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

Has the OP answered about what would happen to children who need to board? State boarding schools?

CBA to scroll through the OPs gag paper guesses on school funding and total lack of understanding of human behaviour.

Parents who are not rich deserve to have children who are educated at a high standard too. Especially today when income is less and less a reflection of hard work.
I never said otherwise. I was replying to a poster who was talking about values.

Would be better for climate change if children went to their most local school.
I agree, though all that will happen is that more house price inflation will happen around the in demand schools. It's already the case that you need to have access to a house in the right area to get the best schools in many areas. This fact is usually overlooked on threads about private/state education.

Based on my experience in the state sector, private schools aren't the big issue. Over a decade of deliberate austerity, cutting a huge range of services around children and families to the bone, and leaving schools to plug the gaps are the problems. Huge academy chains with multiple layers of central management, lots of executive principals and so on are a problem. Choosing to direct taxpayers' money to mates for various dodgy contracts in various areas instead of addressing many social issues that have a huge knock on effect on health and education is a problem.

The fact Mr and Mrs Smith send Daniel to a prep school isn't the reason Mr and Mrs Brown's child on the same street hasn't got a maths teacher or the local MAT has decided it's not going to offer GCSE art.

I agree with the previous post, although Mr and Mrs Smith's decision may obviously relate to wanting to avoid the situation Mr and Brown are in.

People seem to assume the customers of private schools all do so for social reasons and of course some do, but there's a significant customer group wanting provision that the state sector can't or won't provide, whether that be boarding, the arts, SEND support, particular types of academics or sports, small scale environments, reliable wraparound or simply an appropriate school place without buying a specific house.

I look at a lot of ISI inspection reports and it's not unusual to find 1/3rd SEND on roll in small independent schools.

Agree with the Sen point. My son is in our “local” autism school which is a 20 mile round trip twice a day which the council pay me mileage for doing. We happen to have a small independent school about two miles away. It’s not suitable for my son as his needs are too high but there’s alot of autistic kids who go there as the class sizes are small and they can be more flexible. Most of these kids don’t have ehcps as parents have chosen to spend on school fees rather than time/effort and money of fighting the la for a suitable provision.

I think the best approach would be for state schools to be well funded, with excellent facilities, extra curricular activities and plenty of support for all SEN, including SBD (social and behavioural difficulties)

In that case, private schools might fizzle out, as parents wouldn't perceive them to be worth while

But, it won't happen unless / until those in power care enough about equality

I doubt very much that private schools will ever 'fizzle out'. There will always be parents who want something state schools don't offer.

There's a chance that your average small town private schools will fizzle out or become less common in my opinion, and I'm sure some people will pat themselves on the back for it happening, but the top end independent schools that serve the very wealthy aren't going anywhere any time soon. All it does is remove choice for people in the middle (remembering that other people in the middle already pay through the nose for houses in the right catchment and spend a fortune in private tutors, coaches and enrichment opportunities).

I think people are kidding themselves if they think that reducing middle class parents in middle of the road jobs exercising parental choice is going to stop the pipeline of old boys networks from the most expensive independent schools.

This is a very valid point @LolaSmiles - tinkering with the tax like this will not touch the sides of the spare funds of the families who use the poshest schools with fees of £40kpa. It will be those of us scraping together £15kpa for a bearable school where the local alternative is awful who will get forced out. The old boy network will be unaffected.

Some families attending the £40k miss it as if it's £40 a year. School I used to work at was £35k, and we had families sending 3+ kids at a time.

I agree a bit like private healthcare. State schools will never match private as the funding is never enough- it isn’t that the money isn’t there. The govt don’t want to fund for the cattle classes. Why should/ would they give more than bare minimum? Shutting private won’t help a ditty.

Thought experiment:

This is a massive oversimplification with random guesses for numbers but trying to formulate an ethical way for private schools to be genuinely charitable.

Suppose the country's population is broadly made up of about a third people who aren't really academically minded and don't want an in-depth education, just the basics prior to learning a practical trade, about a third of people who value education but are of medium potential and unlikely to be "high flyers" and about a third of people who are aiming to be in the elite of the highest of academic performance and achievement potential.

A basic state education is sufficient for the first 2 categories and it's inappropriate for twxes to be set high enough to provide via the state a fantastic level of more in-depth education for everyone who could benefit. The families in that final category may be willing to pay the taxes for a brilliant education but the majority don't support that and wouldn't benefit from it.

Currently it's mainly only those with the means to opt out of the state system who get to access a higher tier of education. Plus modest scholarships&bursary recipients.

What about if private schools could only keep their charitable status if they start having variable means-tested fees where the fees paid by the wealthiest are sufficient to ensure that everyone with the capacity to benefit is able to attend, with fees set at zero for the poorest, no more than £3-£4k per year for those on median incomes but gradually increasing to over £80kpa for the wealthiest.

I think you've reinvented the old Assisted Places scheme...with a dash of the old local authority system...

But I don’t think this is true. There is another way to become a private school teacher that just involves working in a private school for a couple of years, I think it’s called something starting with a G? I remember reading about it when I considered getting into teaching. So you have no official qualifications that would enable you to work in a state school….

@KaihahUmoniiv ,

That is just grammar schools revisited.

The problem is that the system is massively gamed. I briefly taught at a grammar and it was sad seeing the amount of kids who had wall-to-wall tuition to pass the entrance exam and who struggled as soon as any of this was removed.

Grammar schools originally were brilliant for social mobility, but have subsequently been gamed by the middle classes as ‘cheap’ private schools-pay for 10 hours or tutors per week from 10-12 years old and then have a free education.

Your suggestion would just achieve the same at private schools with the ‘poorer’ applicants just paying for tutors in order to have the very rich pay their kids’ fees.

ThePenIsBlue
There is an assessment only route to QTS that is sometimes used. GTP was an on the job training route which might be what you're thinking about.

Almost no child in the UK has the right to a qualified teacher anymore though as it was scrapped years ago when academies and free schools were introduced. I know of GCSE classes being taught by teaching assistants employed as unqualified teachers.

@ThePenIsBlue ,

You don’t have to have QT status to teach in a private school, but the vast majority of teachers do have it.

If you are thinking of the SCITT scheme, this does lead to QT status.

To be fair the PGCE is only 9 months (sep to jun) and is not ludicrously expensive. It is not analogous to doctors who go and work in the private sector after many years of work expensive training with the NHS.

I would love to see private education in all sectors, including SEN, ceased in favour of a return to state funded education for all. I'd do away with academies too. All schools back into local authority control with well provisioned SEN hubs in most schools and excellent specialist provision, transparent and accountable under LA directive.
School funding to reflect local need and social and economic deprivation index, to a greater extent than pupil premium currently does.

I think property prices is a red herring in as much as this already happens to the point of exclusivity: there is no way I could afford to buy into my DCs primary catchment anymore. DCs secondary school now offers all its places based on 'lottery' style admissions so have an intake which is not linked to location of residence. It's brilliant, entirely disrupts the formation of 'postcodes of privilege' and ensure a diverse intake from a range of backgrounds. I wish more schools did this, especially at secondary, where children are more likely to be able to travel independently to school.

@Nimbostratus100 , better-off parents already choose to live in the catchment areas of good state schools - this is far from a new thing.
There are two excellent grammar schools near here, people move into the area for this very reason, and house prices are correspondingly ££££.

@Shinyredbicycle Plenty of private school teachers qualify through non-state funded routes. University of Buckingham are just one example of a non-state funded qualification route:

https://www.buckingham.ac.uk/find-a-course/?textsearch=pgce&title=PGCE%20courses

These courses are used by many Academies as well as private schools. Also, many teachers across state and private are not fully qualified.

My DCs had some excellent unqualified teachers - they were experts in their subjects and had a lifetime's experience of teaching.

To be honest, I have found the academic side of the teaching qualification itself is fairly meaningless in the classroom. It requires the student to write a few essays on educational theory, much of which the poor overworked state school teacher has little opportunity to use. Its main useful purpose is to provide training, experience and assessment in the classroom hence the fast-track 'assessment only' route for experienced teachers who find the actually need or want a qualification.

Private education is great for our economy:

"Together independent schools contribute £16.5 billion to the UK economy, supporting 328,000 jobs and £5.1 billion in tax revenues. And the sector
saves the government £4.4 billion every year by educating pupils who would otherwise take up a place in state-funded schools." (Oxford Economics, 2022)

The indirect contribution is even greater as many foreign privately-educated students go on to attend our universities.

Private schools exist in almost all countries around the world, but the difference in some places is that the local population would not choose these schools as the quality of education is often lower or the curriculum is offered in English (eg. International schools) rather than the native language or in some cases they are specialist schools, eg, music-based.

Most countries have not prevented private education, but the most successful (e.g. Norway) have made sure the state offering is preferable. In my view, this is the only way to achieve a good education for all. We need to make private education unnecessary.

@Shinyredbicycle I work in an independent school and we have a few trainee teachers every year. Not all are trained by the state.

I did a PGCE in state schools and worked in two comprehensives for 16 years. Moved to the independent sector a few years ago but the state has definitely had its moneys worth from me. I would be doing something other than teaching if I hadn't moved to the independent sector. Was exhausted and worn down by behaviour management being such a huge part of the job, never mind the micromanagement from SLT.

So OP, yes if more kids join a state school then the school get more money as they get money per pupil. In reality that money may not actually cover the cost of the creation of the extra classroom/teachers etc so the school has to stretch to cover. For some schools there's the possibility that this injects some life into the school but for many schools this may just mean huge class sizes etc.
You'll also have to contend with the postcode games that people will play to secure their choice of state school.

But remember that unless taxes go up or unless the government alter how they spend on education then the actual funding doesn't really go up. The increase the school gets just covers the cost of educating that extra child but doesn't cover the costs of building new classrooms or providing extra facilities etc. That would need extra money.

We can see from the NHS crisis that just because a service is much loved and in crisis it doesn't necessarily result in extra money. And decades of underfunding such as schools have had means that extra increases may go towards mending leaking roofs and not towards actually improving educational outcomes.

Finally you have the challenge of "forcing" people out of choice. So by all means discuss whether they are charities or not but forcing them to close is a different ball game and where you draw the line (eg homeschooling, faith schooling) becomes problematic too

DCs secondary school now offers all its places based on 'lottery' style admissions so have an intake which is not linked to location of residence. It's brilliant, entirely disrupts the formation of 'postcodes of privilege' and ensure a diverse intake from a range of backgrounds. I wish more schools did this, especially at secondary, where children are more likely to be able to travel independently to school

I broadly like the idea of lottery catchments to avoid those with money pushing up house prices. But there are environmental.issues in getting children across towns to their allocated school, and in areas of deprivation, problems paying for that transport for many families. There's also something not quite right with siblings in different schools where it is forced rather than a parental decision.

I haven't read the whole thread so apologies if someone's already mentioned Finland. Considered one of the very best education systems in the world with, I believe, no private provision. I think it's very interesting to consider different models that could offer a more equitable education for all students.
I can't see it ever happening here though, sadly. I think the system is too entrenched and those in power have little personal incentive to change it.

@TheMotherSide There's never, ever been a period of history when the state was the sole provider of education. On the contrary, all early educational foundations like Grammar schools were either religious or funded by private sponsors. The Dame Schools of the early Victorian era were fee-paying. The first mention of education in law was 1870 and free universal provision to the age of 10 arrived in 1891.