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?

We can't afford private schooling and my dc are in top sets on G & T register sickeningly good at certain sports/extra curricular activities etc etc etc so would presumably benefit fairly substantially from some of the great facilities many of the private schools can offer but I don't begrudge those who do spend a chunk of their disposable income on education for their children from getting a tax break for doing so.

Private schools employ teachers and have a higher teacher to pupil ratio. Put all those private school kids back in state school with state school ratios and that's a fair few teachers out of a job. Doesn't sound good to me. It's irrelevant where those teachers trained.

Neither do I begrudge those who can and do pay for private healthcare, maybe there should be a tax break there too.

There's a lot worse things to spend disposable income on than educating the next generation.

It pisses me off that parents who can afford private school choose to buy up properties within catchment of good state schools to get their children in, thus pushing up prices in the area and essentially ensuring a selective education through postcode and bagging a place in a state school that could have gone to a bright child whose parents could not afford a private education.

And they get their money back and more at the end of it through capital gains on their house. And nice holidays in the meantime.

"Just because they are achieving doesn't mean they don't need any support. Every child deserves appropriate support to reach their potential regardless of ability."

Of course they do - in an ideal world.

But in the real world it is the children who underachieve massively in education who end up costing the tax payer huge amounts of money and putting a pressure on social services, the prison service and the health service. For me tackling this should be prioritised as reducing offending and severe deprivation benefits all of us, and not just the poor.

"To be honest you sound very sour and can't see beyond the needs of your own child. A gifted child needs appropriate support in the classroom, he needs work differentiated if he is to learn. Or do you think that because he is already achieving more than your child that he should be sidelined whilst your child attempts to catch up?"

I have two children - one is a high achiever and one has special needs and is will struggle to leave primary with a level 3 in some parts of the curriculum.

It is easier for me to access support for my high achieving child than for my child who is struggling, because like most parents of clever children who achieve highly, I'm also clever enough to support him in his learning.

My younger child would hugely benefit from the sort of education that he could get in a private school - small classes, lots of good pastoral support, and extra-curricula activities to build his confidence, but there is no such thing as a bursary for child who is not performing at a high level already.

And the consequences of my younger child not realising his potential are hugely worse than for my bright child to not realise his. My older child will still be employable. My younger child may not be.

"It pisses me off that parents who can afford private school choose to buy up properties within catchment of good state schools to get their children in, thus pushing up prices in the area and essentially ensuring a selective education through postcode"

I so agree.

Roll on the spread of lottery and 'fair banding' systems to ensure all state schools have a representative intake.

"disadvantaged" Doesn't this mean families without the financial means to send their DC to private? $100m is a drop in the ocean (wouldn't mind it in my bank account mind you)

YABU

"Screw the 'low achieving' argument, why should my child be abandoned & not fulfil his own potential as he isn't classed as low achieving!"

I thought you said your child is clever and achieving highly?

What's the problem?

If you did this you would find that half of the independent schools would have to close....many of them barely break even and many are in debt. It would cause far more problems that it solved for us as taxpayers.

Rose202 thank you. You put it so much better than I tried to. High achieving children often need more support than schools can provide. Every child regardless of ability should be supported appropriately.

^"Perhaps there's more to a child failing in education & perhaps throwing money at the problem won't actually help?"

It seems to work well in the private sector though doesn't it?

Average spend on a state school education per child is about half that of their privately educated peers.^

In all honesty, I think the main reason why private schools get good results is because of their intake, not spend per child. Parents who send their children to private school are in general 1) high achievers/bright themselves, and likely to have passed this on to their DC; 2) very committed to their children's education. And of course many private schools are academically selective on top of this. So private school intakes are, I suspect, generally brighter than average and have parents who will ensure they put in a lot of effort.

There will of course be some children who do better because of the smaller class sizes and extra curricular facilities, but I bet the intake has far more of an effect.

State schools that can mirror this kind of selectiveness (such as grammar schools, or those hotly sought after faith schools or tiny catchment primaries) tend to do just as well as private schools, despite the lower spend per child.

100K could be given to the 100 most deprived schools in the country to provide

*free music tution
*high level sports training
*intensive individual tutoring and mentoring for failing students.
*family learning - many of the children in these schools come from families where nobody has any qualifications

I think a huge amount of good could be done with this money in the state sector.

I thought you said your child is clever and achieving highly?

What's the problem?

You really can't see beyond yourself can you?
Perhaps Rose202 has a high achieving child because she has put in lots of effort herself or because her child learns himself. Just because a child is a clever high achiever it doesn't mean that the school are meeting their needs.

Also do bear in mind that the private schools that people outside the system know about such as Eton, Harrow etc are a tiny minority and have massive benefaction from legacies etc. Most private schools (like the one I work in) charge about a third of the fees of Eton and run a very very tight ship financially. Some of our facilities, especially IT are not as good as nearbyschools but our sports facilities and class sizes are much better. We are all over- timetabled to facilitatethis without employing more staff. The point I am trying to make is that actually lots of schools like this might not survive if the tax situation changed and straight away you have 800 kids needing state school places. I get pretty fed up with the sneering attitude about the partnership work we do in the community as well. I can't speak for every school but our facilities are heavily used by the local public, primary schools and the elderly. Our students and teachers go out on weekly placements also.

"High achieving children often need more support than schools can provide. Every child regardless of ability should be supported appropriately".

High achieving children achieve highly and are successful.

What do you want? The moon on a stick?

no pleasing some people

*family learning - many of the children in these schools come from families where nobody has any qualifications

Good luck with getting them to give up their time!
Families who want to learn will do so without structured classes arranged for family learning.

Shush given that only 7% of kids are privately educated(so you're talking 3.5% then spread nationally) I doubt it.

Op yanbu.

What do you want? The moon on a stick?

No, every child's needs to be equally met. But clearly you are having difficulty processing that.

I have a high achieving child,out of my 3 he is the last one who needs a private education.

7% of children go to private school. If we increased the DfE budget by 7% it would cost £4.1 billion.

"Perhaps Rose202 has a high achieving child because she has put in lots of effort herself or because her child learns himself."

Wonderful - the state sector turns out some very clever, self-sufficient children. Successful children. Children who go on to good universities and get good jobs.

Seriously - can you not see what our problem is as a country? That we have many children who FAIL miserably to learn enough to be able to work and support a family?

Out of my 3 it's shadow boy who would benefit but he'll do well in state because I shall make damn sure he does.

mini
These music lessons and sports training and mentoring that you wish could be provided to disadvantaged schools...
Do you realise that private schools are already providing it in order to keep their charitable status?

Not to pick on this school for being anything other than the closest private school to me, but I wonder if you will concede the are earning their tax break?

www.jags.org.uk/community/community/

I don't know how many private schools do similar things, but I would be fairly sure that more than 100 schools benefit overall.

"No, every child's needs to be equally met. But clearly you are having difficulty processing that."

And if we have to prioritise, whose needs are greater?

The child whose lack of learning results in poverty, alcoholism, prison and unemployment, or the child whose lack of privileged opportunity means missing out on an oxbridge place and ending up at a RG university instead?

Sorry taking away charitable status wouldn't turf every child onto the state sector. How over dramatic.

Give that many private schools are stuffed with very rich kids from overseas I'm sure a lot would simply return home or continue in another private school.

....but perhaps half of them might.....2 billion pounds worth?!