it's daft to think parents with kids in private school have money to burn?

[Popgoestheweaselagain]

Just got asked by my school what would be the impact if they had to pay VAT, adding 20% to fees. My response was 'I'd try to keep my child in the school, but ....'. I think almost all parents would respond this way. Alarmed, did a quick google, and found this is Labour policy. Next time they come knocking at my door looking for my vote, I'll be telling them why they can't have it!

Now, I understand why some people are ideologically opposed to private schools, the unfariness etc. But when I hear this argument that goes something like 'Those people must have loads of money because they send their kids to private school' it kind of annoys me. Money is finite. If you've spent all your money on school fees, you obviously don't have it anymore!

Unfortunately, I've come across quite a number of bright kids at state schools whose teachers, far from encouraging them, thought they needed to be brough down a peg of two for having aspirations that weren't 'for the likes of you'. Most of them succeded anyway, but there was a cost to their self-confidence - a slight defensiveness. Why do these Victorian attitudes continue in twenty-first-century Britain.

Wow. I taught for many years in what might be termed "challenging" state schools, and I cannot imagine telling any child - bright or otherwise - that their aspirations were "not for the likes of them". I'm pretty sure I would have been out of a job forthwith if I had. How do you know what their teachers were thinking/saying? Were you there?

Why do these Victorian attitudes continue in twenty-first-century Britain?

Erm, because people with prejudices against the state system like yourself perpetuate them? What absolute rubbish. Just look at how state schools work with Oxbridge on outreach programmes these says. Do you think that would be happening if their teachers had that attitude?

That sounds like it happened 50 years ago.

This happened to me in the 90s and I’ve tried to ensure it never happens to my kids. I don’t think I’m the only parent who’s trying to avoid the ‘putting you back in your place’ thing they experienced themselves at school.

There are teachers out there who are the opposite of inspiring. One teacher encouraged a bunch of lads to not enter the GCSE maths exam (because she clearly thought they’d bring the average down) by offering them the ‘opportunity’ to read comics and magazines during maths class. They thought this was great.

This is what the young people told me themselves that their teachers had said to them when they said something like 'I want to become a barister' or 'go to such and such prestigious university'. I was quite shocked myself. But quite a number of people have told me the same story. It was probably worded a bit more like 'why would you want to go to a place like that and hang out with those snobs' - but essentially saying the same thing - that the child didn't come from the 'right' background to get a 'private school' job.

Ultimately it's not relevant whether you have "money to burn". Vat on other products and services isn't based on whether people can afford to pay it or not. Look at energy bills for a start.

I'm just repeating what other people told me had happened to them in State schools. And we've already had one poster with personal experience. I don't want to tell ghost stories - maybe things have changed since 90s, 00s - but it was happening more recently than 50 years ago.

Not all teachers are comfortable with ver bright children. I mean kids with IQs at least 2 sigmas from the mean.

These are still children. They may be intellectually ahead but their emotional maturity is still that of a child. It’s confusing and damaging to them when teachers run hot and cold, compete with them in strange ways, pass them over or don’t acknowledge good work. All of which can happen if the teacher has his or her own biases and weaknesses.

The best way to protect and serve the child is to move them into a selective school. Many times the only option is to go private.

This is the same as any other parent of a child with special educational needs accessing private education.

It's relevant if you want to introduce VAT in an area that involves large sums of money where it hadn't been before. It would affect how/whether you implement that new policy. Whether it should have been exempt in the first place is another question.

You should be paying VAT. Sooner this charity status nonsense is abolished the better.

🧐 Why have lots of young people told you this? Just wondering how these conversations have come about? By the way I went to a pretty rubbish school in East London in the 90s and teachers were desperate to get kids to go to university and apply for the very best.

Sometimes if you go looking for justification (ie. Someone tell me all the reasons why I need to pay for private education I can only just afford) you can find it anywhere.

When I was single I used to work quite a lot with young people. I wouldn't ask them about it, it would just come up. Sometimes they weren't talking to me in particular, but it would come up in a group conversations about 'where are you going? what do you want to do?'. I didn't have any fixed ideas at the time about how I would educate my own kids if I had any. I'm glad you had a different experience.

I often wondered if I was rich enough how I would handle the opportunity to purchase a hugely unfair advantage for DC. I might have to be a hypocrite and send them to private school while campaigning to have private education abolished to assuage my guilt!

You see this regularly on mumsnet. “I really disapprove of private education - it should be abolished - but I send my dc to private schools as they are so intelligent that it wouldn’t be fair on them to send them to state school”.

Sorry first paragraph should be in bold as it was a quote

How long ago was this though? I think quite a lot has changed. There is now much more focus by universities of getting a better mix of students and I expect this has given schools more confidence in their students gaining places at university.

Two words - Hillsborough Academy. Times have certainly changed.

OP I do understand your point about the goal posts moving but a lot of people are finding things which have thus far been easily affordable may not be in the coming months/years. I'd much rather energy bills have VAT reduced or removed than private education be VAT free for example. To lessen the impact on children perhaps it would be best to introduce VAT for new starters and keep it at zero for those already enrolled in a school if that's possible.

I also think it would do state education the world of good to have more higher earners with an interest in its funding and performance.

We send our children to private school. We don't have as big a house or as flashy a car as we could have if we didn't. That's our choice.

Friends choose to spend their money on a bigger house. Why does nobody suggest they should get a cheaper, smaller place and use the difference in money to pay for someone to get on the property ladder?

I'd rather see state schools improve to the point where most people don't think private schools are worth it. Then the private schools would dissolve themselves because they weren't needed any more and voluntarily hand their assets over to the state. Covid put that process back because people realised they couldn't trust the government to provide their kids with education.I guess I'm wishing upon a star!

I'd be in favour of higher income taxes and less VAT on essentials like heating.

About 10 years ago, to be fair. Just not 50, like some people are saying!

Totally agree.

For me this is the politics of envy.

I found an article a few years old now, regarding tax, pay etc. To be considered a top 1% earner in London, you need to earn £700,000, the rest of the UK £169,000. 35% of the highest tax earners live in London. The gap between the North East, which received the lowest proportion of A-level A* and A grades
out of all the regions (30.8 per cent), and the South East, which received the highest proportion (39.5 per cent), was 8.7 percentage points this year.

From another source "The UK is one of the most economically divided countries in the modern world, with stark differences between different regions, according to a new study. The IPPR North’s State of the North 2019 report claims that in areas like health, jobs, disposable income and productivity, only countries like Romania and South Korea are more divided."

I would like to see Labour making policies that really change lives not just to win votes from a certain sector of society. The richest members of society will be unaffected by this change and it will do nothing to imporove the life changes of most children. The levelling up of the UK is far more importent to me than VAT on a small number of private school children. Labour should focus on more meaningful policies IMO.

‘I also think it would do state education the world of good to have more higher earners with an interest in its funding and performance.’

I just think you’ll end up with private schools by stealth through house price inflation around great state schools.

Having higher earners won’t massively impact state schools. And higher earners can’t impact funding for state schools unless they’re MPs.

One major issue I had with state school was the parents and not because they were badly behaved but because of their priorities. Many of them seemed obsessed with how much playtime (not enough) and homework (too much) the kids had. I send my kids to school to learn not play. They have plenty of time outside school to play. I also believe in homework. This put me at odds with some of the parents who always seemed to be complaining to the school and advocating for things which I didn’t believe were in my DCs interests.

Another issue was during Covid. So many of the state schools failed to provide a satisfactory education. One near me wouldn’t do online teaching due to safeguarding concerns so handed out Twinkle sheets and the kids got hardly any teacher interaction. Meanwhile the private school didn’t seem to have an issue with safeguarding prevent them from offering a full days schooling online. Then when schools were due to return to normal, the same Twinkle school was fighting tooth and nail to remain closed and a few of the parents seemed to think this was fine. This sealed the deal for me.

‘I also think it would do state education the world of good to have more higher earners with an interest in its funding and performance.’

We have this in my area in London

You get some state schools that are almost to impossible to get in to unless you live very close by, where houses are £1.5m plus. There are a couple of estates which might be in area so you do still get a mix which is good. But the interest is in getting in with buying power and that’s it - it doesn’t extend to funding because it doesn’t need to, the results are good

One way to think of it is if you were just outside the area and a parent closer was deciding between state or private that they could just afford what would you prefer, as it could mean a place or no place

State schools in London are a precious resource in many cases, let people pay imo to free it up