Private school vs private anything educational

[stopitstopitnooow]

If you have an issue with private schools, why? Do you have an issue with:

Buying houses in expensive catchment areas
Extracurricular activities such as music lessons, swimming, sports coaching
Tutors; language, 11+, GCSE

(Also, private healthcare, dentists, opticians)

I honestly don't understand the angst when it comes to private schools. Let people spend their money however they see fit.

Why can't we do that? Genuine question.

Why is Cornwall only 5K per annum?

Most of the UK is around £5k - London schools get more because of London weighting on staff salaries.

Sorry my attention has been stolen by the lady who wants to turn a horse into a unicorn!

The local authorities have a degre of control over funding and the PC allocated funding per child is a third less than in most of London. Devon is similar. Not fair, oviously, but we also have disproportionate % of aged adults needing care because for decades people have wanted to retire here. Once they've paid council tax for more than 10 years, it's hard to refuse funding for care.

555 per month! Woah.

I've family teaching in Devon. My aunt taught JK Rowling's children. Little girl said to aunt when she saw Harry Potter book "My Mummy wrote that". Aunt smiled as it was first day of reception - she got the shock of her life when JK Rowling waited at home time!

It's never an even playing field. The SW is a lovely place to live (once you have found a house, which isn't easy). But because it's fairly low income, anyone earning a public sector salary, even a nurse or a junior teacher, is earning better and more secure wages than anyone doing seasonal work. And there's lots of summer work, and much less in winter. For that reason, we don't have quite as acute a shortage of nurses and teachers as other areas. A teaching job in the SW is still likely to be much more hotly competed for than one in London.

@DragonMama3

Thats a much broader question that in the UK involves politics due to the electoral system (FPTP).

In order to properly fund education, you will have to reduce spending on the old (pensions, healthcare, social care) because they are increasingly eating into public budgets.

One of the drivers of why public investment into state school education has been eroded is that the Tories have chosen to increase tax transfers to the old over investment into the young (54% of tax transfers now go to the old and this is increasing due to the UKs aging demographics).

Until the UK faces down the Grey vote (either by sending them less money or taxing them) I don't expect much to change.

Until young people get off their arses and exercise their votes @Bouncing, they don't influence the outcomes. That is plain. When you vote, you make the choice. If you don't bother to vote, then you have zero right to complain about the result.

And I don't disagree with most of what you wrote. Education is underfunded.

But as a person of 67, partially retired, I am most definitely still paying tax every month.

@Papyrophile

Vote for what?

Both parties are basically in thrall to the pensioner vote in order to retain power. And because of FPTP, they can achieve majorities with sub 40% of the national vote.

There is quite literally no escape now for young people.

You will see fairly soon dozens of local authorities issue Section 114 notices because they are close to bankruptcy (due to adult social care costs)

The UK has to make a choice. It needs to invest in education to enhance producticity.

Without that productivity, there is zero chance of paying the pensions, healthcare, and social care of the old due to demographics.

The UK is essentially sleep-walking into a demographic doom-loop.

Aside from the impact of cultural differences, Scandinavian countries benefit from great mineral wealth, and that generated from other natural resources. They’re also larger countries with lower populations spread out over a wider area. The UK is not in the same position.

My parents are both from countries where private schooling was inaccessible. What that meant is that there were elite gymnasia that admitted children whose parents could afford the bribes, or had the right connections. Those children whose parents had neither went to vocational schools.

@BouncingJAS Probably inevitable that the grey vote and pound is the politicians' priority. Thanks to the NHS and medical advances, people live much longer now. At 67, both my parents are still going (fairly) strong at 89 and 90, and I had three living grandparents at 40. Being so numerous, those generations are dominating the political weather.

Of course, it doesn't make it right but the same dynamic is playing out in most developed countries across Europe and Asia.

But when the last of the 1930s-born and the boomers die, there's going to be a cascade of inheritance and a glut of property. Or so I have read.
(edited to include my parents' ages.)

‘Our current government are all almost exclusively privately educated.
Says it all really.
Are you stating that they're superior? By virtue of their HMC school status?’

selfish, self interested, racist, concerned only with protecting their wealth and those of their friends, running public services like the NHS into the ground so they can privatise and profiteer, starving state schools of money & resources, destroying state pensions, obsessed with ‘small boats’

No. I’m not suggesting that they’re superior, I’m suggesting that privately educated politicians from wealthy backgrounds are dangerously out of touch with what ordinary people need and value, care even less, and that they aren’t fit to govern.
Strutting about with private school confidence is not the same as being competent.

I went to a state school and don’t resent private schools. I think that a lot of people who can’t afford private education simply feel annoyed at the thought that other people’s children may get an advantage over theirs. Smaller classes, better behaviour, extra curricular opportunities etc. It seems unfair and they don’t like it. It’s about competition and them wanting to have what they think is an even playing field. If everyone had no choice but to go to a mixed ability state school then that would feel fairer.

Thing is, it’s impossible to have any sort of even playing field for children. I’ve seen talented children in state schools unable to play football after school or attend music lessons due to a lack of a car or money for lessons. I rarely see state school parents feeling bad about the children who have no family car or money to go to ballet or football summer schools. There’s inequality absolutely everywhere. That’s life. Wanting to stop others from having things just because we don’t have them / can’t afford them is jealousy imo. That said, I understand why people feel we should still do what we can to level things by having a one tier system of schooling.

I rarely see state school parents feeling bad about the children who have no family car or money to go to ballet or football summer schools.

You need to mix with some nicer people, then.

indeed, although ill add it would help if everyone studyed their political choices as detailed as possible

I’m not talking about my friends, most of whom I’ve met in the last twenty years while working in pupil referral units and inner city comprehensives. I’m a teacher with twenty years’ experience of working with some very disadvantaged children and see first hand how much they miss out on. Sad thoughts don’t actually help. But thanks for your reply, supposed ‘nice person’.

I wouldn't recommend that anyone counts on an inheritance. These days everything may well be swallowed up in care home fees.

Only about 15% of the age 85+ population live in care homes and only about a third of those are self-funding so that's only about 5% of the age 85+ population whose legacies are being depleted. The other 95% are able to pass on the majority of their assets. The average estate size is £334,000 so that's plenty of inheritance most of which is well below the IHT threshold.

I still wouldn't risk it. Imagine someone making poor financial choices on the basis that they'll get their inheritance to bail them out. Then granny doesn't die as promptly as they hoped for thought or she decides that Cat Protection are more deserving. It should be treated as an unplanned windfall, not an expectation.

@DdraigGoch I agree with you in terms of the financial decisions of amy one individual, but your comments were in direct response to this:

But when the last of the 1930s-born and the boomers die, there's going to be a cascade of inheritance and a glut of property.

and statistically speaking the vast majority of estates will neither be swallowed by care home fees, or by IHT but will be spread around younger generations. The proportion of estates that get left to cat homes and donkey sanctuaries is real but won't particularly rise or fall on a statistical level so the generational shift in wealth distribution as the baby boobers die off will be significant.

Obviously, relying on an inheritance is not a substitute for earning your own living. And care home fees may change the sums: DMIL's 30 months in care cost £120k.

Out with friends last night, 4 have state schooled kids, 2 send kids to the same local private school and we’re banging on about what snobbish twats the parents and kids are at the private school.
Not sure what they expected! They’re leaving there kids there though.