Abolishing private schools - how would it work in practice?

[Dongdingdong]

Labour has voted to abolish private schools:

www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/labour-public-private-school-abolish-eton-vote-conference-corbyn-education-policy-a9115766.html

Whether you agree with this or not, I don’t understand how the logistics would work. Would private schools suddenly cease to exist from say, summer 2023, with all pupils forced to find a place at the local state school for the autumn term onwards? What would happen to the buildings and facilities - would they remain as state schools or be sold off to developers for example?

But as for James Gillespies being very good, it has a very good catchment area. Same as most very good comprehensives.

Pottering- if the private schools went back to their original charitable objectives they wouldn’t be educating rich over seas students to begin with. They are funding their own schools- not exactly helping kids living a few streets away in the state sector 😉

Anyone freaking out over the forced nationalisation of private schools which would affect 7% of kids in the UK should be asking themselves why there has not been the same outcry over the publicly owned schools being freely given over to privately owned companies belonging to their mates. And that has affected a lot more than 7% of kids in the UK.

So the Labour Party now seems to believe that private institutions and private property rights should exist wholly at the whim of the state and that everything is fair game for expropriation at the whim of politicians.

That'll be a fuck no from me, thank you very much!

Communism at its finest. Labour has many plans it cannot realistically deliver, and thank god for that. JC as PM would be a disaster.

I think there has been a lot of outcry about the academy programme.

Labour started the academy system.

Those saying theys not vote Labour on this issue were never going to vote Labour. Most state schools have smaller class sizes for SEN and units.

I think that a lot of families would be harmed by this. I do feel the states owed my son an education but it cannot deliver what he needs.
That said I'm also of the opinion that the state confiscating assets on a whim because they don't like the values they represent is very frightening

Seizing private assets and redistributing them was tried with little success in the 20th century it was called communism
^^This! Careful folks, you know that nice house you've worked hard for to own.....what's to stop that being seized and rented out as a public asset?

So 7% of the nation’s kids whose education is currently paid for by parents will now be paid for by the state?

The state needs masses of extra funding to adequately teach the kids it has already got. Oh, and there already aren’t enough teachers to go round.

What a fucking moronic plan.

It's well known and discussed that a significant number of Academy schools are going bust, even needing to let teachers go due to running out of money.

So that was a grand success there, Labour. 👏

Hilarious really given the number of Labour MPs who have privately educated children.

In practice though I don’t see what is going to stop parents from ‘homeschooling’ and just paying for private tutors to share between a group of ten or so.

This is what will happen and some parents will go a bit further and hire a venue where their children and private tutors can sleep overnight for 30 odd weeks of the year.

Agree with noble giraffe - a moronic plan indeed

I can understand Corbyn's lack of faith in the private sector; he attended a paid school and left with just 2 grade E's....his parents money straight down the drain, why did they bother?

I am no fan of private schools and the whole ethos but this is an absolutely terrible idea. All it will do is drive a bigger, economically disastrous wedge between the haves and the have nots. As PP have said, catchment areas for desirable schools are already prohibitively expensive for the majority of people and this will just get worse and worse as wealthy parents desperate for their children to go to 'nice' schools with 'nice' children will buy up, and push the prices up of, all the local houses so that they become unaffordable to most. Whole areas will be known as nice or not so nice and people will be judged on where they live and which school they/their children go to as there won't be a mixture of families in the catchment areas for schools. It will create a much more visible and state-created class divide where we will return to someone literally being from the wrong side of the tracks.
The private system doesn't work for everybody and neither does the state system which is why there needs to be a choice.
With everything that's going on at the moment is this honestly the biggest thing Labour has to worry about?!

RedHelenB - thats incredibly naive. There are 8500 children awaiting specialist provision (so either out of school or in unsuitable placements that dont meet their needs) which is a national scandal. The state also pays for children to go to independent schools when there is no state provision available quite often. I dont think you are alone in not understanding the scale of the crisis in SEN though.

So will private schools stop offering bursaries and discounts to families? Will the stop giving access to their facilities to the next door state schools, instead renting out their halls and sports centres? Will they stop the ‘partnering’ with local state schools to mentor kids into uni?

Yes - if the private schools are stripped and f charitable status then of course all of the above would stop.

plus if you abolish private schools that would mean as a consequence that home education is out as well.

plus if you abolish private schools that would mean as a consequence that home education is out as well
...and that works how exactly? 🙄

Finland abolished private schools in 1970. So it is possible. (Albeit Finland is a very different society to ours).

I don't think the policy will have any success but I do find it outrageous that in 2019 the governing class (Cabinet, media, etc) is still so heavily dominated by alumnae from a very few elite independent schools. How can we hope to be more egalitarian/meritocratic whilst that remains the case?

I'd be interested to know how far this extends. Does it include preschools and nurseries that pursue an early years curriculum? What about private tutoring? Summer schools? Crammers? Evening courses?

All these deliver educational opportunities for those that can afford to pay.

"ATM Private schools get tax breaks worth 3.5 billion or 10% of the education budget."

Source? The generally accepted figure is that for those private schools which are charities, VAT exemptions NHS on their business costs are wrth £200 per pupil per term. That is nowhere near £3.5b

Fees (for schools and universities, though not crammers) are exempt from VAT because of EU ruling. Only after Brexit could that be changed