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.

You've already explained yourself. I think she's cheeky for pushing. Repeat what you said: 'As I say, I believe that private schools are commercial not charitable organisations. Nothing against them but as you know, we picked State so I'm not really interested in campaigning for that to change or discussing it. How was your holiday?'.

Agree with everyone who says just say you’re not prepared to get into an argument about this – it was dumb if her to send it to everyone. Personally, I think this policy will do more damage than good, but I completely respect other people’s points of view on it and would never ask anyone to sign a petition

Yes she's just pushing so she can try and justify the petition/charitable status, don't get into it with them.

Inappropriate of her to send a petition to people who don't have 'skin in the game '. Certain things are always off limits in friendship groups ( Brexit, politics generally, opinions on schooling, transwomen). It never ends well unless you know in advance that everyone else is of the same opinion. Its just not worth the hassle. You've already explained to her that they are businesses not charities so that's all that needs to be said.

Private schools are not businesses, they are schools, and almost exclusively registered charities as non profit organisations.

What you are trying to do is turn them into quasi businesses to reinforce your class prejudice.

Yeah, I think it’s odd that they sent it. We could afford private school, just, and we have similar houses, holidays, car blah blah to them so I would have thought they might have realised it was a considered choice rather than we’d love to but can’t.

I’m staying out of it!

‘Private schools are not businesses, they are schools, and almost exclusively registered charities as non profit organisations’

i know, over 70% of them. A joke, right? Which is why it needs to change. Even the Tories thought about taking away the unearned ‘charity’ status.
it’s not big deal, it’s just means schools have to pay business tax and/ or VAT.

I don't know the details of how or why (obviously) but the 'big' private school near me owns half the buildings in my city... Pretty good going for a NFP I would say.

And I say that as a kid who went to private school.

Not true. I'm a single mum, band 7 nurse and will be sending my kid to the local private school. She's already at the associated nursery.

I will have to make cutbacks in other areas but to me, it's worth it.

We don't need charities to support wealthy families. If schools want to run as not-for-profits, then I have no objection to that, but I see no reason for them maintaining their charitable status.

If a private school exclusively offers fully funded places to children from disadvantaged backgrounds in order to address existing inequalities, then I am happy to support them retaining their charitable status. I do not support charitable status for schools that just offer a handful of token funded places to bright kids who will make their stats look good to the majority of wealthy paying parents.

Special schools for disabled children who do not thrive in mainstream schools have a strong argument to retain charitable status imo. I'm not aware of any other schools that deserve this status though.

You are definitely not BU to refuse to get into the argument with her.

However -
"I don’t agree with private schools at all"

This makes me laugh. Tell me, do you agree with people buying their way into privileged / advantaged state schools via expensive real estate within a catchment? It comes with the superior education ("none of those uncouth, council house types") and the ability to lord it over others on your moral high horse when actually you are doing a pretty similar thing, but via the back door!

Maybe I should make a petition about that?

I’m unsure of the details, so happy to be corrected. Don’t private schools pay VAT at the moment, but if they become business they get to claim the VAT back? Parents would be paying VAT on fees, a 20% increase would surely result in many moving to state and schools closing.
And fewer bursaries and scholarships?

Anyway, in your position, definitely don’t sign, you’ve already told her your reasons, I wouldn’t go into details.

But as was mentioned last night in the newspaper review SKY News at 10.30pm - 11pm - private schools are listed as Charities - they are not allowed to make a profit. All the money has to go into the school and any excess even can go to local state schools too. There will be pressure on state schools from people who cannot afford the extra 20% and British private schools will either close or tend to become mostly for rich foreign students. It is the smaller local private schools that will close - not Eton and Harrow.

I’m a teacher at a private school and governor at the local state primary. Private schools need to do charitable work to maintain their charitable status but you probably don’t see it. The local state is really short of money and frequently ask the private school for help maintaining grounds (they get the private school groundsmen sent round once a week for free), use of swimming pool, access to science labs and science day hosted by science teachers, use of school grounds for forest school etc. The local state primary would be in real trouble without that support which they freely acknowledge.

Your friend lacks tact and grace but I don’t support the revocation of charitable status. Between teacher employee crises, teacher’s pensions going through the roof (up to ~30% employer contribution on top of salary), gas and energy bills etc, a lot of the more affordable private schools are struggling already and will be forced to close if they revoke charitable status. Our state system wouldn’t know what hit it.

‘All the money has to go into the school and any excess even can go to local state schools too.’

bless your naïveté.

Well done Starmer for creating more division. This is what that plan would achieve. People against each other. While the really rich people would be the only ones to afford private school. While the state schools would be overloaded with pupils from private school who can’t longer afford the fees or get bursaries and scholarships revoked.

Thing is op. If all those private kids went into state the kids in state would be screwed. We don’t have enough money to educate them, build new schools , provide the teachers and materials. And a huge proportion of parents would be priced out .

so taking away the charitable status would have a major negative impact on state kids. Major. Think classes of 30 are bad, try 50. We need private schools to take the pressure off state.

so I agree with sending it to state kids parents, because the impact on their kids if it goes ahead will be horrendous.

it depends how the petition is worded but i might sign on the basis that the policy to remove charitable status is a pointless own goal for the state sector.

Exactly. I’d be racing to sign it if I was the op. It would be screwing your own kids over for a principle.

What Starmer says, and what Starmer would actually do should he come into power, may be very different things.

as far as the private school issue goes - it’s an easy promise to make and throws a bone to the Labour base (many of which aren’t going to believe he’ll actually do it, and aren’t going to like him based on this anyway).

Stripping private schools of charitable status, and they are charities according to the legal definition of the word, isn’t something he can just do.

Some good suggestions for responses previously, another option could be to just say that you're not interested in discussing it further, but that some of your thinking can be read here https://www.pepf.co.uk/ if she is interested.

It's a web site to the private education policy forum which has done a lot of research into the issue and which is behind some of the articles that have been written about it.

. The local state is really short of money and frequently ask the private school for help maintaining grounds (they get the private school groundsmen sent round once a week for free), use of swimming pool, access to science labs and science day hosted by science teachers, use of school grounds for forest school etc.

And all that stops and reverts to the sole use of pupils and for the benefit of that school ONLY.

And you wear your prejudice and ignorance with a bearly concealed, curled-lip sneer.

I had it the other way around. My children go to private school. A friend sent a fundraising message asking me to donate money for their child’s state school. They are significantly wealthier than we are (massive detached house, posh cars, both parents not needing to work).

i can’t afford that as all our funds are being spent on school fees. I wasn’t offended to be asked despite having made different decisions as to how we spent our money.

I was educated at both state and private. You would not be getting into a bun fight with her. She is bringing the fight to you, the cheeky mare!

I wouldn't be surprised if the friendship doesn't survive #SchoolGate.