Kier starmer! He hates strivers!

[Bucketheadbucketbum]

He wants to introduce a policy to put up the cost of school fees 10 to 15%. This is a tax on hard-working parents! We slave away cutting cots everywhere living hand to mouth to try and improve our childrens future . Live in an average house average area 1 shit car no holidays work like a dog to get our kids through. We are easing the burden on the state system by choosing independent schools. We're not sending them to Eton paid by our trust fund! Why does he want to punish strivers! Tax the energy companies! So disappointed. We need a new political party. What's the point in trying to better your future.

@Q2C4 I suggest you make no presumptions about my feelings on wider aspects. My statement was clear.

Just strive harder...
If you loved your kids you would make it work, get a second job, get rid of the TV, live of porridge...

I would have to tighten my belt but I can afford the fees if they go up, we will have to have one less holiday and I expect the pony will have to go but it's doable...

It's not about striving, it's about the fact it is a luxury and luxury is not a charity and it should not be exempt from tax.

What I will say is that some schools should be able to maintain their charity status as they are indeed supporting the disadvantaged, both my sons have attended independent school because they have special needs and there not enough local authority schools, in fact hardly any where I am. But to be exempt the primary function should be the school supports special needs and the disadvantaged, no sneaky trying to make Eton a SEN school by taking in a couple of pupils with autism, all the children would have to have an EHCP.

I live in an area with few private schools, as a result the local schools are really good. Private education creates divide and this country needs unity.

@RobinRobinMouse so swimming lessons are ok but not other forms of private education? Where do you draw the line?

Why are private schools, in which ONE THIRD of kids have some sort of financial assistance in the form of bursary or scholarship, worse than grammars…. Where guaranteed TWO THIRDS of the parents could afford private schooling but don’t because they have the grammar option. Which - by the way is not available equally around the country and depends entirely on what postcode you live in!

Around 5% of kids in England (almost same as private schools) attend grammar schools, which imho are mostly providing free private schooling for parents who game the system.

Where we live most of the kids who go to grammars have been to prep school, tutored within an inch of their life and have middle class parents in big houses who could easily afford private. Instead they’re using their wealth (or privelege as seems to be the word du jour) as a platform to get in, subbing their kids with tutoring all the way through, but still expecting govt to pay for their kids’ education.

At least at private schools people are not just paying their own way but they’re also partially contributing to support for others through the bursary system.

Politics of envy. It’s a cheap way to get a headline that people don’t have to think about as it gives them an easy enemy.

I have nothing against private schools, I would have liked to have gone to one, I think I would have done better and if I had children I would have hoped to be able to send them.

But I cannot get outraged over this, I don’t think it is worth making major sacrifices in other areas for it. If you can’t afford it, there is a state school system there.

@Q2C4 Just more presumptions!

I agree. The fact they can claim charitable status baffles me.

Also, that tired old line of '... keeping my kids out of the state school system so to ease the burden...' really isn't the flex some parents seem to think it is.

They are businesses, not charities. If they are charities they should become charities, and perhaps reduce their fees to help more families in need.

Trotting out the old lie that you're doing the state sector such a favour by sending your kids private.

Deluded!

@camelfinger
They are businesses, not charities. If they are charities they should become charities, and perhaps reduce their fees to help more families in need

I don’t understand tax law specifics, please could you help me to understand exactly why they are businesses not charities? Most are run as trusts, there are no profits and no shareholders among which to distribute them.

Also @camelfinger i refer to my previous post that one third of children at private school receive some sort of financial assistance.

Im a single parent who works full time. I've just removed my child from the state system and put him in private due to an utter lack of ability for his reasonably good comp to help him academically or stop the constant, constant bullying he was subjected to. I don't feel it's a choice really, I couldn't leave him there and he needs the much smaller setting of the private school. I'm on the edge financially and will rearrange the mortgage every time it's up for renewal to make it manageable. If the fees were to suddenly go up by any more than about ten percent, I'm screwed.

The argument that suddenly all state schools would halve in size, be able to get a grip of the social issues that cause some kids to be vile bullies to anyone who doesn't fit in and provide appropriate academic and mental health support for all that need it is hilariously funny...it wouldn't raise revenue to be directed at state as a huge proportion of the schools would close. Most do not have vast reserves or millionaire alumni ..Eton etc are not remotely representative of the majority of private schools and until the public at large actually understand that this debate will never improve because those who want to abolish private schools don't know what they are talking about getting rid of.

Yes, of course the default position should be that private school fee payers pay tax on that expense. The bar to achieve charitable status should be much higher.

Do you genuinely believe private schools are in the same category as charities? It’s not a charitable act running a school that costs a fortune per child. I’m sure you don’t genuinely believe it’s a charity, just don’t want to pay more fee’s. It is up to every family if they want to pay for children to go private, I personally didn’t and my son got 9x9’s and 3 A stars in the local comp, saved a fortune and been on lots of nice holidays in that time.

I personally think I’m a striver too, I strive for my children to get a good education, that doesn’t mean just handing over thousands every term, but supporting their education in other ways. Some people pay for the status though. I know someone who sent her son to an 18k per year private school, and her daughter to the same school my kids go to. The reason was the kids dad was privately educated and the grandparents wanted it. So have helped pay, they can’t afford it and jumped at the chance when their DD said she wanted to go to the local comp 10 mins walk away. Sure the family only wanted the son to get the private education, and he’s done no better than he would have at the local comp I’m sure as it’s an excellent school, as they admit as their DD goes. Just about keeping up with the Jones. Good that the local private school is so charitable

A lot of bullying goes on in private schools, especially for those kids who don’t quite fit in financially with their peers

@Lightowl

I have a couple of friends who work in private schools.

They are 100% run as businesses to make money.

The fact that one works in a large team in the Marketing dept says it all.

@AhNowTed ummmm …. Name a charity that doesn’t have a marketing department? They all need to raise money to operate. How much of a charitable donation actually goes to the cause and how much in business costs (ie salaries….)?

State schools don’t have the same kind of marketing because they don’t have to raise money. Hardly comparable is it?

This is so true re the grammars. My son didn’t pass the test for the local grammar, as the pass mark is so high as kids have been tutored for years to pass the test (then struggle for years). Yet he left school with 9x9’s at GCSE and 3 A stars at A level (and he got between 95-97% on all papers when around 70% is an A star). So clearly intelligent enough for a grammar school, but because of the parents who pay for tutors for years thinking it will save a fortune in the long run, the pass mark is artificially high for some of these grammars (this was the Surrey / south london grammars which are hugely competitive).

A friend paid £200 a month for a tutor for 3yrs and still didn’t pass the test, they are now paying 18k a year at a private school which is a stretch to afford (has grandparents help)

Of course they do, that was a silly argument in pp

Good questions. See if someone answers properly

"Just want to leave UK. No reward for saving or trying to better your families future. Just punishment."

Off you pop then.

Of course actual charities have marketing departments.

Private schools however are businesses.

Yes I'm aware they have charitable status for tax purposes. Isn't that the point of the thread.

It's outrageous the taxpayer is subsidising the likes of Eton, Harrow and Winchester.

All those saying their kids did great at state school seem to be suggesting that therefore everyone can or will. It's simply blindingly obviously not true. I am hugely invested in education, Im a teacher. I've done all the "right" things to support my child but he will not succeed in a large school with under-resourced and overwhelmed pastoral and academic departments. It's as simple as that. Until state provides settings that work for kids who are not able to just crack on in a large, noisy environment, there is a much needed place for the kind of provision private schools offer and it's awful that so many are not able to do what I did and scrape together what's needed to access it. But abolishing privates which this would effectively do, is not the answer