Closing all private schools would benefit state schools

[Nimbostratus100]

I've been thinking about that the argument of state schools not being able to accommodate another 7 % of pupils. It really doesn't add up

For one thing, state schools are frequently in a situation of having to accommodate 7% more pupils and they just stretch and cope. It wouldn't be any different.

And each pupil brings in more government funding.

And if all the private schools closed, we would have a fresh pool of 14% more teachers! More funding for teachers in state schools, and a massive increase in numbers of teacher applying!

Given that many vacancies are currently attracting zero applicants, this could be a total game changer!

Of course some teachers in private schools would not apply to state schools, an would just leave teaching instead, and some would not be qualified to teach in state schools.

But then, we wouldn't be taking in 7% more pupils, either, given how many private school pupils are overseas, or have parents overseas, and would just move to board in another country.

So say 5% more pupils, and maybe 12% more teachers! fantastic! even more so when you consider the resources potentially freed up - many of our best resources were donated 10 or 20 years ago by private schools, they might have untold wealth in the form of sports equipment, science equipment, technology, test books, musical instruments! working photocopiers!!! school furniture!

And potentially, even school premises

YABU - for your overuse of exclamation marks alone.

This tbh.

Ours are in private because the older one has significant SEN which could not be met by our lcoal schools. As in literally cannot be met. I did a school open day where the students with additonal needs were LITERALLY sitting on the floor having lessons in the cloakroom because they were that overstretched. In the UK. Frankly I think we did everyone afavour to not add to the burden when we could afford to. The younger one gets a part bursary.

I'm from abroad and have worked abroad extensively. I am only here because DH wanted to be close to his (now deceased) elderly and dying parents. He took a career break to care for them. But he is also a senior professional. We pay top rates of tax. And all we get is people telling us we are rich bastards who should pay more and to fuck off if we don't like it.

So we will.

We have two plans - 1 to sell everything and abandon the UK when our younger DS is finished with school in 6 years. 2. To cut and run in the next 18 months or so. It depends on a number of factors- some political, some cultural.

When I first moved the UK this was meant to be the palce I would see out my days and life in. No more.

I certainly don't think it would be a disaster if private schools were to close. The public sector would find space to accommodate as they have done in many places where schools are at capacity and someone decides to build a load of houses in the area.

But just a thought, if state schools were better, had better funding then less people would feel the need to pay for private schooling. Same with private Health.

But even with the same funding and class sizes, state schools will always have the less academic children, the children who have very little family support, looked after children, kids with better things to worry about than Fridays test.

@Nooyoiknooyoik

How would the class benefit from private school kids being there? I genuinely don't see how having some extra kids in an already busy class is going to make any improvement on a day-to-day level.

Are the private school kids meant to be very well behaved and high achieving and this rubs off on the other children?

Most private school kids don't live in deprived areas, so they won't be going to these schools as they won't be in catchment.

And again, I strongly believe that many just wouldn't send their kids to state, they'd home school with tutors instead, effectively building a private system on their own. I absolutely would not send my kids to my local state school, it was truly awful for me and I wouldn't risk my children's happiness on a social experiment.

At the moment the state sector have a massive crisis in teacher recruitment. Having a couple of teachers on longterm sick leave covered by supply teachers is a fairly normal occurrence in schools. The last mainstream state school I worked in had eight teachers on longterm sick leave.

Separately, there is an epidemic of additional needs in our schooling system at the moment. The percentage of children with clinical levels of anxiety is through the roof, behaviour problems are at an all-time high and an unprecedented numbers of children have left mainstream education altogether because they can't cope with school. Some of those have found a suitably small nurturing independent school, but some are now being home educated, with varying levels of success. There has been a 40% increase in home educated children since before covid. Closing independent schools would just force many more children into home education.

Unless you are banning home education too then people will just employ tutors and homeschool perhaps joining with other families. Like an old fashioned governess.
State boarding would have to expand as some families need boarding eg only living parent working overseas.

Maybe everybody else is more selfless than me, but this is not an argument that would have convinced me to send my children to poor state schools instead of paying school fees. My husband and I were responsible for bringing our children up and for their welfare. We would not have sent them to schools where they would have received a substandard education and had to contend with abysmal behaviour from classmates on the offchance that having our intelligent, well-behaved children in the room would somehow convince their classmates that education was worth something.
Agree with this.

The idea that parents should deliberately sabotage their children's education in case a good attitude and good behaviour rubs off on other children is based on the same (flawed) logic of lazy teachers who always sit quiet and hard working girls next to boisterous and disruptive boys.

It's not the job of children to compensate for the failures of adults.

• get all the relevant services properly funded
• ensure there's proper access to CAMHS
• get appropriate access to SEN provision that is appropriate for children's needs
• have proper intervention and support services that will work with dysfunctional families to break intergenerational cycles of harm
• change the dominant culture in some areas where parents are actively confrontational towards schools
• offer a range of schools in all areas and reduce the dominance of large one size fits all MATs
• invest in technical and vocational education
• then find a way that parents have meaningful choice on how their children are educated

Then abolish or restrict private schools.

Don't think throwing children in a giant mixing pot as an experiment will solve decades of deliberate policy decisions and adults making poor choices.

But that is because the schools are ongoing concerns. Take away the income and things will be needed to be sold to raise money as the owners and directors will be without an income.

Do you not understand even human nature.

If someone who you had previously helped was taking away your livelihood then the cost of that “help” isn’t going to be free

If you get rid of all private schools and expect everyone to go to a state school, you will get all of those who are currently being home educated to go to school and whilst your theory is that schools will have more money, they will also have more pupils. The same ratio of pupils to £s as they have now except more teachers to employ, more portacabins to rent or buy and all the wiring and plumbing in to do not to mention the planning permissions and plans and architects and surveyors they would need to pay.

Where will the teachers come from for those who are home schooled because of SENs and the lack of space currently in schools to cater for these children. Some of whom have been turfed out of state schools because they cost too much money.

Most private schools don’t really have the type of teacher who is qualified to teach someone with SENs and currently there isn’t enough teaching staff to teach them so where do these children go

Where will the support staff go?

As it has been said, repeatedly, other counties manage it.

Of course there would be logistics involved, but nothing insurmountable.

As it has been said, repeatedly, other counties manage it.

Of course there would be logistics involved, but nothing insurmountable.

The fairly insurmountable issue is that in the UK too many people want to have public services well funded, but with US style low taxation.

They're also happy to get involved in a class war arguing with fellow working/middle classes about the rights and wrongs of private education, and are happy to remove parental choice on the education they choose for their children, but given the Conservatives have been in power for over a decade, there's clearly not enough popular support for the sort of widespread social changes that would be required to give all children an excellent state education.

Too many people have bought into the idea of the deserving and undeserving poor, so won't vote for anyone who has a platform of solid social reforms to undo decades of intergenerational harn and intergenerational poverty (which needs to be in place before schools can get on with educating instead of plugging the gaps caused by social issues).

The super wealthy have international options so anyone thinking the parents who choose Eton and similar will start sending their DC to state schools is kidding themselves.

gwrachod

Maybe somewhere like North Korea might be able to do without private education and maybe a communist regime or 2 but would love to see which countries outside of these have managed to shut down every single one of their private schools and have taxation similar to ours

If they have taxation then that blows the theory we will just soak up all the thousands of private school pupils into the state system without too much issues

Can I ask what would happen to schools like my Dd attended where the emphasis wasn’t on academics

Other countries manage it when there’s the appetite for it. Not to mention funding, and a way to do it without violating laws.

Exactly: appetite and funding. Of which the UK has neither when it comes to education.

If state education was better in everyway then there'd be much less desire for private school and it'd be much easier and more publicly acceptable to abolish them.

If state education was better there would be less people choosing private schools. The first choice of school in my town in the early 1970s was the grammar. Those that passed went and there were very high rates of Oxbridge entrance. For those that failed, anyone who could afford it sent their DCs to private schools and the local private schools developed strengths in the arts and sport. The state option for the academic kids was brilliant, but unfortunately not matched by the schools for those who didn't pass. We need to find a way to improve education for all children, but until there is a good state system, we need private schools.

The reason I would choose a private school for my kids is so that they won't have to be educated alongside the little shits I had to tolerate.

Which countries manage without private schools?

Finland.
No private schools, no mandatory exams and the best education in thd world.

I've posted this link above, but posting it again as it's a fascinating read. There's no reason why the UK couldn't do the same if the political will was there.

https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2018/09/10-reasons-why-finlands-education-system-is-the-best-in-the-world

Where would the funding come from for the increased pupil numbers in state school? It would either have to come from increased taxes or decreased spending in other areas. Money doesn’t grow on trees. It wouldn’t just magically appear into the state system.

If staff pay and conditions are so much better in the state system, why are there strikes and a recruitment crisis? There are not lots of teachers moving from the private sector into the state sector. Many private teachers are more likely to move into other jobs than transfer to a state school. In fact a lot of the teachers who Mumsnet seem to think are “unqualified” actually came from private industry originally.

All that would happen is that those who pay for private education now would either move abroad (and they tend to be higher earners paying an above average amount of tax which would then be lost) or they would use their money to pay for extra tuition to get their children into selective state schools and increased house prices in catchment areas of highly performing schools.

I’m failing to understand how this benefits any pupil currently in the state system.

The reason I would choose a private school for my kids is so that they won't have to be educated alongside the little shits I had to tolerate.

This isn't the reason we've paid for private school but I take your point. Given some of the horrendous behaviour I see from kids on the tube every day, I'd hate to be a teacher.

We seem to have a growing number of kids with no respect for authority or other people and parents who let that attitude pass unchallenged. In fairness, it's not a state-only issue but private schools perhaps have more freedom to manage out the trouble makers.

It's also hard for schools with a high percentage of kids that don't speak English as a first language and aren't proficient in it. This was the case for 70% of the kids at my nephew's school which must make teaching even more challenging.

Perhaps Finland doesn't have these issues? Because poor behaviour and discipline are a barrier to academic achievement, no matter how good the school.

Finland's got about 8% the population of the UK with 16 inhabitants per km2 (we've got 276).

It's a relatively "young" country too - only been independent since 1917. It's hardly going to have historic private schools dating back to medieval times and presumably got to have a national conversation about what education should look like as it extracted itself from Russian influence.

It's a daft comparison. Apples and oranges.

EmmaGrundyForPM

Finland does have private schools.

Also anyone watching Ted Lasso would know that Finland does have private education

Again I ask which countries don’t have private schools outside of places like North Korea (certainly levelled the class divide there) and communist regimes.