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?

Your school sounds unusual. I am aware that there are a few private schools who do act like truly like charities. But they are the exception.

Jassy There are many charities which provide educational services at cost or below cost outside of private schools. I work with a garden charity which provides local primary schools with a day trip at below cost to learn about science and environmental issues on our site.
How does you legislate that this is different from a private school?

I do agree it is unusual bratsy. My son was offered a full bursary at another school nearer to home but we turned it down as we wanted him to go to the school where bursaries are plenty and being from a poor family is not unusual or anything to feel ashamed of.

Six-the fact that I might know what school you are talking about indicates how unusual it is!

And the stand out school like yours mean that an even greater number of private schools have no poor children at all.

And, with the greatest of respect, I would say that it sounds as if the only way your child is disadvantaged is financially.

No bertrand if you read up thread you will see that my ds is a young carer. He has a sibling with very severe SN and a parent won a long term health condition (now managed after many years trying to establish diagnosis). His disadvantage has been more than just financial and as a result he has some mental health issues and is under the care of camhs. He is doing well academically though despite it all and the school have supported him fantastically well.

I am very sorry- I missed that. He is obviously very lucky in his school, and in his parents.

Thank you bertrand. Knowing that he has been. Me to attend this school and do some extra curricular activities that we can't take him to is probably why I am so supportive of the schools charitable status. I am aware that not all private schools are So deserving of their charitable status and I do think that schools should have to justify their charitable status by means of helping the community and children from poorer families. I do agree that simply providing education at great cost is not enough on its own. I think it is very draconian to say that no private school should have charitable status though because there are a few who IMO do enough. There was one in the article up thread that somebody posted a link to that also offered a significant number of bursaries.

How does you legislate that this is different from a private school?

Gosh, Carol, that would be incredibly easy in regulation. A charity that provides below cost educational extension activities to predominantly state schools, versus an establishment whose principal purpose is to provide a school-based education for which it charges tuition fees.

Yes, that'll have the drafters stumped.

So all my 'pupils' are state school registered and the education I provide is below cost (as long as i have at least 1 bursary) - private school done and dusted.

Tell me, Carol, does your charity find itself troubled by the current laws that apply only to independent schools, as currently defined in statute? Do you find yourself having to demonstrate how you meet the current independent schools' guidance?

If yes, then you may have a point. If not, I think you might find that independent schools are already adequately defined in legislation.

By the way, any answer to my question about which stakeholders would 'need' to support such a change in tax status? Honestly curious.

Jassy The legislation defines an independent school as offering full time education to 5 or more pupils. Full time education is not defined. There is guidance. but it s non-statutory and I am unaware of any case law.
Therefore, if you are banning charities running independent schools, they will need to come up with a better definition. This may well impact other charitable institutions.

You've missed out the tiny detail in legislation that an independent school can only be deemed as such if it is registered and approved by th Secretary of State, meaning the guidance plays a pretty crucial role. The advice to those seeking registration is remarkably clear on the standards it expects, including the following:

Generally, we consider any institution that is operating during the day, for more than 18 hours per week, to be providing full-time education. This is because the education being provided is taking up the substantial part of the week in which it can be reasonably expected a child can be educated, and therefore indicates that the education provided is the main source of education for that child.

This is similar to the statutory definition of 'full-time education,' in places other than registered schools:

For young people attending other full-time education – whether that be a sixth- form college, general further education college, independent college, or otherwise - apart from the settings below in paragraphs 8 and 9 – the definition of full-time participation is at least 540 hours of planned learning (both qualification and non-qualification hours) a year, this is around 18 hours per week.

And as I've said, I'm not necessarily saying that charities should be banned from running independent schools. Only that they shouldn't be entitled to tax relief for principally educating children of the privileged.

One might think that if two pupils with the same results go to uni and the state pupil succeeds better, perhaps because of a better, deeper knowledge of how to learn independently, then it private scholar that is disadvantaged.

Certainly not all pupils at private schools are advantaged.
Disadvantage comes in many forms, financial being one, but illness and absent parents being another.

Headof, really? When this suggests that out of two equally bright, high-potential and high-achieving students, the privately educated one is much more likely to get to university in the first place?

How about universities? Are they charities? If so then they fit in the same category as private schools. The limiter is not financial, but how academic you are, or even just chance. You can't just go!
Clearly it's disadvantaging those with less academic potential. Now the open university takes a more open approach. So it can be done.

"By the way, any answer to my question about which stakeholders would 'need' to support such a change in tax status? Honestly curious."

Is there much point in my repeating what I posted ear
User in the thread? Why are the stakeholders I mentioned not relevant?

You are looking at the ones that are going to uni.

Yes head universities are deemed to be charities as far as I am aware. When fees are £9k a year for all students it is difficult to comprehend that they are being charitable. They reckon the average student (without any parental or outside financial help) will need to accumulate around £50k in debt just for fees and basic living expenses over a 3 year degree. Many poorer students might be put off going to uni and they will really think hard about doing degrees which last longer than 3 years.

Does anyone have a decent argument in favour of tax breaks for independent schools that isn't whataboutery?

Head - where did anyone suggest universality of provision was a necessary prerequisite of charitable status?

Meditrina, I apologise that I missed your list again. I've just gone back through the thread against and couldn't see the list of stakeholders would be critical to success but it's late, I'm tired and I'm on my phone, so I'll accept I've missed it somewhere.

jassy How do you define the privileged? - private schools provide education at below cost, there is no profit made.

Oh, please, Carol. The majority of people with more than one child in independent education are paying well over the pre-tax national average wage for the pleasure.

I will probably (just) be able to afford it for my two kids for secondary if we need to, with the help of extending the mortgage and thanking my stars that they have a four year age gap. I'm not so blind as I can't see that I'm enormously privileged to have those sort of financial options, and my children are commensurately privileged to have options not available to most of the kids at their primary school.

To pretend otherwise would be disgraceful.

Universality of provision seems to be the nub of the argument re private schools. What prevents a lot of people is the cost. Hence the argument for bursaries for the poor.
Another barrier is selection both in private and state selective and Uni's.
Hence if a charity is open for anyone then these cannot be charities.