AIBU to feel that the ‘Labour against Private Schools’ campaign is a scapegoat for a lack of vision for educational reform?

[BusyMum1978]

2500 UK independent schools with 615K children attending which is 7% of the population of children in FT education up to the age of 16. A number of articles published this week have highlighted the campaign supported by Labour MP’s, who are calling for a number of measures impacting Independent Schools including their complete abolishment, and for these schools to become part of the state school system. A real hatred seems to be forming, and it feels to me like an easy smoke screen to put up rather than the Labour Party providing very specific policies to show how state funded education will be reformed.

I completely understand the feeling behind the imminent appointment of our 20th Etonian PM - there is urgent reform required in politics to have equal representation which I wholeheartedly agree with. I also understand the recently published stats showing accelerated social mobility for those attending top independent schools. I am not saying that there aren’t areas for improvement- but is the objective to bring more children up, or to bring the independently educated 7% down to make it ‘fair’?

My children both attend a prep school, and they are the first generation in both mine and my husband’s family to do so. We aren’t rich, neither of us have a degree, we own one property. We have -and continue to- work hard and made a choice to invest in our children’s education. We know we are privileged to be able to do so. To hear that MP’s want to wage a ‘class war’ with a family like mine feels inflammatory and yet more decisiveness in an already fractured country.

My children started their education in a state primary school but quite honestly it wasn’t good enough, and our heads were turned by what the private sector had to offer.

It equally broke my heart and inspired me to read The Times article on The Willow in Broadwater Farm school. Schools like this desperately need funding and further support, as do a range of children’s services which were cut during austerity. However will abolishing independent schools help a school like this? Parents who have money will still gravitate to the best areas / schools, and get tutors etc. There are a large number of selective state secondary schools that require heavy tutoring to access.

We need to nurture brilliant young minds in this country, to plug the UK skills gap, and compete in a global market. The independent sector has a valuable role to play.

Progress and globalisation is happening at such a rate that it’s becoming a bit uncomfortable. Many jobs our children will do haven’t even been invented yet.

The independent schools could work more closely with the state sector, but it concerns me that this campaign is chasing an ideal, and if successful would just shift the problem elsewhere.

I am as pushy and middle class as they come, and I had to take my LEA to SENDIST to get them to listen to me.
It simply isn’t true that an influx of middle class parents will magically improve state schools. The state does not have to listen to them any more than it listens to other parents. And it won’t. It’s wedded to how it does things and most teachers, candidly, regard parents and their opinions with utter disdain. I’m not going to waste time talking to a brick wall.

Etons social goals.. where 3 percent of the school get a full ride, but parents get a 10 million pound annuak cumulative tax break cause its a charity.

Fairly easy to dismiss.

Fairly easy to dismiss

And foolish to consider Eton as representative of the private sector as a whole.

I didn't do so.

I used precise numbers for Eton, and didn't refer to the private sector as a whole.

As a whole only 7% of students get any kind of help with funding, over 50% of those pay more than half the fees ( and many of these are pupils with siblings at the school), and only 1 % get a free ride.

Using these statistics you can also say that on the whole private schools do not act as charities.

jasjas1973

But removing the charitable status would just mean they would not offer bursaries or scholarships to those that would do well but couldn’t afford it.

Fees would probably increase so some at the lower end of the scale wouldn’t be able to afford it but the wealthier would be unaffected.

The gap would just increase.

I can’t see for some that returning to a state system would be a choice as the state system doesn’t offer what they require.

As for affording to send children to private school on a net income of £36000 per year.

Dds senior school was £4000 per term. Ds did online school at £900 per term.

My mortgage was £350 per month.

Which left about £1450 per month for everything else.

We don’t drink, we are vegetarian, we didn’t go on holidays and we are not smokers and we ran around in a car that cost £920 off eBay

Perfectly doable

Using these statistics you can also say that on the whole private schools do not act as charities

You do of course acknowledge that not all private schools have charitable status...?

"most teachers, candidly, regard parents and their opinions with utter disdain. I’m not going to waste time talking to a brick wall"

Except that isn't the case at all.

"But removing the charitable status would just mean they would not offer bursaries or scholarships to those that would do well but couldn’t afford it."

Or we could remove charitable status and hypothecate it to give the schools budget a 10% increase.

"As for affording to send children to private school on a net income of £36000 per year."

So in very particular circumstances with an extremely low cost of housing in is doable, and only for one child.

How many times will that actually be replicated? Not many.

"You do of course acknowledge that not all private schools have charitable status...?"

The vast majority do though.

And of course, those statistics are only for the ones that do!

Or we could remove charitable status and hypothecate it to give the schools budget a 10% increase.

I'd like to see the research/statistics showing that taking away charitable status of the private schools would bring in anywhere near enough money to increase state school budgets by 10%. The numbers simply don't stack up. It wasn't Dianne Abbot who did the number crunching was it??

My mortgage was £350 per month.

Where we live, we would have to pay £1000+ a month for a 25 year mortgage with 10% deposit on a 2-bed flat.

Home counties though innit. We would never be able to afford private school around here!

If we can afford to pump billions to prop up the banking sector, I’m sure we can provide money to improve the state education sector and sort out the skew of private education....

It’s politics of fear to claim that ditching private sector schools would result in some sort of financial/educational crisis

The cost of no VAT amounts to something like £3.5 billion a year, add that to the reductions in business rates and other tax breaks and its even higher.

"It wasn't Dianne Abbot who did the number crunching was it??"

Or was it any of the 4 tories who got their numbers wrong during the same campaign?

If we can afford to pump billions to prop up the banking sector

We couldn't - we had to borrow it and will be repaying it for decades to come. But that was the lesser of two evils. Collapse of the big banks would have crippled the country, businesses would have collapsed, people would lose their jobs, wages wouldn't be paid, people would lose their savings, loans/mortgages would be called in. I'm not a fan of Brown, but he really had no choice.

The cost of no VAT amounts to something like £3.5 billion a year

Even if that's true, it doesn't even touch the sides of a 10% increase in funding for state schools because state schools will also suffer from VAT on tuition or loss of charitable status, and they'll also have an influx of new pupils to cater for.

Until all parents have to send their children to state schools the wealthiest people will continue to ignore the crisis in state education

But all parents wouldn’t send their children to state schools. The wealthiest would still ignore the crisis as they would be sending their children abroad or moving out of the country altogether which would be a case of history repeating itself.

I know if I didn’t have a choice I would have had them both at home and paid for lessons.

A bit condescending to say “cut price private schools” and say results aren’t the same.

Dd went to a specialist private day/boarding school as a day pupil.

They did quite well in academic results given most of the pupils were dyslexic and academics were only taught for 1/2 the week.

If you wanted your child to come out with 12 GCSEs at A* then this wasn’t the place for you.
If your child wanted to specialise in a certain career and get a good education then line up with the rest to see if you past the test to get in.

For me I wasn’t interested in what results a school got as I knew both Dd and Ds were never going to be academically bright pupils. Their skills lay elsewhere.

Also dd’s private school uniform cost 1/3 of ds’s state secondary

We can afford to spend on education.

We currently have Tory leadership candidates that are discussing tax cuts that will cost far more than increasing education funding per pupil back to where it was in 2010. Just Boris Johnson's tax cut for higher earners would increase the schools budget by 23%.

most teachers, candidly, regard parents and their opinions with utter disdain. I’m not going to waste time talking to a brick wall

Yup

Just try and start a thread on here even vaguely suggesting a new way teachers might do things! The idea that schools are chomping at the bit to hear how little old me with my private school ideas can help them is frankly ludicrous.

They can help by kicking out the permanently disruptive kids, making class sizes smaller and running a huge array of enrichment opportunities after school and at weekends.

There you go, I'll sit back and wait for the state education system to thank me.

£3.5 billion is 8.9% of the entire schools budget of £39 billion.

Most UK state schools do not have charitable status, the influx of private school students into the state would not be that large and would be smaller than the increase in funding.

Where in my post did I say it was poor people letting down their children? I didn’t

Some Rich people let down their children some poor people let down their children Middle-class poeoe liet down their children

my point was the children that have engaged and interested parents do better in all walks of life.

Oh, and an hour of team sport for every kid every single day. You are welcome

ItIsWhatItIsInnit we are outer edges of North London.

Large-ish interest only non repayment mortgage.

"They can help by kicking out the permanently disruptive kids, making class sizes smaller and running a huge array of enrichment opportunities after school and at weekends. "

And of course you would be willing to pay more in tax to fund this?