To think that there would be less anti private school

[Poopoolittlekitten]

sentiment or threads on MN if people using private school were a tiny bit more self aware and didn’t ask for sympathy for rising fees or possible rising fees if Labour take away their false ‘charity’ status?

send your kid private if you want, just don’t come moaning about the costs or claim than anyone can go private if they ‘prioritise’ their child’s education they way you do. Particularly at a time when state school teachers are striking over pay and conditions.
And many, many people are working their socks off just to keep a roof over their family’s head.

YANBU - stop whining and looking for sympathy about your fees!

YABU - my milkman sends his 4 kids private by ‘prioritising’ their education so it’s not just for whiny poshos….

Check out the school system in Germany. It's a pretty strong indicator.

So MN is only for some people?

So there are no parents in the state system currently who have money, power and influence? Why aren’t they able to change it? Of course these parents already exist in the state system. They support their own schools and make sure that those are good, ignoring the others. You effectively end up with state funded private schools. A lot of Labour politicians harp on about how they use the state sector - a quick delve into the details shows that they are often selective schools in areas with high house prices. They don’t tend to be the schools with a high level of deprivation. Private school parents would just move to the highly performing schools (or would home school, or move to schools abroad). It would make no difference to the standard of the majority of the state sector.

The old chestnut that 'oh but state school children get private tuition' has already been alluded to on this thread. Here is a report which shows that extra private tuition is actually concentrated among families already paying for private schooling https://www.suttontrust.com/our-research/shadowschooling-private-tuition-social-mobility/.
There are more recent reports too.. tho the most recent one has to point out that the tutoring programme set up as a Covid catch up has skewed figures.

I saw the thread about the huge increase in fees, and the OP who was treated horribly for asking if the huge increase was normal.

There seems to be an assumption that all PS parents are so wealthy that those increases each year are insignificant.

My DS is in yr 5 at a prep school, fees when we joined were $11k py, just increased to $15.5k py. That's a huge amount.

We live in an area where the public system is terrible and this is the cheapest (private catholic therefore subsidies from the church) meant we had this as an option.

I'm a single parent, and budget tightly while prioritising my sons education and will find the extra but it was a huge increase and unexpected.

There's so much generalisation on private schools here, most parents are making sacrifices for their children's education and have budgeted accordingly, so when huge increases come along it's doable but with further sacrifices to be made.

"Read the room"

You mean the 'room' of potentially billions of of people of all demographics, cultures, economic circumstances, locations and ages across the U.K and the entire planet - a.k.a the internet?

5-9% of children attend private schools in Germany, depending on whether you are looking at primary or secondary. The private schools are more closely monitored by the state, but they have generous state subsidies. In addition, a large proportion of private school fees are tax deductible. UK parents pay their school fees from taxed income.

In addition, at secondary level, the state system is split so that the education is much more tailored - with the more academic children going to different schools.

I’m not sure that many UK parents would agree that this system was a good one, although I’m sure a lot of private school parents would be in favour of it.

MN: 'Private school parents just don't get that most people can't afford private schools just by scrimping and saving!'

Also on MN: 'Why are you complaining you can't afford the fee increases? You should budget!'

You may hope your children would thrive no matter the school they attended, but plenty of otherwise able children do indeed sink in a school that doesn’t support them. I imagine most parents, if they have the option of doing so, would prioritize their children over political principle, rather than sacrifice them in the name of said principle.

’thick posh children get sent to private school to spoon feed them into getting good grades’ is a common jibe used against private school, as if a school supporting their students to realise their full potential is a bad thing, rather than what they’re supposed to do. Is it better for school to be a trial by fire, then? Is it preferable for a child to succeed despite their school?

it’s not just about outcome, but the whole school experience. Even if your child is one that succeeds despite their school, would you not want your child to have actually have had a school experienced they enjoyed? Or is education a right that children must have to fight to achieve?

and yes, the majority of people don’t have that option of providing private schooling. I don’t see why that means that those that do have the option, shouldn’t. They’re the ones responsible for their own children, and most parents do indeed favour their own children, and would provide their children the best they could.

My memories of growing up were that there were nice local libraries and opportunities were affordable. My musical friends paid a few pounds a week to go to the council run Saturday music school. Sure, it was a middle class area, but 'middle class' could include taxi drivers etc. who'd managed to get a property in the more affordable parts of the town. Perhaps I'm romanticising, but I definitely remember it wasn't all about the very richest being able to afford things.

It's not about the very richest it's about the very poorest and they oftentimes aren't accessing any of those things.

It's amusing that you think 'coyld include taxi drivers' etc is your view of not so well off.

There would be less moaning about privates schools if people stopped being so jealous and got on with their own lives instead of comparing themselves to others.

Sending your child to private school is often met with disdain even if you say nothing about it.

My DS goes to private school precisely because he's NOT academic. His school is very sporty (which he likes) and doesn't have SATs. There's a lot less pressure. I don't want him to go to private school so he can go to Oxbridge or become a politician or lawyer. But private school is where he's less anxious and stressed - and I'm extremely privileged to have the money to send him there (although it is tight).

There are many many reasons parents send their children to private school and I get why they don't get any sympathy - I certainly don't expect any. But until we start to understand the real reasons parents choose private schooling (beyond 'I want my children to be better than everyone else') then maybe we can fix state education, because unfortunately, it's failing a lot of children.

Sorry, I don't quite follow. What question are we trying to answer? Yes, the very poorest would struggle with the instrument lessons because the instrument itself is expensive, and the cost of hire is often not worth it (could have bought the instrument in a year!). So are you suggesting that nobody should send their children to a council subsidised music school because the very poorest couldn't afford it?

Why is that amusing? I was giving that as an example of someone who has quite an ordinary job that doesn't require a degree, but hasn't been priced out of what you might call a 'middle class' area.

Labour are abandoning one pledge after the other to make society more equal; so the scrapping of VAT status of private schools is probably not going to happen anyway. BBC News - Labour set to ditch pledge for free university tuition, Starmer says
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-65454944

Yes because, despite the mantra on here that we could afford everything the public want if we just ‘tax the rich’, even Labour knows we can’t.

Yes I saw that. He’s clearly planning to do something though. I wonder if they will means test it.

"We are looking at options for how we fund these fees. The current system is unfair, it doesn't really work for students, doesn't work for universities."
Labour will "set out a fairer solution" in the near future, he said.
He said: "University tuition fees are not working well, they burden young people going forward.
"Obviously we have got a number of propositions in relation to those fees that we will put forward as we go into the election.”

Keir Starmer has also praised private schools as contributing a ‘huge amount to the country’ and stated he has no interest in banning them.

I would be interested in finding the percentage of MPs that send their children to private school too, whatever their party. A significant number, I imagine. I suspect there’s not quite the the appetite to attack private education that some are imagining.

I am not interested in which school a minority of children go to. I am sick and tired of all politicians in this country using health, education and house prices to further their own agenda.

I am far more interested in how we will manage environmental issues, our ageing population going forward and how we will use technology to that end, in an ethical way. The long term stuff is far more interesting including all the A&I ethical concerns and data and illness and how long we keep people alive for and at what cost. I also want to understand our role in the future on the world political stage and how we will protect ourselves with key industries and some self sufficiency. I want to know how we are going to make our population feel happier and more secure again and how we will regulate the media without infringing free speech. I want to understand how we will incentivise people to be kinder to each other and happier. That is what I am most interested in.

‘My DS is in yr 5 at a prep school, fees when we joined were $11k py, just increased to $15.5k py. That's a huge amount. ‘

sure, but use a business service then expect to pay.

Were you bullied at school, OP? Because I really can't figure out what this thread is actually about ....

This is a country where a top politician publicly stated that ‘the British people have had enough of experts’ i.e they’ve had enough of educated people. In my mind he was calling the British people thick, but 52% of people who voted in the EU referendum heard that, cheered and rushed to vote Leave.

I think there needs to be a wider, more honest conversation on how much value is placed on education in this country, not just by politicians but by the wider public. I don’t think taxing a small percentage of parents will fix some of the issues to be honest.

Perhaps related to the idea that an education in 'life' is more useful than 'expert' (academic) knowledge? Those tshirts saying 'Ididn'tgoto University' were popular for a while. Is this a peculiarly English idea?