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.

@Hakeje I think you are indulging in hyperbole like many on this thread.
Pay the extra school fees - nearly all of you will, or do not. But understand the vast majority of the population do not care either way. They simply want fairness in tax. And private schools having a tax advantage has always been a blatant nonsense.
The vast majority of the population support this Labour policy. And Labour look likely to be elected. So I would advise some financial planning. If you are on the edge financially you can always sell up and buy a cheaper house, work more hours, look for promotion, or take in a lodger.
If you posted your income and outgoings on a post I am sure people would be happy to make suggestions about how you could save enough money to pay the increase in school fees that are coming.

Its presumably a bit of a problem in some London boroughs and bits of Bristol and maybe other cities in the South. And perhaps in Kent and Essex for anyone who doesn't want their kid to go to a secondary modern.

But in London the falling number of kids going to school should offset it a bit.

Anywhere from the Midlands to the North its a non-issue. If only 7% of kids nationally go to indy schools most of them will be in London and SE as that's the only place wages or grandparents capital wealth allow it. Indy schools have been surviving on 3/4 of places going to intl students for decades. And parents from Qatar don't tend to choose Middlesborough to send their kids to school (understandably, it's 30th April and up here in Narnia I'm still wearing gloves to type this).

As a result in most parts of the country there are very few indies. In my nearest city there's one for boys and one for girls. But that's 40mins drive away. And those are the closest indies. We never considered indy education as there was no practical way to get our kids to one.

Wherever you fall on the rights and wrongs of the policy for most of the country it just won't have any impact and as a result won't affect electoral decisions.

@NoisySnail
I have to disagree the reason we went privately in the first place was that we could not find a place at any of the closest 4 state schools. That may or may not have changed.
I also have to disagree with the comment that Private school parents can easily afford to pay higher fees, some can many cannot, that in itself is not my concern though, l am concerned about the effect on existing schools many with teacher shortages, crumbling classrooms, and limited resources.

@squirrelnutkin10 where do you live?
The local authority legally have to allocate you a state school place. That may not be 5 to 10 minutes away though.

@NoisySnail I used to live in a busy area of the home counties but have since moved.

The overwhelming majority of private school pupils, have parents who are in the top 10 per cent income group in the country.
If they can not afford an increase in school fees then they are either poor at budgeting or not prepared to make the necessary sacrifices.

@squirrelnutkin10 I do not believe there were no state school places for your child. I do believe that you may not have been able to get your child into your preferred state schools.

Agree
The ISC have modelled potential number of kids needing places at 135,000 in the immediate future. ie as soon as the tax is introduced and not taking into account the number that would have gone private but chose not to.

Again the ISC has polled schools which may close. It’s mainly the smaller preps and prepreps….

The ISC is the Independent Schools Council, they have number crunched and surveyed the Private Schools on potential impact, Labour hasn’t.

Nor has Labour come up with a true calc on money to be made by this policy. Their figures are based on parents soaking up the extra costs.
Under this assumption £1billion could be raised

However with an estimated 25% loss ( based on surveys of private parents, and schools ) there will be no extra money at all.
When we factor in loss of taxes, educating the kids who’ve moved to state and schools reclaiming money they currently do not etc etc etc the policy starts losing money.
They also haven’t considered how they will cope with the increased number of SEN kids that will be entering the state sector.

Labour has as yet to crunch the numbers in any realistic way and still have not asked the schools on what impact they think the policy will have.

Francis Green is, as you say, biased. In fact he's a private school abolitionist from the Private Education Policy Forum which features actual Marxists...real ones...

Green (privately-educated) and his co-author (privately-educated) sent their kids to grammar school, of course.

As for the relevance of the IFS paper he insists is "independent"....you should note it was funded, like the more recent IFS work, by the Nuffield Foundation, whose education work is led by....Francis Green. If you peruse Green's, and the Nuffield, and the IFS output on education* you'll find that the only thing they care about in education is equality. As though choice, family, diversity or "not being educated by the state" aren't also things to care about.

The only time "family" gets a mention is in disparaging terms. Nice people.

As for the 2011 paper, it gets roundly demolished here

Short-Term Thinking: Analysing the Effect of Applying VAT to School Fees — Adam Smith Institute

You seem very negative. Maybe your children in a local state school, and your input and involvement as parents, will be good for the school and for the pupils there. Good connections for work experience. Presumably you throw nice birthday parties. Nice playdates in a lovely house. What's not to like? Welcome to the comp.

If you have multiple children and older ones in private school, you can move the youngest into the state sector at a transition point and will then go top of the waiting list for the rest. So move the youngest into Year 7 if a comp etc. Then appeal for the rest. I hope the local authorities are prepared.

So much hyperbole. I will see you in a years time when Labour have been elected and vat exemption for private schools has been abolished. And you will see it will have made virtually no difference to the number of pupils in private schools.

Although no doubt you will have found something else to complain about.

Most of those pupils will transfer to other private schools, though?

@Hakeje if a private school is precarious this may finish them off. It is the private sector. The best schools get to charge decent fees and easily attract pupils. The not so good schools will close.

And yet now we are described as “privileged” for choosing to spend our money on providing a nicer learning environment for our children.

You're in a privileged position to have that choice, yes.

“The overwhelming majority of private school pupils, have parents who are in the top 10 per cent income group in the country.
If they can not afford an increase in school fees then they are either poor at budgeting or not prepared to make the necessary sacrifices.”

I think you will find that many will be prepared to make sacrifices, to their working hours and the highest marginal tax rates that they pay. As long as you are comfortable with that, go ahead.

No because , as people keep pointing out, the impact won’t be immediate. A lot of people will wait until the next transition point.

Arguably no more privileged than those who can afford high house prices in decent catchments, or those who can afford tutors for selective states.

@Araminta1003 I didn't know that...that seriously messes up the calculations if you get to transition multiple kids based on one being at a transition point. Another thing they haven't thought through.

"Maybe your children in a local state school, and your input and involvement as parents, will be good for the school and for the pupils there" @Whatifthehokeycokey just so you know, there's no evidence for the claim that putting certain families and children, especially if they are reluctant, into less-preferred schools has any benefit to the school or to other pupils. This is an argument that keeps popping up and is entirely without merit. File under "something people read in the Guardian".

What is true, however, is that it costs the state at least £7.5k per child, reduces the tax receipts from private schools (worth £4k per child) and gives M&D the opportunity to reevaluate their earning requirements.

As many, many people have pointed out @NoisySnail the immediate impact might be small as people are intent on getting their current GSCE children (for example) through to the end.

The impact is down the line at natural transition points.

It’s worth noting OP that Independent Schools give away just under £1billion in bursaries and free places ( £966 million in 2022 )
Thats for parents who get help with the fees and free places ( Brighton College is just one that has given free places to Ukrainian refugees for example )

It equates to 30% of the Private school population.
It will inevitably be those kids that will be more likely to move to state.

How it affects individual state schools will depend on whether you are near Private Schools and how many private school parents ( existing or potential ) are prepared to move to get their kids in good state schools.

No one knows yet and no one’s asked.

“No because , as people keep pointing out, the impact won’t be immediate. A lot of people will wait until the next transition point.”

Yes, but it will be the transition point for one child if it is a comp. Plenty of people will be happy to move DCs out of the start of Year 9 if the local comp happens to be good and their Year 7 gets a place. Most schools only do GCSEs in Years 10&11. Those being the only years that people cannot actually move their children.

I mean, no, those are all privileged positions to be in.

Not in our area. There’s only a few small private schools and they cater to the 2 ft working parents or child with slight additional needs - benefit from small class or children aiming for local state grammar.
If the school closes there isn’t another private they’ll go in state and be the switched on parents that jump through the hoops eg move into catchment/go to church weekly etc to secure a place. Both village schools near us are filled to the brim.