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.

Exactly
Which brings us back to the Brexit bus

Do we never learn!

NoisySnail · Today 14:04
@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.

I said we could not get into the 4 closest schools, we were told we would be allocated a school a long way away, that would have meant a long distance through horrendous traffic, no bus route back and in another town. A 1hr 10 minute round trip in school time.
It highlights the shortage of places at that time, which was the point of my post.

I’d love for someone to explain to me how exactly is state subsidizing my child’s private education given what I already pay in taxes and VAT otherwise.

Every ideologist under the sun believe they’re the moral one. Kill private education - financial disparity (and accompanying side effects) will spillover even more into the state education system and further underscore regional differences.

On the subject of morality.

I am looking forward to the cases brought under Article 2 of the Human Rights Act, introduced by the Labour Party, for Sen children, currently in the private sector, approx 96000 without an EHCP.

Morally, I would rather some of those parents do not have to bring any cases on behalf of their children, but it will be interesting to see the outcome.

I am sure the Labour Party won’t be revoking the very act they championed just 25 years ago. Even if it won’t suit some of their current agenda.

Of course it isn’t. It’s such a bizarre take

Private pay twice and don’t use the space

This is back to front. You’re not subsidising people.

PS parents heavily subsidise state school parents not the other way round. Any suggestion to the contrary is ridiculously disingenuous.

The state do not subsidise Independent schools, they are private and financed purely by those that pay for the service.

@squirrelnutkin10 You were offered a school 35 minutes away in rush hour traffic? Fairly normal for many. It is fine if you choose not to take that place and send your children to private school instead.

By giving a vat tax exemption the state subsidises private school fees.

Out of all the points on these threads this subsidised line is the most ridiculous

I really do think that these are spurious arguments and have an essence of the already privileged few, desperately trying to hang on to a tiny bit of extra privilege by churning out hyperbole. I say this as someone with similar privilege. We just need to suck it up. It’s not that big of an ask. I work with children and families and the gaping gap between the haves and the have nots is utterly shameful. This is a tiny tiny tiny step to redress the massive imbalance and will make little to no difference to most.

I don’t think even you believe that nonsense.

It always comes up. It’s just nuts

Totally agree.

"I appreciate your urge to crow because you think you're "getting one over" the beastly rich, but actually it would be far-sighted and public spirited to join the opposition to this dimwitted tax."

@MisterChips responding to this because you specifically tagged me.

Do you mean to be so rude? Do you realise that people have the right not to agree with hyperbolic rhetoric without being insulted? If I had school age children and chose to pay school fees, the VAT would not be an issue at all in terms of affordability. So maybe I am the beastly rich? Certainly not any politics of envy here.

My public spirit is intact, thank you very much. I just choose not to put it behind self-serving drum banging about something I consider to be pretty inconsequential on the grand scale of things. This is a flurry in a teacup and I am really not very interested.

In the same way that the state subsidises everyone’s weekly supermarket shop……. Just because something isn’t taxed doesn’t mean it’s “subsidised”. The state hasn’t “subsidised” the loaf of bread I’ve bought because I haven’t paid tax on it.

@NoisySnail you’re coming across as quite obnoxious now. You have no facts to back your arguments. People are not against funding State schools properly! What people are trying to tell you, is that this is a counter productive if not destructive way of trying to raise money, it will cost more and cause more damage than any gain! Therefore there is no net gain!!! It’s all an attempt at winning votes!

Why comment on things that you are not interested in?

It’s a huge political step to start
taxing education and
take away choice.

As soon as any Government takes away choice with the electorate backing they are accepting that that policy could easily stretch to more than just education.

What next I wonder.

An attempt to win votes off people who don’t really understand the issue and are supportive of any taxes that someone else will have to pay.

Pure and simple 👏👏👏👏
well said @RecruitmentGuru

I was sufficiently interested in making the point that it is a storm in a teacup because I am tired of these hyperbolic and repetitive threads about the end of the world being nigh because of school fee VAT.

So I am obnoxious because I agree with this policy?
Brilliant argument.
And I agree this is a storm in a teacup.

NoisySnail · Today 15:07
@squirrelnutkin10 You were offered a school 35 minutes away in rush hour traffic? Fairly normal for many. It is fine if you choose not to take that place and send your children to private school instead.

You have illustrated my point and ( the ops perfectly), it is far from ideal for any family to not be able to get a school place for their children without driving and hour and 10 minutes twice a day. This policy arguably will make this worse in some areas