To not sign friends petition about school fees ?

[Whereforartthoudave]

Or more to the point tell her why I’m not?

friend grp - 3 families out of 9 send their kids to private school. One dad has decided to start a petition re Private schools losing their charity status - as in it’s not fair if they do. His DW has sent it round this morning.

Stupidly rather than just ignore it - when she said will you sign, I said, sorry no - Private schools are businesses not charities so I agree with the proposed change.

Now she wants to know WHY exactly.

YANBU - ignore it and don’t get into a bun fight over private versus state school. I’m not judging their choices but I don’t think the schools should have tax breaks.

YABU - tell her why. The why being I don’t agree with private schools at all, but her money her choice. And think it’s laughable that they have charity status when the majority ( and this is backed up by actual stats) do virtually nothing to earn it.

Partial change of plan - letting schools keep their ‘charitable’ status which is the bit that I actually think is ridiculous but charging 20% VAT on fees.
Seems like a reasonable compromise I suppose.

Lol. It’s a bone being thrown to the left wing of the Labour Party in an attempt to keep them in line; an easy populist promise to make that can be either modified or completely rescinded. Considering Starmer’s form, neither course of action would be surprising.

Ultimately £1.6 billion, assuming that this can even be raised (dubious) is small change. Schools got an extra £2b this year from the Tories, and it barely covered pay rises for teachers and a bit extra for pupil premium. It’s not the magic bullet some seem to be imagining.

Do you think your friend would support a petition if your children’s school was under threat? Even if it didn’t directly effect her but in solidarity with you?
My children attended state schools but I support the choice of anyone to spend their money on whatever they want to. Should they be spending it on a superyacht instead?
I’m sure that many here choose to spend money on such things as 11 plus tutoring, Stagecoach, Dance lessons etc to ‘buy’ their children perceived advantages.
We are incredibly lucky to have access to free education for our children and be able to spend our earnings on other necessities and if we are lucky, luxuries.
If an institution is in the business of educating children and especially if it gives scholarships then why shouldn’t it have charitable status?

@notlucreziaborgia I'm under no illusion it's a magic bullet. Spending per pupil needs a real term return to 2010 levels. And that's on top of the capital expenditure fund required to make up for the last 14 years of under investment in buildings and equipment.

But just because it's not enough doesn't mean it shouldn't happen.

‘Do you think your friend would support a petition if your children’s school was under threat? ‘

Honestly don't see the relevance. Her school isn’t under threat, it’s one of the wealthiest in Europe. Stuffed full of minor royalty and the children of oligarchs.

@Mumofthreealldifferent I guess the difference is the school isn't 'at threat'. People will still have the choice to spend their money on private education. It's just that now they'll pay VAT on it, just like other luxury goods and services. It's just about making it fair.

You say in the opening post that this was a petition about charitable status.

Labour has U-turned already on that so you can refuse to sign on the basis that the petition is no longer needed as the policy proposal to change laws on charities has been dropped.

Doesn’t mean it should happen either, or indeed will.

Easy promise to make, easy one to renege on. Same as the promise to strip private schools of charity status.

I'm not sure why you think that think that private school parents will bully their way into schools. You sound gleeful at the prospect of them going to presumably less desirable schools. I honestly can't get on board with that attitude. It's unpleasant. You're talking about young people's lives.

Your talk of Mandarin classes has me lol. Obviously from an affluent area. No Mandarin classes where I live. We do have state schools where children don't all fit in the classroom and some have to sit in the corridor. All is not equal in the world of state education.

Well yes, I understand the financial and legal implications, but that wasn't my point. It was that the OP could ask her friend why she thinks this private school should be a charity in the first place.

‘. It was that the OP could ask her friend why she thinks this private school should be a charity in the first place.’

she doesn’t. They aren’t. And most to f all to earn any kind of status as a charity. They’re businesses selling business services to wealthy people who can afford luxuries.
She knows this. But seems to believe that anything to do with education should be given charity status as an exception.

Your friend is correct. They are charities, by the actual law. The legal definition of charity is different to what you may understand it to be.

This explains it well:
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/575bd0a740f0b66bda00000e/The_Independent_Schools_Council_v_The_Charity_Commission_for_England___Wales_and_The_National_Council_for_Voluntary_Organisation__2__HM_Antorney_General_v_The_Charity_Com_and_The_ISC.pdf

Something does not have predominantly benefit those in poverty in order to be considered charitable.

I suspect removing charity status from private schools is the right thing to to do and on that basis, the increase fees wouldn’t concern me too much. That said, I do know that the DC’s prep will not increase fees by 20% but neither will they commit to bursaries to the same extent as before. And if they’re no longer charities, I can see why that is also a fair point. So private school fees will move further out of reach for many.

‘They are charities, by the actual law.’

Yes, they are. But should they be? No of course not.
unless when you think ‘charity’ you think of a business that charges its clients 10 of thousands in fees for their services while giving away nothing for free.

However these organisations don't turn a profit and don't generally operate like a business, so it's obviously not the same as an average business, even if you feel ideologically that it isn't a charity. There are some schools who function in a more business-like way. The average fee is £15,200 which I wouldn't say is 10s of thousands. Unless you mean across an entire education, but then that would be true for state school per pupil spending as well.

Some schools are different.

Christ's Hospital in Sussex for instance - 11% of their pupils have a free place, 67% pay significantly reduced fees, and 22% pay full fees.

They take a significant number of pupils who are in foster care or with social services involvement into their boarding houses, are very ethnically and socioeconomically diverse for an independent school more so than some comprehensives in leafy areas and have excellent outcomes.

‘Christ's Hospital in Sussex’

very much the exception and not the rule.
Schools that are actually charities could be classed as such while the Winchesters, Brighton Colleges etc lose their fake tax break status.
But how much is ‘reduced’? Fees?

Our nearest local private school gives out ‘bursaries’ to 40% of students - they proudly announce. The ‘bursaries’ are not means tested and are 5% of the £19k fees.

You don’t have to be good at maths to work out that reducing fees by less than £1k isn’t going to suddenly fill the school with WC or low income pupils. Not when you factor in the fact that the essential elements of the school uniform = £700 ( £135 for a blazer anyone? School blouses that cost £35 each? School skirts that cost £70 each? Compulsory black leather shoes? )

Nor does it come close to any definition of ‘charitable’ in the real world. But it does look good in a brochure.
As does being part of the local ’community’ and ‘sharing’ facilities. the ‘sharing’ of the facilities means you can rent their facilities -
Just as you can with any of the local
State schools here. For ££.

I recently rang around the schools to see if anyone would lend us their ‘facilities’ for kids charity event.
The 4 city private schools
would rent the space for ££ only. And 1 only if their pupils were involved for their DOE too. 1 helpfully suggested charging a small fee for people coming to the event ( on top of fundraising) to cover the cost.

2 state schools would give us the space but we would need to give some ££ to cover the staff to open/ shut the grounds.About a sixth of the cost of hiring the private school grounds.
2 state schools offered their pitches for free.

we went with the free option. Obvs.

For 2019/20

£16.8m in bursaries
The average bursary was 83% off, including 93 pupils with 100% off (out of 636 receiving bursaries).
13% of their pupils are eligible for FSM
95% of their Y7 intake is from state schools
6 of their pupils are Looked After Children (this is representative of the wider population)
https://www.christs-hospital.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/Impact-Report-2019-2020.pdf

Even the Telegraph has shown figures that prove ‘charitable’ works by private schools are negligible, less than 2-% of pupils get any any kind ‘free’ education through scholarship or bursaries and that it’s the wealthiest people sending their children to private school.

Because - of course it is. With fees averaging £20k but the average pay in the U.K. around £27k who else is paying for private education??

Still, you have the money and want to spend it on private education for your kids - go for it.
Just don’t expect tax breaks and false charity status to last much longer.

Christ's hospital was literally the one school that sprang to mind as an exception.

Its a complete strawman to hold that up as evidence of charitable intentions on the part of all private schools.

There may well be one or two others that aren't on the radar except locally, but they are bringing a lot of dead weight with them. 🤣

so Had dinner last night with rhe parents, and we did get into it - not my idea or prompt but bloody helk
n

Tell us more!!!

Where did you get those figures? There’s not enough places for the children that need them. That’s a fact.

It is perfectly reasonable for your friend to ask you to sign the petition, it is your choice to sign or not, and if you want to discuss your reasons why, it is your right to ask the question - you might both end up better informed as a result.

Bear in mind that families with a child in private school still contribute 100% to state school - so paying for places that aren't even being used - this is a huge benefit to the state school system. If they leave private school for state school that benefit is lost, and state schools will need to find more places but receive no extra funds.

I have one child in private school - I put him in there because he was a target of aggressive and sustained bullying as he's very tall for his age, and there were county lines issues at his school, and he would have become a target for that. The school did their best, but the bullying was from a gang of 30 or so inner-ciy hard nuts, and it went on into Whatsapp and Snapchat. It was becoming a mental health issue. The school wanted us to pursue an ADHD/CAMS route (which would take about 2 years, and far too late for my boy), but we knew this was just their way of attracting more funds.
We couldn't put him into another state school (no places available), so private was all that was left. So, I cashed in a pension to ensure his school-fee's for the next 3.5 years.

Starma's plan to win votes by double taxing me to fund your child at state school as well as mine at private is another £9K that I cant afford, and would be a disaster for us. It'll make no difference to the super-rich, but the vast majority of kids at private are normal families with normal earnings. If the kids from regular families come out of private and in to public schools where will the places come from?

If you want to see state schools under even more burden and stretched even thinner, then by all means support Starma's idiotic half-baked plan.