To think good school places will be even harder to find next year because of the VAT on school fees

[Nesca1]

We are are looking at secondary schools for DS. We have our eye on a decent school bang in the middle of a solid middle class area . The school is always over subscribed; this year we would have gotten a place but last year we would have missed out because of how far we are from the school.
Usually, the school offers places to children living 1600m away, last year it was 1400m due to a large number of sibling applications.

Due to the whole VAT issue, i think more parents from the local area are going to be sending their kids to this school, rather than sending them to private schools.

Is this a reasonable assumption? I don't think parents will wait for the policy to be enacted, but they will move their year 6 children into this school.

I love a good divisive class topic :)

Its interesting that since the abolition in the 60s of most of the grammar schools, an excellent education has mostly been about how much money you have. Either you pay more for a better school or pay more to live near an excellent state school.

Addition of VAT on fees won't make a jot of difference to a good percentage of fee-paying parents, but it will negatively impact marginal families- so the real effect will to make private schools even more selective based on parental income.

Those parents, like my wife and I, wholly reliant on bursaries and scholarships who are already spending literally every penny on schooling, will probably withdraw our very very bright daughter who is currently excelling in a really good private school. Will she excel in our catchment schools- not a chance.

Should VAT be applied? no idea. I know lots of parents who sacrifice to send kids privately, work ridiculously hard to do so and probably can't keep affording to do so. The truly well-off won't even blink at this. So the biggest detriment is to those that are using private schools to really try and help their children improve their outcomes. Its rather unpalatable that so many on this thread will be happy not to see those children's outcomes improve.

If you are a higher-rate taxpayer with kids in private school, you are already spending thousands a year on taxes to pay for schooling that you aren't using. It seems fair that if you are spending a fortune and not using the facility, you aren't then penalised for using a private facility.

FWIW we would have much preferred to send our daughter to a good grammar school- but that ship passed many years ago. I am prepared to sacrifice just about everything to give our children a better start in life..... but then that's the basis for this VAT charge. Use successful parents nature against them.....

I know exactly what you mean with the parents. I have met similar with one even taking her kids out of school for a year so that they could go to France just to study music and come back a scholar apparently. His parents are both musicians. He hated the instrument his parents chose for him and they were back within 4 months. I knew Parents also who dropped any extra curricula activities if their kids weren’t the best at them and dropped friends if they were better than their own kids.
Its horrible.
I hated it.

We always told them to go with their heart and something that they had a passion for. It’s a long life to be bored in your work.

It would be amazing if the state system gave children more chances to explore more avenues and for children to be given an opportunity to, just occasionally fail by their parents. It’s an important part of growing up.

( appreciate not all kids are brought up the same as we have mentioned, ) but there is a growing and worrying trend……..

The point is diversifying and finding something you are interested in rather than only looking at work based on the salary.
That doesn’t mean there will never be people interested in becoming
surgeons
architects
construction workers
makers and creators

What it does mean is that more people would be happier in their jobs and we would have less people disillusioned in their work suffering from mental health issues because they chose a life not suited to them.

Who pays the taxes we need when everyone’s off with mh issues because of work.

This ⬆️. Having gone to private school, nearly all the parents could easily afford this increase. I could be wrong but I don’t think this is going to cause a big issue. For one, there are not that many private school pupils and secondly, it’ll only be a tiny minority of those whose parents will decide to send their kids to state school as a result of this policy.

Growing up, my village was catchment for three grammar schools (Bucks). Meant the house prices were very high. One house had three generations living in it just to get into catchment.
I think things like this will increase with the hike - house prices in catchment villages going up, pushing out locals etc.

I think there might be some pressure on sixth forms, but honestly, with falling birthrates in the last decade I think changes will be minimum, especially since the big change in private school pupil numbers will be among the youngest kids as parents opt for state primary schools while saving money for private secondary.

The difference between good and bad schools tends to be mainly about the intake IMO, so pushing more middle class parents into schools currently considered less-good will probably result in those schools being considered better a few years from now.

That is a ridiculous statement. Over subscribed, overstuffed huge classes will only create more academic failure! And exhausted, burnt out teachers. The cost alone is going to soar. Children are not ‘free’ to teach! All the costs paid for currently by parents in the private sector will have to be picked by the tax payer now, as will hundreds of new schools that will need to find extra space to accommodate them.

And whilst birth rates are falling in some demographics - the huge influx of immigration that will undoubtedly happen with a soft labour government, and to some extent has already happened with so many Ukrainian and HK residents, Afghan families arriving will more than make up for it.

The immediate closure of thousands of schools WILL have an enormous and negative effect up and down the country,

If VAT is brought in we will keep our DC in private until 11 and will then have to move to state as secondary will be unaffordable. Currently looking at relocating to a grammar area (my DH is from there so all our family are there) and all state schools there are better than the “requires improvement” high school we would be given here. DC have mild SEN which requires no additional support in current school but will require support in a larger class with less opportunity for physical activity during the school day.
I work in a specialist clinical role in NHS. I will be leaving that role when we move as I will need to ensure DC get the support they need for their well-being and access to activities not provided at the new school. So the nhs loses a skilled health professional and the state loses my taxes and has to pay for my DC’s education.
I feel incredibly angry that Labour policy will punish my DC, forcing a school change on them which will undoubtedly have a negative impact on their mental health but we cannot afford VAT on fees so there is no choice.
The effect of this policy won’t be seen fully for a good few years as I know several families looking to do the same as us at the next transition point.

Well it won’t because only a tiny proportion of kids are in them and only a tiny number of that tiny number of kids will need to leave them. Many private schools have big numbers of foreign students too.

Yup I would do this tbh. We aren’t in the UK but if we were and couldn’t afford the uplift I would be looking for a home in the catchment area of a grammar school.

Indeed- there tends to be a sharp difference between posters who actually have their children in indies and who are aware of how it will affect other parents and those who don't have their child in indies and make blanket assumptions about those who do

In our Indie yes there are some very rich parents- of course. But that is not the whole of it. Our school has a really good bursary programme. One of my 'mum friends' is a childminder and her child in our school thanks to a bursary which pays for part of it (and she has taken on additional work at weekends to cover the rest). She's not that unusual just in our school. She's really worried about things- her dd is in Year 9. Another has a parent who is a school teacher (not at our school-she is desperate to get a job there!) and her DH is a store manager.

Another friend IS a school teacher at the school and she has said that if it comes in and the estimated reduction in numbers happens then she is scared about her job- and the amount of a whole lot of private school teachers suddenly out of work and looking for work.

As it happens our school yesterday put out a letter saying that they will soon be circulating a letter from the Governors about a possible VAT on school fees and ways they hope to mitigate it.

We will really struggle with VAT added. We live in a pretty economically deprived area with the best schools massively oversubscribed... to the point that when I went to open day they were literally- literally- giving lessons in cloakrooms due to sheer lack of space. DS1 has SEN which the school deals with really well. The High school in our catchment area is in special measures and I have 2 friends whose children also have SEN who have taken their children out to homeschool because they were being failed so badly. I don't want to have to add to the pressures that school faces and quite possibly would home school myself- DH and I have discussed it. I'm a converyancer and that would mean me giving up work for a few years. In no way is that ideal.

Locals will be long gone las locals are in many areas for a variety of reasons so that really isn’t an argument.

Businesses can’t make changes to the way they operate? Strange opinion. But if so, then they close.

Unfortunately it’s not a stereotype, and is much, much worse than this. I left the teaching profession because it was such a toxic work environment. I naively went in to the profession thinking I would make a difference.

We can believe that funding for state schools will solve the problem, but my professional opinion is that it won’t. When you have pupils living in homes where throwing chairs is normalised behaviour, no amount of funding will make their classroom safe for their classmates. When you have parents turn up at the school gates and encourage their offspring to physically fight someone their DC got into an argument the day before, no amount of funding is going to magically resolve this.

The issue is far deeper than funding. It is the cultural environments some pupils grow up in. As I have said in previous posts, my DC are not in private education. But I will admit that my elbows are sharp when it comes to ensuring that my DC are educated in an environment where the ingrained cultures of the vast majority of their classmates align with our household’s values regarding common decency and respect in public places.

All schools will never be ‘good’ until all children are raised in homes where there is no violence, disrespect, or antisocial behaviour. Unfortunately, I don’t have the answers for this.

Do you think your SEN child will meet the entrance requirements for a grammar and also thrive there?

It really is not about state school students (except your own if that's where they end up)
With only 7% in independents. Even if quarter move it will have negligible effect t, much fewer than the number of state school vacancies

Many people, the majority in fact, face economic challenges that require lifestyle changes and house/area moves. Parents get divorced, parents are made redundant, are diagnosed with life-altering or terminal illnesses. Most people do not have the means to absorb high price hikes of any kind on even basic necessities, let alone luxury spends like private education that is only afforded to 6% of the UK’s children. If private school was such an absolute necessity to you or such a disaster that you lose, then you should have ensured it was more comfortably afforded, and if it could not be more comfortably afforded then you should not have entered your children into its system.

I don't even know where to start with this ignorant post.

School classes don't get stuffed. There is a cap. If the school has capacity they can add additional classes. If they don't they'll be allocated a place at the nearest available school.

The school gets paid per pupil. More pupils, more money.

We are not taking an 'influx' of immigrants/refugees. When people do want to come they'll generally come because they have family or know people. That doesn't tend to be in Tunbridge Wells.

Birth rates are declining. Capacity is opening up across the system. Our schools can take more children - if we stop denigrating state school teachers.

Well that’s entirely your choice. Kids with SEN of all severities up and down the country have to deal with what the state has to offer,yours will too if you can’t afford a private education the vast majority can’t. Your child isn’t any more deserving.

It’d be better to use the opportunity of lower state numbers for smaller classes.

It’s one of the reasons people pay for private, it could improve state.

What’s up with people who get satisfaction from this

I was thinking the same thing…’other kids suffer, so yours should too.’

I think that there shouldn't be any good schools or bad schools that are state funded. They should all give amazing education regardless of where they are.
If the government use the vat increase to improve schools and make private schools not needed, then I am on board for any increase.
However I'm not sure that will happen

I dont I just have a child with SEN who like the vast majority has to put up with what the state has to offer. Dragging SEN into this is pretty low.No parent of a child in the private education system gives a shit about state educated kids with SEN , they didn’t before and they don’t now so let’s be honest.

Satisfaction and limits to sympathy aren’t the same thing. It’s simply the lay of the land. Cause and effect happens.