To be annoyed that private schools have charity funding.

[Olympiathequeen]

They are not charities, they are businesses.

They do little or nothing for the local community.

They benefit by about £750 mil. They part fund bursaries for around half that amount.

Leaving them with a tidy little £300+ million profit at the expense of the taxpayers.

That money is desperately needed for public schools.

WTAF is the government doing?

Less than 1% on full bursaries but how many on part bursaries? Bearing in mind that a part bursary can be anything up to 90% usually.
I personally am pleased to see the move away from scholarships to means tested bursaries but there will always be some people who think that private schools shouldn't have charitable status regardless of how many bursaries they provide and how much they do for the local community

Lots of charities engage in profit making activities. Charity shops, sales of Christmas cards, investment in the markets. It's what they do with profits that is charitable.

I think this is in a quite different space than running a charity shop - it's a separate administrative entity providing profit-making healthcare services, including for the NHS, for those who can afford to pay. I just don't think the private hospital in this case is an automatic qualifier for something that deserves a tax break, regardless of how it spends those profits. I agree it's 'greyer' than some of the more clear-cut private hospitals out there that are getting tax breaks, but I don't thing it's clear cut thing at all.

I think we might have to agree to disagree.

caroldecker, I said much the same thing and was completely ignored. But there are few people here who would let reason stand in the way of a good fight, so I doubt anyone will take it into account

Organisations with charitable status should have as a primary purpose, there charitable activities. Most private schools do not. They provide education to the rich, with a few charitable activities on the side.
Many businesses do that anyway.

Yanbu

It really needs to change.

at the list of philanthropic good deeds listed on here that some apparently do. You'd need to use a school pool an awful lot to match the amount they're saving.

Brasty providing education is a charitable service. Private schools only charge the cost of providing the service, and subsidise some users. This is no different from many other charities.

brasty
The issue / problem is that under English law provision of education is a recognised charitable activity. So on the face of it private schools are fulfilling the charitable purpose they were established to meet. The issue then becomes can provision of a charitable activity to a limited number of people based mainly on their ability to pay still meet charitable criteria. It is a problem that has not been clearly resolved. The Charity Commission took a hard line stance at one point on public benefit but have stepped back.

It's ironic, really, that the kids who go to private schools and to grammar schools tend to be the ones who least need to..........

Private schools widen inequality

Their existence makes society a worse place for the majority by undermining our meritocracy and concentrating power and privilege in the hands of the wealthy.

I will drop some of my objections to private schools when they start offering subsidised and free places to children who are failing in the state sector.

You know - the children from unsupportive families. Children with poor literacy and numeracy.

Instead private schools skim as much talent from the state sector as they can - teachers and pupils.

Poor and low achieving children might as well be invisible as far as private schools are concerned.

I just had a look at what my son's school actually does to earn its charitable status (in addition to providing 400 part or full bursaries). I established that in the year of the charities commission submission the school had a teacher on secondment to a school in Uganda for a year, they provided some tuition to 250 state sixth form students, they provided advice and coaching to state school sixth form students who had applied to Oxbridge, they had students working with children from special schools, they shared facilities with a local state primary school and they allowed any state school to use their sports facilities such as the cricket pitches. I am aware that they have done other things in recent years.
Is that sufficient to have charitable status? Along with the main aim of providing education (which is a charitable aim in its own right whether people agree with it or not). The school is not run for profit.
I do think there are many schools which don't do enough and should be pressed to do more but some schools are already doing a significant amount and I'm not sure what more people want.
Do we not want to see bursaries given to children from poor families? Teachers seconded free of charge to developing countries? Children being able to access facilities and advice which they might not otherwise be able to access?
How much would it cost the state to provide an education for all those bursary kids plus provide all the other things which schools such as my sons provides as part of its charitable giving?

"Do we not want to see bursaries given to children from poor families"

Yes - poor families with low achieving children.

Children who are badly behaved and struggling in state schools.

Children with thoroughly unsupportive families.

The children who actually NEED the wrap around support and extra curricula wonderfulness of private schools.

ALL the children I know with bursaries come from families who are a) educated and b) highly intelligent c) hugely focused on their child's education. They are the children WHO DO BETTER THAN ALL OTHERS IN THE STATE SECTOR!

Private schools have fuck all interest in helping children who really need help.

minifingererz SAHM provide unfair benefits to children whose need 2 earning parents, so lets ban them or force them to use nurseries.
If you want a level playing field, then you need all babies taken from parents at birth and brought up by government officials until 18.
If your children are looked after by you and not neglected, you are behaving immorally and should be ashamed.

Well we are not a highly educated nor a highly intelligent family mini. My DS is a young carer and as such the input we have been able to give him at home is minimal. We are not able to take him to extra curricular and enrichment activities. He doesn't do anything outside of school because we haven't got the time or money due to our circumstances. His school are aware of our circumstances and the pastoral care they have given has been excellent. They are aware that sometimes his performance may suffer as a result of our home circumstances. I don't know if my son is unique.

What annoys me is we are debating private schools and their charitable status when actually private schools are all different. As pointed out out head some private schools provide specifically for SN.

And what really annoys me is assisted places at schools like cheethams school of music because actually any child attending there is likely to have had a very privileged upbringing. Music lessons are expensive and time consuming and out of the reach of many. I know we haven't been able to provide a single music lesson for our son. The money provided for children to attend schools like cheethams is staggering. Much more than £600 per year per student.

I just had a look at cheer as school of music fees. Govt funding is available to families earning up to £190,000 per year!!
Surely this is far more scandalous than the tax break that private schools who have charitable status get. Why on earth are we providing any govt funding to pupils who want to attend a specialist music school and who come from families earning in excess of £100k?
Bursaries at my sons school are only available to families who have a total household income of under £45k (and you only get a tiny bursary at the upper end of that earning scale). A child who can pass the entrance to cheethams will likely have had years and years of music tuition and that doesn't come cheap.

chethamsschoolofmusic.com/about/fees-and-finance/

I forgot to add the link above.

*Instead private schools skim as much talent from the state sector as they can - teachers and pupils.

Poor and low achieving children might as well be invisible as far as private schools are concerned*

You do know not all private schools are selective right....?

."As pointed out out head some private schools provide specifically for SN."

Yes, some of them.

Students who are state funded at these schools tend to come from families who are knowledgeable and motivated to pursue the sometimes highly challenging process of getting an EHCP.

Is you dd a low achieving or middle achieving child then?

Does her school offer bursaries to children who are only average or low achieving children from state schools?

"You do know not all private schools are selective right...."

Selective or non selective, NONE offers bursaries to low achievers from hard up families unless they have an EHCP and the family are able to make a strong case for the state to pay.

The private sector is entirely closed to low achieving children from poor families without an EHCP.

No mini my child is not a low or middle achiever. Despite his background he has achieved above average so far. His schools is very academically selective and only takes children who pass the entrance tests regardless of heir ability to pay. So even rich families will be excluded if their children are low or middle achievers. But you know even some state schools select based on ability and they get a lot more than £200 per pupil each term. And schools in expensive catchments are not taking many poor, low Achieving kids either.

"minifingererz SAHM provide unfair benefits to children whose need 2 earning parents, so lets ban them or force them to use nurseries.
If you want a level playing field, then you need all babies taken from parents at birth and brought up by government officials until 18"

... or alternatively the state could attempt to equal the educational playing field by investing much more money in state schools so as to lessen the disparities between the spend per head between private and the spend per head in state schools, and stop giving tax breaks to private schools whose main aim appear to be entrenching educational and social divisions and social inequality.

Simple, and no facism or fuckwittery needed.

Have not RTFT. Intelligence is inherited, get over it. Clever people generally earn more than stupid ones, and clever people who choose to work in socially beneficial professions, like health care, social work and education, are disproportionately female. Many people working hard creating and running small businesses pay for education if they value education.

Some of the hardest working people I know were first generation Chinese immigrants, who opened a restaurant and worked around the clock to fund private education for their three children who have all made it through RG universities in medicine, law and journalism. No contacts, no helping hand, just the sheer bloody grit to make sure their children didn't have to do minimum wage work. They worked to give the family a leg up not a hand out. The children knew how hard the parents worked and what everything cost, and the parents were exacting about study. BTW, the restaurant is now rubbish that the parents have sold out to fund retirement. People work better when they have an economic incentive.

I'm old enough to remember the arrival of Ugandan Asian refugees. The parents ran corner shops; my aunt complained they were putting British shop owners out of business because they opened 18 hours a day, but they tried to educate their children to succeed and if paying for education was the ticket, they paid.

mini if you knew anything abut educational success, you would know the big difference is parents, not schools, so your option does not level the playing field. Mine does.

"No mini my child is not a low or middle achiever"

I rest my case.

What makes your child more deserving of charity than my middle achieving child, who has an autistic sibling, a sibling with a serious mental health problems, and who himself suffers from a complex health condition which has impacted on his learning?

Nothing.

Your child has a place because he can contribute to school's success. He could have vastly more challenges than he currently has and they would firmly close the door in his face if he wasn't likely to do well academically.

Mainstream private schools DON'T CARE about disadvantaged children who won't contribute to their reputation. As far as they're concerned they can all fuck off, unless those children have an EHCP and therefore come with state funding.

I agree with that carol. We constantly get people On this site stating that a bright child with motivated parents will do well in any school and yet those same people think that the playing field can be levelled by removing selection in state schools and charitable status from selective schools. It can't work both ways.