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.

Will no one think of the (state-school) children?

I think you will see it making a big difference in some cities especially in the SE where people are in catchment for good secondaries but are currently choosing private. PP say that an extra 20% isn't much - it's not just about whether it's affordable, it forces people to revisit whether they view private as worth the money compared to other options. 20% more is a lot more viewed with that lens. Anecdotally I know more than one family that's put themselves on continued interest list for their in catchment ofsted outstanding secondary.

Combine it with the mad policy of universities' attitudes to state 6th form, you already get people moving to state for 6th form - a catchment area of £1m+ houses for our nearest one means these kids are no less privileged than private kids.

The money from vat should mean that there are more 'good' state schools

Just like the £350m per week for the NHS thanks to brexit eh?

There is a very high % of privately educated pupils in my borough, and catchment areas are very small for most of the schools.

It wouldn’t take many extra pupils to tip the balance - I remember in a high sibling year recently, kids on my street couldn’t get into the geographically closest primary.

Albeit - having been very oversubscribed for a number of years, some of the schools are struggling to fill places due to dropping birth rate / families moving out due to cost of etc.

So it may work in some schools favour!

I can't see how it's not going to have a massive impact on Edinburgh secondary schools, where 1 in 4 kids are privately educated.

I think this will happen and probably is already happening. Private schools have had to hike their fees anyway due to cost of living etc - they have to pay utilities, buy stuff etc. So another potential 20% hike is going to make it a really daunting prospect, to enrol a kid in private.

It’s such a simplistic view to think that something can be taxed for a money grab with no unintended consequences. I don’t know why so many people blindly support it.

The govt can’t grab money from people who cannot or will not pay it. Those people will take state places. And others will be pushed out.

September's y7 is a massive bulge year, which will account for most of the shrinkage of catchment. After this year, numbers head down sharply.

Very likely. Many will re-evaluate their plan, particularly those who have/had two minds.

There is a surge of students using tuition services to prepare for grammar school this year (data from a very large tuition company).

In non-grammar area, parents now have more incentives to spend more money on house in stead of fees.

There will be problems in Bristol and Edinburgh.

Private schools going on strike? Really? Where?

Yup. I'd get out my world's smallest violin but I had to hock it due to general cost of living.

I have zero fears about any of this having much impact on most people.

We send DC to private primary and were considering both private and grammar for secondary. The VAT proposal demotivates us for private although we could afford the increase. Now we prefer grammar instead.

If we lived in a non-grammar area, we would invest in house with good catchment.

I have a relative working in a private school. Even a 5% decline in pupil numbers will send that school under. They have no idea what to do. The head teacher is resigning. There is no way they can absorb even a small fraction of the VAT hit. They are already in breach of their debt covenants.

This isn’t uncommon. You can say they have managed their finances badly if you like, it doesn’t make any difference to the outcome, which will be to fold.

You are correct in saying that the numbers of kids having to leave/not enter private will be comparatively small. But these kids are not evenly spread across the country. Some areas will have major problems. Some areas won’t be affected at all.

I would think that any parent with a child at a transition point who is considering moving to/remaining in the private sector should:

1. Test affordability on the basis that the full 20% goes on fees from 24/25, and for the fees themselves to continue to rise above inflation. If they are relying on a bursary or scholarship they should look very closely at the conditions. They might be lucky and find that the school can make savings or Labour alter the policy but schools are under a lot of pressure with energy and pensions so prudent planning would be for this as the reasonable worst case scenario.
2. Look even more closely than usual at the financial viability of the school and how that would change if there is a drop in the number of pupils.
3. Question the leadership team on what they will do in response to VAT and/or falling numbers and test whether this changes the desirability of the option. E.g. if it's likely the school will merge with another local private, does that change the picture.
4. If the move is based on the child's SEN needs, look closely into the possibility that they could get a EHCP (or equivalent) and start that as soon as possible given the delays that are already in the system.

It'd be very suprising if the policy doesn't impact the choices of some parents.

Many of those children will likely disperse to other independent schools rather than state schools. Others may enter local state schools. The forced refocus on state education was always going to be difficult – but it's necessary. Change is hard, but 'hard' isn't a reason for it not to happen.

Grammar School heads are already warning about this OP.

There will no doubt be a period of adjustment that will be more pronounced in some areas than in others, but that doesn't stop this being the right thing to do - private education is a luxury and should be taxed as such.

The only real issue is that this won't actually touch the people we should really be going after, namely the 1%\super rich. Better would be too get rid of private schools altogether. Best would be to tax these people properly and reduce the wealth chasm (as it's no longer just a gap).

The timing is unfortunate, hopefully Labour will wait a few years until demographic changes make this less of an issue.

I don’t really know how relevant these super rich are. They can just emigrate?

Perhaps, perhaps not.
But also - what if this brings the change the schools need for the government to actually care about state schools?
We don’t need to cancel the VAT plan, we don’t need private schools - we NEED to value education for all our kids and start ensuring all state schools
are good .

What mad policy regarding state schools? You don’t immediately get a lower offer, you know. It has to be a quite poorly performing school; Universities also look more at area, as in post code. Going to a state school guarantees nothing in terms ot Uni applications.

Your UCAS application also shows where you sat GCSEs so moving to state for sixth form isn’t such a brilliant trick.

What an appalling attitude. This thread is about the impact on children at state schools, not the impact on private school children. You may not believe having additional children in the state system will have any effect where you live but to say you don't care about others is really nasty.

All it will do is impact middle earners and extend the inequality gap as only the truly wealthy will be able to afford private schools.

In our city the 3/4 ‘good’ schools are oversubscribed but there are lots of places available in the others. And honesty? They aren’t ‘bad’ by any stretch of the imagine…