To think State education is really poor?

[Boswelian]

We sent our eldest to a taster day at a private school. He was agog. His school don't allow playing on the grass when it's wet. The private school change them into waterproofs and wellies for break. PE 3x a week. Sport every day. Dedicated specialist teaching in art, DT, languages, sciences etc. 16 in a class instead of 30. The difference in the quality of life between the two school has really blown my mind. The state school is "outstanding". The private school reckon DS is 2 years behind their curriculum. We've been told in state that he's meeting expectations. How is this remotely acceptable?

They are their “ first steps” plans towards bigger plans.

You can pay additional voluntary income tax. The government has a website where you can do this. Unsurprisingly despite many people claiming they’d be happy to pay more the revenue raised via this route is almost nil.

It’s the funding. It’s been hacked away at since Con/Lib then Con party in power.

DSs went to a leafy outstanding state secondary school where the youngest finished last year.

When DS1 started in 2015 things were starting to change. Compared to just the year before, funding was cut and classes grew from 25 to 28. Many extra curriculum activities were cut apart from sports and a small number of classes which needed to be paid for. It went from if you’re interested in an activity speak to a teacher and set it up, to it’s not possible. Michael Gove changed how GCSEs worked from lots of coursework to completely exam based for lots of subjects from 2015. It seemed to me lots of schools/teachers weren’t used to working like this at first as it was brought in very quickly, and also all exams and reams of content to learn regardless of ability put more stress and pressure on children affecting their mental health.

By the time DS2 started in 2018, class sizes had permanently grown to 30 pupils. The list of extra curriculum activities had grown even smaller. SN provision was very limited due to lack of funding. For DS1s cohort, those struggling had learning support where they had the lesson once in a small group for maths and English, then again in the normal lesson. This was stopped by the time DS2 got there.

A level classes were running at 30 in a class, where at one time this number of pupils would have been split into to classes.

And this is all in a school in an affluent area with very supportive parents, many of who were more than happy to set up monthly direct debits to contribute towards school finances. I can only imagine how this must all be affecting schools not quite so lucky.

Also had a school psychologist back in 2015 who worked in a number of schools different days around the borough. He didn’t last too long until budget cuts made him too expensive to keep on.

That's a different thing entirely. The poster is talking about contributing to a government policy increasing taxes to fund education and healthcare. Not some random individual voluntary payment.

Wow so we’ve switched from the tiny number of private kids who may leave hoovering up all the grammar places to now all being SEN.

As I said it’s just scaremongering driven by fee paying parents. Even journalism is unfairly over represented by the privately educated.

There’s always an excuse when the virtue signalling is called out.

I’m pretty sure you can’t know for certain what the outcome will be, if it’s ‘scaremongering’ or not.

I think it’s yours they’re after.

Where have I said ALL SEN? The screen shots from the I gives figures and is an independent paper.
There are actually concerns around: how will the state fund any DC who leave private schools, the impact on the 100,000+ kids with SEN who the state can't provide for plus the Heads of grammars being concerned about the impact on their schools. You realise there can be more than 1 strand to an argument?
You are so dismissive, are you Rachel Reeves because you have the same tunnel vision, not hearing the argument approach.
Funnily enough many Labour Prospective MPs don't support the policy either but daren't go against the Leadership. Not sure what that says for democracy 🤔 More bothered about getting into power than representing the views of their constituents.

You don’t have a clue about how parents will react because you are not faced with the same choices.

If I decide not to use PS I could easily leave a 500k hole in public finances. That is 1 child. You don’t need many to do likewise before this policy becomes a disaster for tax payers.

Because it is always easier to spend other people's money than your own

“More bothered about getting into power than representing the views of their constituents.”

And we’ve not seen that before have we.😂

People are allowed to disagree with you.

As people are allowed to disagree with you

If they want. I still think VAT on private education is a long over due good idea and I don’t think I’m alone in that.

Even journalism.... I don't like to shatter illusions but most journalists, and almost all columnists, have degrees from top RG universities now, followed by the NCTJ course. Many write on subjects in which they are degree-qualified. There was in the 1970s a pathway for others from less academic backgrounds via YTS on a local rag and progress to Fleet St. A friend's son is doing a Masters in writing now, and his best shot at employment is following up with a PGCE.

As a PP said, without Brexit, Labour could not even propose VAT on school fees without imposing the same treatment for nurseries and universities. Education per se either bears VAT or it doesn't. There should be no cherry-picking.

Over half (54 per cent) of journalists are educated in private schools, despite only accounting for 7 per cent of schools overall.

People tend to favour taxes that others have to pay.

I’d be interested to know why you think such a tax is long overdue considering it is illegal to levy such a charge in the EU and no other country in the world has a similar tax imposed on education. Are they all wrong to act like that? That seems incredibly unlikely.

Other countries don’t seem to be so crippled by the inequalities private education causes in this country.

In a long list of ridiculous replies this is one of your finest!

https://amp.theguardian.com/society/2019/jun/25/britains-top-jobs-still-in-hands-of-private-school-elite-study-finds

You can pay additional voluntary income tax. The government has a website where you can do this. Unsurprisingly despite many people claiming they’d be happy to pay more the revenue raised via this route is almost nil.

Yes. Posters quite often claim they’d happily pay more tax but apparently only 15 people in UK paid more tax last year.

That's not true. You are conflating two totally different things.

Can you explain how this is crippling the country?

Are all judges incompetent? Are all actors rubbish? Would England have won more test matches if they’d picked more state school educated players?