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.

And the 'punishment' is forcing children in exam years, 11 & 13 and also those in years 10 & 12, who have got halfway through a specific syllabus, being forced out of their school and having to move to a different one, with potentially different exam boards and completely different work to cover - potentially to a school not even offering the subjects they've started. I'm honestly dismayed that people on this thread hate private school children so much that they're rubbing their hands with glee at the thought of all those kids failing their exams because they've had to start their GCSE's/A levels all over again, half way through.

Who has limited girls chances in education these last 12.5 years?

Don't worry, will apply to new starters only.

If you truly want to increase equality of opportunity, impose VAT on private schools by all means but impose a lottery system for all state comprehensives, impose a requirement for faith schools to take 30% of intake from local community /lottery and of course invest in state education.

"However, once private schools become more expensive less will go, bursaries that enable less well off children to attend will become rarer."

"Less well off" is pretty elastic.
Schools don't provide information as to who their bursaries go to. There is no standard method for calculating the needy. You can apply for a bursary at St Paul's if you earn less than £120,000.

"Tony Blair sent his daughter to a Catholic Girls' school of course, and Keir Starmer lives near a well known London Girls' School."

And how are those things linked to removing charitable status? Presumably they'd just pay the increased fee.

Can't agree more. It's a policy that on paper looks like it will hurt the mega rich but the top schools will just whack their prices up and the truly rich will just pay it.

The people who really struggle to pay will be the ones who pull their kids out and the effect would be that gap just gets wider but on paper, the nasty spivs, chums and bankers got their just desserts so that suits the headlines.

Considering just how many of the Labour benches went to selective schools, they don't like it for the plebs.

@walkinginsunshinekat do you think so? I really hope so, DS will start Y11 Sept '24 and the prospect of having to move him that year is a huge worry.

To claim a VAT exemption, broadly speaking, the education has to be of the right kind (for example, be a subject taught in schools or universities) and be provided by an "eligible body" or be exempt for another reason (for example, an individual giving private tuition).

If independent schools lose their VAT status that wouldn't automatically affect universities because they (universities) have been specifically granted "eligible body" status in their own right.

Swimming and music have the potential to be covered by the exemption for private tuition (which is a separate VAT rule). Swimming may also covered by the sports exemptions. So again, also not automatically affected by changes to independent schools either.

Yes, the "elite" would continue to "game the system" - but that's not a reason for inaction in and of itself.

Blair and Keir sent their children to state schools. The school near Keir's house, Camden School for Girls is a great school. Unfortunately you need well in excess of a million if you want to live in a terraced house in the catchment. Less if you live in a flat (the area is quite mixed as well). Tony Blair sent his boys to london oratory which is a Catholic school in Kensington. In order for it to be semi doable, you need to not only be Catholic but live in Kensington.

I am left wing and my DH calls us champagne socialists but I also know that I look at schools when choosing a place to live. And am willing to pay more. It's why I paid more to live in a flat in north London when my friend spent a similar amount to live in a 3 bed house in east london (and presumably the flats are cheaper). Which is why I am not sure how I am morally superior to someone who pays to go private.

'Wrecking of institutions'? Dramatic, much??

And it's a cheap shot, calling it 'envy'. How about 'fair'?

As for 'driving people away'- to where? As has been made abundantly clear, private school fee payers are on the bones of their asses 😉thus are unlikely to have the cash necessary to secure a foreign work visa...

Selective schools are not the same as fee-paying schools.
State grammar schools are selective but not fee-paying.

If the fees go up for everyone, then presumably any Labour party members who want to use a fee-paying school will also have to stump up the extra fees.
Why would that be a problem?

Abolishing HoL included, yes I think he is. People love it though. They won’t when their warm glow of envy doesn’t do much but the tax burden gets passed down.

Because they didn't have to under the way the school changed. My brother in law went to a grammar that changed to private while he was in (equivalent of) year 11, and was able to stay on non-fee paying under the constitution I guess it is.

So, you honestly believe that private schools are all quite clearly charities?!!

They are usually individuals supplying a service. They are not registered charities and they will pay (and therefore charge) VAT if they are successful enough and earning over the threshold 🙄

Oh please. You honestly think a change in VAT regulations is going to force an immediate fee increase so great that parents would withdraw their kids part way through GCSEs?! That’s the kind of behaviour you’d be calling feckless if it was people who’d had the misfortune to end up on Universal Credit.

Iam left wing and my DH calls us champagne socialists but I also know that I look at schools when choosing a place to live. And am willing to pay more. It's why I paid more to live in a flat in north London when my friend spent a similar amount to live in a 3 bed house in east london (and presumably the flats are cheaper). Which is why I am not sure how I am morally superior to someone who pays to go private
Someone I read/listened to was talking about the idea of a champagne socialist and said what's wrong with acknowledging that you're in a position to have choices, and wanting to act to improve other people's access to similar choices.
When you think about it, it's laughable that people are criticised for not giving their children worse opportunities purely because they happen to also want to improve things for most children. It's a funny purity spiral.

Near me it would be cheaper to pay for private education for Y7-11 than to buy a similar house to mine in the right catchment for the better state schools, yet people would be frothing at the mouth over people choosing independent education and most of them would have considered catchments in their house search, or know people who have tutors, or pay for a range of sports clubs.

Even those that couldn't afford the best catchment aren't about to actively put their children in the local school in special measures in the name of fairness.

Bucketheadbucketbum · Yesterday 22:29

"Exactly. I'd bloody love a state grammar option"

• I am always amused at fee-paying parents' assumption that their DC would pass the 11+; but then, that's because if they didn't they'd be sent private.

I have no time for people who support grammar schools but don't champion secondary moderns.

I agree with you and I’m under no illusion accessing a top state school in London is similar to paying for private. It’s not a moral superiority or altruistic

Just to clarify something.

~Some~ independent schools are run along exactly the correct lines to remain as charities. They will still be able to be run as charities. Which is the right way to do it.

The private schools that are not run as charities. That make millions, and just give out a few bursaries etc to be able to tick a charity box won't be able claim they're a charity, as quite quite clearly, they're run as a business.

And I still fail to believe that someone paying £8000 a year won't then be able to afford £9000 a year. Let alone someone paying £35k a year...

Maybe it's about fairness?

And I still fail to believe that someone paying £8000 a year won't then be able to afford £9000 a year. Let alone someone paying £35k a year...
I can well believe it.
We could afford our day nursery fees at a particular fee level but wouldn't have been able to afford the nurseries some of our friends used because they were however more expensive a day. Over the course of a year my friend payed around thousand to two thousand more in childcare than us.

Other people I know could afford 3 days childcare but couldn't afford 5 days childcare. The difference was a couple of thousand a year.

If we accept people can afford one set of childcare fees but not a more expensive set of nursery fees then it's no different with school fees. Not everyone has a spare few thousand in their bank

'. I'm honestly dismayed that people on this thread hate private school children'

wise up. No one hates any kids.It's not about the kids, these schools are businesses - not charities, and there for not to be treated as charities.
And as they're such GREAT schools none of them will do anything to lose their customers.
I'm sure the kids will be fine - given their parents access to resources and money.

@Fordian yep, and the figure is £1.6bn.

'THIS POLICY WOULD RAISE NO MORE THAN £20 PER SCHOOL CHILD PER YEAR'

Our school library would make great use of that £30k a year or the sports dept or the free breakfast fund for the poorer kids or towards trips for poorer kids...

^^ This. A lot of people will agree with the OP (not necessarily the bit about who is striving because lots are who don’t use the private system) but won’t want to say.