go to the children of highly educated middle-class families, the majority of whom are earning at least average salaries.

And I don't think these people are deserving of tax payer funded help to boost their children's success, given that these children tend to be extremely successful academically no matter where they are educated. It's a luxury to have a child in private school, not a right and not a necessity.

Mini

Do you have any stats to back up this being the requirement for a bursary at any private school?

• families who are determined and savvy enough to apply for them (incorrect, as stated earlier, sometimes teachers will be the first to mention the idea to parents)
• children who can cast glory on the private school offering them. (you mean children that will benefit and excel academically)

Anyhow you are wrong IME bursaries are not always awarded for these reasons alone.

No, they are complicit, obviously and inevitably, but this collusion/conspiracy stuff was never there.

Our local private school offers the chance for poor children to come and sample its huge, huge, world class sports facilities once a year.

So the children go in, jaws dropping, have a nice day, and are then bused back to their tiny, not very well-equipped state schools.

It's a horrible tease.

Mini - do you think that is the intent? Really? to tease?

presumably the bursar is sitting there with a cigar, top hat and white spats and goes "lets show the oiks what they are missing bring em in for a day show em how we live and we get to be a charity - ha trebles all round. Send up jenkins minor - i need to use his buttocks as a toast rack! what what!"

Teachers may mention.

But the parents have to apply and also to prepare the child for the tests. For a parent who can't afford tutoring this may be quite a big deal, involving a lot of input from home. I know many families who wouldn't even begin to consider doing this - they don't have the confidence or the knowledge.

"you mean children that will benefit and excel academically"

Show me an ordinary child who wouldn't benefit from small classes, good pastoral care and wonderful facilities?

These things would be good for average as well as very able children.

Christ - this idea that clever children need and are more deserving of the benefits of a private education than children who are less self-sufficient and academically bright....

Sorry - clever, motivated, well supported children generally succeed highly in any setting.

It's the less bright ones and the ones with bugger all support at home who NEED THE HELP THAT VERY WELL RESOURCED SCHOOLS CAN GIVE THEM.

But they ain't going to get it, because private schools don't want them and won't help them.

TOSN

It was you use of the word largely that made the intention of them swimming to benefit the private school keep their status as charitable.

"The state school children troop across town largely to allow the private school to keep their charitable status."

Oh can we just get over it? I've explained what I meant, several times. I'm sorry if the word 'largely' obscured my meaning.

You can keep saying that's what I was saying, but the thing is, I wasn't, so there doesn't really seem much point.

No - not to tease. So they can justify their charitable status and feel worthy.

The children who are taken to this private school - it's a poor area that they're brought from and it's a massive eye opener for some of them that such luxury and privilege exists.

There's something a bit cruel about it. (I know it's not intentional, but if you'd accompanied the classes and heard the reactions of the children - well it is quite pitiful).

Mini
So what's your solution, don't allow them to go and experience it? Who exactly are you blaming?

Not blaming anyone.

Nice for the children to go and experience how the other half lives for a single afternoon in their whole school lives.

But pitiful too.

I just lament that we have a system where children - who should have equality of opportunity - don't, and where those people who are benefiting most from this inequality of opportunity are so desperate to try to justify perpetuating it, usually for one reason only: because it benefits their children.

Life isn't fair, it just isn't. It never has been and it probably never will.

We should be looking for solutions to ensure everyone receives a good education and not thinking the solution is to drag the wealthy/lucky and more fortunate down and blame them for everything.

Just as it's wrong to benefit bash it is also wrong to make such ridiculous assumptions about perceived wealthy people.

Solutions should be found to lift others to a better place not blame and point fingers at those who have things. You have no idea how someone got where they got or what they have or haven't suffered.

Taking wealth from one person doesn't make someone else better off as shown in this thread.

dont benefit my kids - but why should i stop something that benefits others? Because I would love to see my kids in a schools like that but i cant afford it - do i want to stop others having it - nope. Will i find every other way to give the best for my kids I can - yup.

Will i carp on about the terrible injustice of it all - nope.

Yep, let them have the things then - but just don't pretend there's anything charitable about the things! That is all.

It makes the taker feel better about themselves tho. Because apparently they know best how to spend it. Better than you or I it seems

Mini

One last point, private school's don't give a child anything, they facilitate what the parents want for their children. Yes the facilities are fantastic often but the results are hugely influenced by the home support.
Which is why many good state school get better results than the private ones because of the parents.

I'm so bored with bitter jealous types who attack private education.
You're against it? Fine. You've stated your opinion, now please drop it.
Luckily we live on a free country. How I choose to educate my child is no one else's business but our family's. How i choose to spend my money is none of your business either. I'd quite like a refund of the tax I've paid to fund a system that my DD isn't even part of. I suggest all the haters take the cash that parents in the private system have paid and shut the fuck up.

Fine - stop pretending there's anything charitable about it, and shut the fuck up yourself!

I suggest you read info about charitable "heads" one of which is to further education.

Oh, the one that says 'to further education to those who can pay it'?