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'm unbelieving because it sounds like you make things up as you go along.

However, your particular set of circumstances would be very rare, and it is luck, not any skill, or financial nous that has enabled you to achieve private schooling on your income.

why aren't other more successful economies copying our world winning formula

There are loads of children from all over the world at British public schools including China - good to know rich Chinese are sticking to their communist principles.

China isn't a communist country at all.

"but I realistically don’t see it happening any time soon because even the Labour Party is full of rich twats with rich twat friends -"

Ah, there's someone who hasn't read the Labour manifesto.

why aren't other more successful economies copying our world winning formula

It's not just schools, it's parents and general attitudes. In other countries (like China) everyone takes education to seriously because it's a developing economy - without an education or good grasp of English, you're not going to have an easy life! Whereas in this country, you can fail all your exams and still get a job that gets you a decent standard of living.

I met a girl in China whose mum sends her to boarding school and then English school in summer, where she basically works all hours of the day. She was 13 and fluent in English, played an instrument like a maestro and her mum had already decided she was going to Princeton.

Yes we do have parents like that here but they are in a very small minority! My friend did TeachFirst in a deprived area - a couple of the kids were very smart and she told them they should look at university. She had parents telling her off for "putting ideas into their head" because they wanted their kids to work in their family shop. School can't magically "fix" kids with families who don't value education.

In other countries, parents and kids just take education a lot more seriously. I'm not saying that's necessarily a great thing, China goes overboard and the teen years are basically spent studying 6am-11pm for the exams into uni. But in England we are very lax about it. Most people can't even spell and boast about being "shit at numbers".

@sionnachbeag labour promised not to raise taxes for those earning up to £80k. A family with a couple of earners on that are definitely within private school demographic. We are on less than £160k between the two of us in the SE and could certainly pay more tax.

Everyone just wants those better off than them to pay more, no one actually wants to pay themselves. Something has got to give.

And I still haven’t seen a convincing argument as to why just abolishing private schools will help. I also think it’s really easy to criticise people who pay for them at great sacrifice (it’s more than our mortgage) when they’ve got a good school near to them or the option to move.

My husband will never drive due to a disability - moving from the centre of our area would be really difficult as he relies on public transport - obviously we should just stick DD in the catchment school rated Poor and just see what happens 🙄

Anyone who has ever paid for tutoring, music lessons, given their kids external support at home or taken their kid travelling has exercised economic privilege and given their kid an advantage. We all have. Not just private school parents.

sionnachbeag I never said it was anything other than mortgage interest payments being kept very low and the fact we didnt spend money on stuff like others do.
Which is perfectly doable by anyone.

My weekly food budget was between £30-£40 per week. We ate a lot of beans on toast or egg and chips. We don’t drink or smoke or went on holidays and our car was a £920 old banger from EBay that we used to budget about £50 per month for repairs and MOTs

I come from an immigrant family that lived in poverty for a number of years.
As a child all the adults would sit round the dinner table each evening and put what they had earned into the middle of the table then my mother who was in charge of paying bills, shopping etc would gather it up. Anything left over after bills and food was paid for was put in a savings account.

She would go to the bank and put in even just a few pennies some days
From that we bought our first house then we bought houses for each family.

All from lowly paying jobs and businesses.

"Which is perfectly doable by anyone."

No. It. Isn't.

You are massively fortunate that you bought a house in the 90s prior to massive house price inflation and had familial help to do so. The reason your mortgage payments are low is because you have good LTV ratios, again not your doing.

"the fact we didnt spend money on stuff like others do."

You are so pious its sickening.

Average families, and even many of those that are above average will not be able to afford private schooling just by cutting their cloth accordingly.

You are in your position where you are able to afford private schooling on an already above average household disposable income through fairly exceptional circumstances, all of which are actually nothing to do with you cutting your cloth accordingly.

That’s good for you Olivers but it’s ignorant to think that most families could afford the equivalent of a full time minimum wage, or more, per child, just by cutting back a bit.

Like you we shop at Lidl and don’t have lavish lifestyles but it’s still not the norm to be able to find that money. We only took over fees completely from DDs dads family when our joint income reached six figures and we live in a two bed Victorian, have one car and spend £40 a week on groceries. Most people have more significant living costs than you do.

Reading this thread and the other about homeschooling, I’m wondering why people who send their kids to private schools (often at the expense of one parent being SAHM - I could if DD went to a state school) are twats, but someone who pulls their kid out of a failing educational establishment and homeschools them are heroes. Aren’t both exercising wealth related privilege?

No one said people who privately educate their children are twats!

“the Labour Party is still full of rich twats with rich twat friends”*

“Poowilly you can’t be on your uppers either if you’re sending you dc to private school”

Except that doesn't say "people who send their children to private schools are twats" does it?

I don’t blame privately educated politicians for educating their children privately. That would be hypocritical. I do blame privately educated politicians for fuelling the belief, held by many, that book learning/ expertise is to be sneered at/ regarded as suspect and ignorance is somehow more laudable. Gove , Johnson, Farage et al are all privately educated - though some clearly profited more by it than others - and all encourage suspicion of educated “elites” who they believe are hostile to their political aims. This gives comfort to the large chunk of our population who did not do well educationally themselves, are not committed to their children’s education, and don’t want to be made to feel bad about it.

I guess my question is more: if I’m a hypocrite (again see earlier in thread) for wanting educational reform and have kept my child removed from state education as a result, are homeschooling parents also hypocrites?*

For context of my latest decision to keep DD private, the state secondary school we were offered doesn’t do A Levels but instead two vocational pathways, both of which are childcare related. I want my daughter to have choice, so shoot me.

*my best friend homeschools her lovely daughter and is doing an amazing job, I take no issue with it and applaud people who do successfully (i never could), but why is it never talked about in reference to privilege when the opportunity for one parent not to work is clearly exactly that.

Most parents of all political persuasions try to do the best they can for their children, best of course varying from family to family. For some that will be virginal religious purity, for others going to Harvard or Oxford, for others leaving school illegally at 12 to work with their father in his van.

Labour may have said it will not increase income tax on those earning under £80k gross a year but they may well introduce a £30k a year house tax on those who live in London which in effect means many on under £80k selling their home and moving to areas like near Sunderland where houses can be had for £60k and are not subject to a housing tax of the same kind Labour proposes. The house my mother grew up in there sells for about £50k today whereas because I moved to outer London for work Labour proposes to tax me on income I don't have and indeed tax people who have no equity in their house those massive sums as they move to capital confiscation in effect - indeed confisaction of capital you don't even have as they won't look at what mortgage there is on the London house, just how much its net value is when they bring in their huge new taxes.

Vote Conservative in 2022.

" £30k a year house tax on those who live in London"

Haha hysterical nonsense.

Labour's proposals spring from nothing but Corbyn's Marxist fantasies. There is no way that the British state education system could absorb all the kids in independent schools, without a massive expanson of state funding on education. To pay for that, you would need to return to the obscene borrowing levels of the past (and look how much trouble that got us into!), or massively ramp up taxation (maybe everyone in Britain could sacrifice their annual summer holiday to Benidorm, Majorca or Ibiza, to pay these extra taxes?). Because the idea that you could simply get 'the rich' to stump up all the extra money, or demand that Amazon pays for it, is economic lunacy of the most dangerous kind.

Wake up, folks. Corbyn's attacks on independent schools are a perfect example of the kind of populism that needs to stay firmly in the past.

"Labour's proposals spring from nothing but Corbyn's Marxist fantasies."

Not. A. Policy. Not even a proposal by the main party for a manifesto pledge.

"To pay for that, you would need to return to the obscene borrowing levels of the past (and look how much trouble that got us into!)"

What like the national debt doubled by the coalition and the Conservatives between 2010 and now?

Or Labour borrowing prior to the crash, which was lower in all but one year than the Conservatives had managed in 16 out of the 18 preceding years.

"Corbyn's attacks on independent schools are a perfect example of the kind of populism that needs to stay firmly in the past."

Nothing to do with Corbyn.

Ridiculous post which is utterly counterfactual in every way.

My children go to supposedly good local state schools. I'm all for the local privates existing. They don't affect my children's education. And I use them as a threat it's a win win.

More seriously though epotism will continue whatever happens to schooling. It's more about relationships and mentoring rather sitting next to someone in a classroom.

See Labour leader's son working for John McDonnell.

Unite Union and Labour top brass etc , etc.

I don't doubt that they are all qualified and capable in the roles they hold by the way!

nepotism not epotism!
Apologies.

Nepotism and financial advantages go a long way.

Take the statistics about 65% of top juidges were private school educated.

Look at the career path to be a judge, even if you choose a law degree at a top uni.

Work experience must be had in 2nd and 3rd years ( mini pupilages), much easier to get if you know someone who is a barrister.

Apply for BPTC.

Do BPTC ( privately funded) along with mini pupillages.

Apply for and get pupilage, which is very low paid.

Apply for tenancy and work as a barrister for a few decades ( hopefully taking silk).

Now it is achievable for those who don't have wealthy parents to help them with funding, or those with connections, but its a damned sight harder than it is for those who do.

Which is of course why people who were born into wealthy families with good contacts are far more likely to be top judges.

You are massively fortunate that you bought a house in the 90s prior to massive house price inflation and had familial help to do so

What familial help. The people who got houses were my aunties and uncles. Not the children.

Originally to afford a home. (Studio flat that needed all doing up and was really really tiny) we worked multiple jobs. If that made us lucky then I certainly didn’t feel lucky at the time when I was coming off a 6am shift and had to be at my next job 3 hours later.
Whilst all of our friends were going out and partying or going on holiday.

Are you saying that if 2 people had exactly the same income and one saved as much as possible, lived in the cheapest and grottiest flat for a year, didn’t go out, didn’t go on holiday and ate beans on toast each day and at the end of the year had saved enough for a deposit and bought their first place

The other spent all of their income on a nice rented flat, going out and going on holiday a couple of times and eating out each week and at the end of the year didn’t have anything left and so continued to rent they would be the unlucky ones and the former who had gone without were the lucky ones?

Gove , Johnson, Farage et al are all privately educated

I note you didn't mention any Labour policitians.

How about Brown, Blair, Corbyn, Abbott, just for starters who went to private, grammar or selective schools!

True, but I never heard Blair or brown feed the anti intellectual/ anti education strand of our culture. Or Abbott, for that matter.
Corbyn ... probably too thick to have grasped the problem exists. He knows who he hates though, right enough. It’s all happening at a pretty basic level in the Corbyn cranium.