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?

Well yes, I'm sure lots or most or all bursary owners like private schools. And the point is?

25m? I think it's more like 3bn - but the current educational budget is 51-53bn.

Sorry, it should have said £25bn. I linked to the source early in the thread

Caribbean and African boys do fine in primary but often go down the pan in secondary. Not so African/Caribbean women. Something dire happens to many Black boys in adolescence in the uk that appears to ruin their chances educationally. Whether it comes from the education system or from them I don't know. I know a good number of middle class black parents who have been pretty keen to separate their sons from their black working class peer group in secondary and send them to private schools where the only other black children will be from 'naice' families.

I can't find any post where I wrote it was either £25m or £25bn so I am just making random things up now
What I did write was that the total education budget is £42bn. Based on that we would probably need a few billion extra to educate all children in state schools plus initial extra money to expand buildings.
I'm going to try and stop imagining things and making things up now........

Mini fingers: what is wrong with black middle class parents moving their boys away from schools or areas where other boys don't finish their education or perform very badly? Colour aside, what is wrong with parents identifying a possible problem (backed by statistics and research) and removing their children from the problem?

Miss - if a child isn't coping in a school it's perfectly understandable that a parent will look for something else.

Most children at private schools aren't there because they can't cope in the state sector though.

Where did I say that most children in private schools are there because they can't cope in the state sector?

Just because you dont personally see any benefits to yourself around private education doesnt mean that others have the same view.

If the charitable staus is taken away there will be far fewer busaries, scholarships etc. Private education will literally be the preserve of the very rich. My Dh and I work our socks off to fund the children's education. We dont moan we have chosen the wrong route educationally, chosen the wrong man, suddenly found ourselves pregnant, insist on living in the middle of no where where there are few higher paid roles and then bleat we dont have the money.

It sounds like some on here are envious of what others have achieved and how they choose to spend their money.

I ran a mile from our local primary when they said on race days they dont clap the winners of a race, they clap the specators too and when I asked how one teacher managed a class of 30 plus pupils I was told the brighter pupils helped the ones struggling. And this was at age 7! I didnt want this sort of clap trap for my chidlren so I chose a private school.

Just because you cannot afford or believe in them doesnt mean that choice (and of course its a choice) should be taken from others.

Just because you dont personally see any benefits to yourself around private education doesnt mean that others have the same view

Well of course, handcream: lots of people see benefits to themselves around private education! Otherwise I don't suppose they'd pay for it, would they? Nobody is denying that you like private schools or are happy with your choice (nor, I don't think, is anyone 'bleating' about being poor, are they? Perhaps concerned with other people being poor?).

But the fact that you only like the winners to be clapped etc, and you've got that at the private school doesn't mean the private school is a charity!

"I ran a mile from our local primary when they said on race days they dont clap the winners of a race, they clap the specators too and when I asked how one teacher managed a class of 30 plus pupils I was told the brighter pupils helped the ones struggling"

did they not have nativity plays in case it offended anyone, either? Was it called Mary Seacole Primary? Did they not mark work with ticks because ticks are indicative of a phallocentric culture? Did they study hersory instead of history?

I pay taxes which will fund my children's education - I choose to fund it myself. Can I have some vouchers to buy what I choose?

You cannot have it both ways... If you want a utopia education system - well try a Communist country where supposedly everyone gets the same - I have just come back from a strict communist country in the Far East. The senior ministers send their children abroad to the UK for their education rather than use their own system.

Funny that - reminds me of Diane Abbott again....

"It sounds like some on here are envious of what others have achieved and how they choose to spend their money."

Nope.see my posts passim.

The same question applies to voluntary aided schools and Free Schools/Academies. What do they do to earn their charitable status and do they have the same latitude and oversight by the charity commission?

If it's the education of their pupils, then the same applies to private schools. Their children are as much from the community as the other schools.

The thing is all this 'we are all equal' just isnt true. I would love to travel long haul in the 1st Class. Not in a million years can I (and actually its terrible value for money!) so I sit in my economy seat and hope I dont feel too much like death when I get off!

We wouldnt have a mortgage if we hadnt gone down the private route, we stopped at 2 children. We choose to live in the South East. We are both working. Others choose not to do this.

The schools fiasco in Birmingham - I am sure many knew what was going on but didnt want to offend. What I find offensive is faith schools dicating rubbish about the roles of males and females in society, forcing girls to wear the burka and generally treating women like 2nd class citzens. Wouldnt it be great if we jumped on this immediately as opposed to being nervous about upsetting other cultures.

Voluntary aided schools, foundation schools, academies and free schools all provide education free of charge, though, Pangurban. They get their funding from the taxpayer and the quid pro quo for that is that they are all inspected by Ofsted and they are overseen by local education authorities or quangos. They have to have governing bodies that include some community and parental representation. They also have the Department of Education and other government bodies setting policy for them.

Fee-paying schools get no money from the government*, other than the tax breaks they may receive if they're charities, and they have far less legislation to comply with. Very different kettle of fish.

*Of course, there's a small amount of taxpayer funding for children with statements or for bursaries to the Royal Ballet School and the like.

Also, private schools have the parents to answer to. If they dont like what is going on there is no hesitation in flagging it. In the state system there are failing schools, schools just coasting and providing the minimum, schools being stopped by government policies to do certain things. If you dont like your school and how it is being run there is little you can do. In the private sector you would remove your child to another school.

If a private school did what it liked and it wasnt a popular policy it would close...

Yes, we'd have to go communist. Like Finland.

But that doesn't explain what charitable obligations they fulfill to earn their status? They can receive large corporate/business sponsorship (private money even more so than parents paying). Rules are bent in their favour (as they get first call if a new school is to be built by LA). Religious v.a.'s are as selective as private schools, just different criteria. These are not ordinary state schools. From what I read about it, Free Schools are classified as 'Independent Schools' and appear to be exempted from a whole heap of restrictions that control usual state sector schools.

I looked at two V.A. schools and couldn't afford the catchment in either case. Just because they receive a lot of tax money, so the parents don't pay at point of use, doesn't mean they are more accessible. Community and parental representation on the governing bodies does not amount to a charitable purpose.

I still don't know what they do more than private schools to fulfill their charitable status. They both educate a school of children, money pumped in from different sources. What do they contribute outside of this differently from private schools?

AllMimsy, when you say community representation on the governing bodies, do you mean any random community interest group in the catchment area of the school or the vicar or priest?

The Finnish system doe not have more than 20 children in a class though.

I don't understand how the OP says that private schools "cost" the state. They are not subsidised. Gone are the days when grandparents could claim back effectively "gift aid" on the fees if they covenanted them. There are left no tax repayments to parents or schools. All charitable status means is that schools don't pay tax on their profits. Since they don't make profits (on the whole), this doesn't cost the taxpayer anything. They get some VAT back perhaps, and I agree that the dodgy schemes that involve prepayment of fees which are then invested tax sheltered under the charitable umbrella should be attacked as artificial tax avoidance schemes. No need for a law change for that.

In fact, lots of schools are already considering ditching their charitable status voluntarily (as doing so would make little difference to their finances but they are having to do more and more expensive stuff to keep it).

Pang, I'm not up to date with the law on this area but years ago when I was a school governor virtually all state-funded schools (community, voluntary aided, foundation, voluntary controlled) were under the umbrella of the LEA (not the case now). They all had to have some governors appointed by the LEA. At our school these were often parents but also members of the local political parties or just interested local residents. I don't know if there's any equivalent for academies and free schools.

I see what you mean now about the charitable purpose. I agree about faith schools. Personally I'd remove state funding from faith schools. If people want their children to receive religious education, fine, but they should either organise it for outside school time or pay to send them to religious schools. I can see no justification at all for making local schools inaccessible to so many children because they're not from the right religious background. I know some faith schools take all sorts of children, but in inner London the popular ones can be very choosy indeed.

Really interesting article in the TES this week about how private schools have smaller classes because it's what parents want, not because it is linked to better outcomes. According to up to date educational research the one proven thing which schools can do to improve outcomes is hire the most experienced and best teachers, but generally private schools prefer more and cheaper teachers to keep class sizes as parents want them - small.

Interestingly there is no convincing research showing a correlation between small class sizes and improved outcomes.

And anyone who has lived in a developing country will tell you that there are schools in some poor countries which produce amazingly clever and learned children, with nothing more than a well qualified and motivated teacher and a few dog eared text books. All you need for great learning to happen is for good teachers to be able to teach and for children to desperately want to learn. The problem in a lot of UK state schools is a poverty of aspiration in many children, and this is partly to do with the fact that the children and parents who are most aspirational are often being hived off into selective schools. I really believe that children inspire each other, and that the sort of social and economic segregation that private, grammar and church schools create undermines this.

Interesting, minifingers. My son was in a form group of about 25 which was probably not dissimilar from the class sizes in state schools round us. However, the year group was streamed and the ones with the lowest entry level ability in maths were put in much smaller form groups for the first two years so they would get more individual attention, the idea being that they would catch up with the rest. I don't know how well it worked.

His school certainly didn't go for cheap teachers. They paid above the state school norm and a lot of the staff came in with Ph.D.s as well as having a first degree in the subject they were going to teach, or another very closely related subject. We looked for that rather than small class sizes. However, not all independent schools are the same.

www.classsizeresearch.org.uk/aera%2008%20paper.pdf

Class size research found that small class sizes does make a significant difference to most pupils but in particular for younger pupils and low attaining pupils.
The document is quite lengthy but it does discuss why some other research shows that small class sizes don't make much difference (mainly because of the unrealistic samples used in various studies).

Finland does have some private schools for international students. They don't have private schools for their own nationals but certainly students from overseas can attend a private school. Perhaps if we closed all UK private schools some parents (those that can) would be happy to relocate to countries like Finland in order to get the private education that they want their children to have.