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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

To wonder how one would go about abolishing private schools?

466 replies

Chuffin · 19/07/2019 16:41

If anyone is following the @abolisheton campaign, they state their aim is to integrate private schools into the public sector and hope this to be included in Labours next manifesto.

My children are about to start independent school, having had a terrible time for a whole host of reasons in their state primary.

Aside from the moral argument for or against private schools, I am very interested in whether it would be legally possible to abolish private schools and how this would happen? Would this even be feasible realistically?

OP posts:
TheletterZ · 19/07/2019 21:37

It isn’t as easy as just saying take away the charitable status or add VAT. Charity status is decided by the independent charity commission, it is independent for a reason. To have a political intervention into that would have far ranging ramifications and would be open to challenges. There are also implications to changing theVAT laws, it is very hard to only target independent schools and not have a knock on on to FEcolleges, universities, some SEND units etc...
Buying all the facilities from the school’s would cost a fortune, assuming they wanted to sell. Compulsory purchase orders are extremely complicated and you still need to pay the going rate (otherwise it is stealing).

Dapplegrey · 19/07/2019 21:39

And I'm happy to have the option taken away, if it's across the board.

Stuck, why only if ‘it’s across the board?’

Chuffin · 19/07/2019 21:41

Good to know theletterZ

I believe this has been looked into before but abandoned due to the complex nature of it. Overwhelmingly independent schools by nature of providing education met the criteria for charitable status.

But it is being discussed as a very real possibility, and it worries me why it is spoke about abs if it will be so easy...

OP posts:
Thekingintheeast · 19/07/2019 22:15

Google some of the big school groups based in London and look at how much their portfolio of property is worth - millions and all together, billions. And that’s just London. The building value alone of a small independent school local to me is worth around 3 million and that doesn’t even include the worth of the business. That is one small single form entry school and there are dozens of them where I live. They can’t afford to do it.

Dapplegrey · 19/07/2019 22:25

I’m sure the present Labour Party will find a way - should they win the next election.

Nazis helped themselves to works of art that they fancied. East Germany were more subtle and if they discovered a valuable work of art in a private house (not hard considering the extraordinary surveillance network in place in the GDR) they sent the owner such a big tax bill that he or she had to sell the artwork to pay it.
Labour will find a way round as I guess this recent move @abolisheton or whatever’s it’s called has plenty of supporters amongst party members and supporters.

echt · 19/07/2019 22:25

Another vote for the Finnish system where you can have a private school but are not allowed to charge fees or turn anyone away.

Stuckforthefourthtime · 19/07/2019 22:26

@Chuffin @Dapplegrey of course it's different if it's across the board. If you look at what's happened in Norway after abolishing private schooling, yes there are still pockets of inequality and the very wealthy have found ways to circumvent things but the overall standard has greatly equalised.

I'm also not going to be the one to explain to my children that they have to go to the school with the perpetually fighting kids who call them 'Paki' on the bus, where multiple a level classes are being taught by a roster of substitutes, because mummy and daddy have strong principles and even though we could afford it, it's best to go state. What good are we doing the school, and what would be the cost?
I think it's easy to have pure principles when the situation is fine, or when it doesn't apply to you.

To me it's not in line with who I'd like to be, but it's is still a logical position to choose private education as the best available option for your family right now and still appreciate that it's not a net benefit for the country and should be abolished.
If you're going to fling about accusations of hypocrisy, every one of us makes individual decisions this way. Like I said, if you believe in climate change, but fly to see family when it's not a deathbed goodbye, I'd see that as no less or more hypocritical. Far more so, presumably, if it's purely a holiday. Honestly, why try to shout down people who agree with making a change?
Sometimes I feel like on the left we make so little progress because we'd rather police the perfection of our own team, and then give a free pass to those who truly don't give a toss, because they may be arses but hey, at least they aren't hypocrites 🤷

Dapplegrey · 19/07/2019 22:26

The East German Government I mean.

romeoonthebalcony · 19/07/2019 22:36

Social mobility suffered a lot from the removal of the Direct Grant schools IMO. The idea of comprehensive schools that would remove the pressure and arbitary nature of the 11+, that would allow for facilities to be shared among all abilities was a noble one, but with so many good schools going fully independent, it dealt such a blow to the UK education system - Look at the long list of schools here (bottom of the page linked) that turned independent in the late 70s. api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/written-answers/1978/mar/22/direct-grant-schools

and on this page too you will find another 13 schools that were lost to the independent sector

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voluntary_aided_school

I expect a number of the younger posters, who know of these schools as the domain of the wealthy parent, aren't aware that all these 130ish schools used to be integrated into the state system?

Thekingintheeast · 19/07/2019 22:36

It does smack of a dictatorial police state. Compulsory buy outs of property and business against many parents’ wishes and the presumption that staff will meekly follow. They won’t. I’ve worked with plenty of independent school staff who would never return to the state sector.

In west London where I live there are many champagne socialists who live in big houses, earn a lot of money, have large cars, very comfortable lifestyles and multiple overseas holidays and they think they’re morally superior by not sending their children to private school.

flingingmelon · 19/07/2019 22:48

This is an utter waste of effort. Sort out the state schools - try and make life better for the millions of children there. Don't make life potentially harder for 300,000 kids instead.

Even if the schools were on par, and arguably some are, that's a lot of disruption for a tiny minority of children and negligible benefit to the majority.

Typical labour attitude. Anyone remember Corbyns cracking suggestion of the women only train carriages? Confused

Dapplegrey · 19/07/2019 22:52

earn a lot of money, have large cars, very comfortable lifestyles and multiple overseas holidays and they think they’re morally superior by not sending their children to private school.

If there are any of these people reading this thread I wonder what they think of stuckforthefourthtime’s view that being opposed to private schools but nonetheless using them is the same as claiming to care about the planet yet still going on aeroplanes.

Vulpine · 19/07/2019 22:56

'Negligible benefit to the majority?' So basically let's not disrupt the education of the minority? Surely it's a benefit to more if the same education is offered across the board?

Dapplegrey · 19/07/2019 23:03

Vulpine - yes but it won’t be the same education offered across the board. The quality of state schools varies across the country and I don’t see how banning private education will change that.

mainstreet · 19/07/2019 23:05

The opposite to abolishing private schools should be happening !

Surely It would benefit those in state schools if less children attended them. Therefore we should be encouraging those who can afford private education to use it. The more children off the books of the state system the better . Parents using private schools are effectively paying for resources they don't use.

However, this has got nothing to do with improving education or managing resources for the masses. The radical left want to extinguish a narrative that challenges their diktats regarding social engineering.

The reality being the left have by trying to destroy private schools, accepted the excellence of these schools.

FossiPajuZeka · 19/07/2019 23:08

To abolish private schools the government would need to:

(a) make home education illegal, as it would be perfectly possible for parents to continue to educate privately by founding mutually owned organisations for the provision of education which got around any loopholes. That won't go down well.

(b) remove education as a charitable purpose under the charities act - this would have massive knock-on impacts for vast numbers of non-school educational charities.

(c) fundamentally destroy the part of the charities act that says that a charity can only be wound up if all its assets are passed over to another charity with the same aims. The government cannot simply appropriate the property of a charity unless it destroys the vary meaning of a charity in this country. Even buying a schools building from them doesn't help with that - they then have a vast amount of capital that they are legally obliged to use to provide education independently of government control, charging only what it costs to provide that service and not making a profit.

These things are simply not going to happen. None of the legislative changes necessary will ever make it through the House of Commons, let alone the House of Lords.

If they ever do, look out the massive legal bloodbath as the charitable trusts and individuals who have made donations to the educational charities, made for the purpose of furthering the aims of the educational charity, explore what their rights are if the charitable purpose to which they gave has been abolished. Such fun.

This goes to the bottom of how we define a charity at all. Lots of charities make charges for their services - animal rescue centres, health services like cancer support charities, residential care homes.The requirement is that the organisation makes no profit from it and that the purpose is one of the charitable purposes laid out in the charities act:
-relieving poverty
-education
-religion
-health
-saving lives
-citizenship or community development
-the arts
-amateur sport
-human rights
-religious or racial harmony
-the protection of the environment
-animal welfare
-the efficiency of the armed forces, police, fire or ambulance services

What possible justification could there be to remove education from that list?
If you don't remove education from that list then it has got to stay being considered a reasonable thing to do for an organisation to provide an independent education at cost-price. The unfortunate fact is that the real cost of a good education is higher than the amount that the government is willing to pay to provide state education from taxes. The balance should be redressed by funding state education better.

If state school was decently funded then the private sector would be tiny. It would consist of the quirky steiner school type places, the specialist nurturing places taking those who can't cope with mainstream, the places that specialise in sports, drama, dance, music etc, the places that offer boarding for those families that don't want their kids at home for any reason. The establishment would stop promoting and favouring the graduates of the private sector as soon as there wasn't a noticeable difference in the quality of academic education received there.

Or we accept that the taxpayer is only willing to fund the cost of a basic education, not a good one, and allow those who want more to upgrade - just like those who want better health care than the NHS offers can upgrade, and those who want to go to the opera and art galleries (that are charities but still charge money) can do so.

AdoraBell · 19/07/2019 23:15

We live near a private school. The school is the biggest employer in the area. It makes no difference to me, but lots of local people would probably be relying on benefits once all the non teaching jobs go. Cooks, stable hands, gardeners etc.

I don’t think this school would add very many pupils into the state system, most are overseas students boarding. Their families would probably move them to another country. That would also effect jobs as those teens with lots of spending money seem to be keeping the local restaurants and coffee shops going. I walk past 3 restaurants to get to the town centre and every lunch time each is full of teens from from the private school.

LadyRannaldini · 19/07/2019 23:18

Put so much money into state education that its offer educationally becomes comparable to the private schools
Money isn't the only thing needed, you could pour billions into education but until parents start to support schools and accept that their little cherub needs discipline whether they like it or not, nothing will change.

Dapplegrey · 19/07/2019 23:19

Thank you Fossi for that interesting and informative post.
I wonder are Ed Miliband and the others in Labour Against Private Schools completely unaware of the difficulties that lie ahead for them - or do they think in the event of a Labour election victory they will somehow be able to force their plans through?

ErrolTheDragon · 19/07/2019 23:28

Given that Ed Milliband is responsible for the ascendency of momentum and Corbyn because of the ill-considered changes he made re leadership elections, it's more than probable he's not thought this through very well either.

2BoysandaCairn · 20/07/2019 01:39

As a comprehensive educated parent of 2 DC who have just left a SM rural coastal comprehensive in the east of the region with the worst educationally outcomes in England, you can keep our stupid overpriced private schools.
I think as one non hypocrite who makes use of the sort of school most on here run away from, that state schools are miracle workers.
Of 360 students in DC1 year, 98% ended up in work/FE/university.
With less then £5000 spent on year, so £25000 over 5 years, imagine telling our superior (haha) privates to do that, when most charge more per term.
The school has nation champions, kids doing RSC plays with RSC directors, kids going to ballet scholarship's post 16, opera singers too.

I wonder if people like me, state educated plebs, who use state comprehensives and all our kids, should withdraw our labour from 4-6 weeks and leave running the country to the likes of Dapplegrey and medtrinia and fibbke and their kids?
I am sure the police, NHS, fire service, coastguard, lifeboats, railways, buses, taxis, power stations, postal service, schools, courts, councils, refuse collections, social services, home care, care homes, funeral directors, airports and docks, border service and prison service and lets not forget the armed forces, would cope so sodding well relying on the 650000 private educated superstars.

Finally you can keep our ghettos, I certainly don't want the arrogant private school parents and kids anywhere near our lovely state educated kids. especially if they act like the ones we meet a rugby, who never turn up for training, but expect to play, only hang in their little groups, look down on any one else. Or the private school who won't allow our kids to use their changing rooms, so kids have to travel in sports kid to play them. Then once you manage to beat them, refuse to play the school again, because our kids are rude and brutal. But your the team who had players sent off.

I think it bloody amazing what state schools manage, imagine if my Dc got 25000K spent on them, I bet Oxbridge would not be telling state schools to do more, no actually you have had 25 years to get kids from our local 5 schools and have failed in 24 years, it is your outreach which is crap.
Keep your ghetto's it's you who are losing out, as apart from A* students, all research shows comprehensive kids out perform their privately educated cohorts with same grades, when at university.
So actually it is the UK, who is losing out, because your throwing 93% of your talent down the drain.
After the privately educated lead wet dream of Brexit, we will need every one of those 93% to step and save the UK.

User8888888 · 20/07/2019 06:56

Basically when you lower standards In any sector the private sector thrives. Private is often the last resort rather than the first choice. As a comparison, I love the NHS. I’ve worked in it, used it but I will probably have to go private to find my child’s surgery for a condition that isn’t funded (but used to be and should be). I will use all knowledge to try and get nhs funded services including writing to MPs etc, appealing decisions to commissioners but if that fails, we will find the money to pay .

Similarly with education, I looked up admission criteria for our local outstanding primary when my child was a baby. I’d have jumped through any hoops needed to get in but am close enough by distance and the school is full of parents who otherwise might have gone private in a different area. If the options had been dire, I’d have considered private but no need at primary level here as the state provision is great.

FossiPajuZeka · 20/07/2019 07:20

@Dapplegrey gosh you are so right - it's not as if there's any precedent for a party including a policy in their manifesto that will appeal to a subset of their voters, only to find out after election that implementation of the policy is an utter nightmare and has such far reaching consequences that it becomes obvious that the policy was always a massive mistake. No that never happens.

TheBigBallOfOil · 20/07/2019 07:21

Oh it’s miliband behind this? Fab. It’ll never happen. Piss ups and breweries .,,

meditrina · 20/07/2019 07:23

I've never posted about where my DC attend school, and can normally be found posting about state school admissions.

Check your prejudices.