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.

How is it privileged to build your own career from nothing?

I’m also interested in your plans for funding society without high taxes paid by higher earners.

Please educate me as I’m quite happy to work a lot less if there are other ways to fund things.

Those type of parents exist in the state sector. That 6% figure includes international students who won’t care less about the UK state system, and also lots of parents who don’t have spare time due to the fact that many are working all hours to fund their children’s education. Are you honestly saying that none of the 94% of state school parents have time and resources?

State school is generally worse for everyone compared to private schools - that's presumably why everyone who does so pays for them. Having SEN makes no difference whatsoever.

Except most private schools won’t won’t just be absorbing this cost, they will be passing it on to the parents.

You obviously don’t live in an area where many kids go to private school. Where I live there are multiple private schools and I would guess a proportion of those who would have applied to them will apply for the already over subscribed state schools instead. There simply isn’t the supply of state school places to absorb this increase.

Exactly. My children have parents who both went through the state system, and have experience of being bullied and laughed at for working hard. School work was completed during evenings and weekends because classes were disrupted through bad behaviour. And yet now we are described as “privileged” for choosing to spend our money on providing a nicer learning environment for our children.

Whether or not you agree with them the whole system needs private schools and we need more grammar schools. Making both exclusive exacerbates inequalities. Private preps are designed to get children into exclusive secondaries - that can mean state funded grammar or highly desired schools like Eton. You only have to look at house prices in Kent, Buckinghamshire, Berkshire and Essex to know how much people are willing to pay to be accessible to top performing schools AND commutable to work.

People see this as an argument to get rid of these schools but fail to acknowledge the complete failing that is the comprehensive system. We should be doing the opposite and making more of these schools and making them more accessible OR putting a policy in place that means to stay open they have to forge positive working links with the community and state school system.

As others have said, forcing people out by changing the pricing is just going to create pockets of state funded private schools.

This is a really important point. Extreme example but I was talking to a Dr friend the other day about her plans to remove her children from private. She and her (also Dr) partner are at the £100k tax hike point and so face an effective 62% tax/ni rate on any further earnings. They also have to pay student loans and pension. Put together they'll take home less than 20% of any pay rise! It was going to require something absurd like a £50k increase in gross pay just to pay the expected annual VAT. As they only moved to private for the wraparound care close to the hospital, they were going to both go part time and pull the kids out of private to put them in the village school.

This isn't what my kid's state school experience looks like. There is a gulf between school cultures between my own experience (which was much like yours) and theirs, which doesn't have a culture of teasing effort or outcome. I can't say this is true of all places but it would be a mistake to assume that it is true of your local school based only on your own experience.

I didn’t say they will absorb the costs, I said I think they should.

Yes I do actually live in an area where a lot of children go to private school – and the various places I’ve lived before. Most of my family and friends also use private school for their children. Our local state school is also heavily oversubscribed and can’t take all children in its catchment area.

We have a child at private school in year 11. He is moving to a state sixth form frrom September. Mostly because the fees have gone up again and the potential of VAT being added. It is just too much money now and he is at a transition point.
He is taking a place at a selective sixth form (we are in catchment) and so denying someone else a place. In addition, the system now has to pay for him whereas before they didn’t have to. I would say almost a third are leaving in his year, for different reasons but a significant factor is the threat of VAT and increased fees. For the first time ever, the private school hasn’t filled its Year 7 places for September either.

As they only moved to private for the wraparound care close to the hospital, they were going to both go part time and pull the kids out of private to put them in the village school.

People say stuff like this all the time. Bet they don't actually do it.

I hadn't thought of the commuting side of house prices. Or the concept of creating state funded private schools, although it seems that sort of exists at primary level in some parts of London (albeit not very big in number)

I think what will really happen is private schools will have to reduce prices.

Presumably their business models work around x number or students bringing in £x per year. If they lose say 10% of their students because of vat, that's a 10% reduction in income.

Do you think this is a valid reason not to charge VAT on private school fees?

Unfortunately it is true of our local schools. That’s the issue with the state system - only some people can access good state schools. It’s precisely why those who can afford choose private schools; because a decent state school isn’t available.

This.

The problem at the moment is the polarising of state schools and fee-paying schools. One of the reasons why certain postcodes have higher attainment is due to parents who are (emotionally) invested and teachers who are committed. Surely if there are more parents advocating for better quality education ie better supported teachers with improved salaries and working conditions and better resourced schools, this benefits everyone.

@Charlie2121 and @EasternStandard actually yes, I would argue that writing a cheque (regardless of its size) and then fucking off and paying no part in a fair and equal society brings very little benefits to the masses

You’ve misunderstood my post then as it was about state school parents not private.

How on earth do you know what else I do other than pay eye watering amounts of tax?

What is that you do that is so much more beneficial? I assume you don’t fund society as much financially so you must have an extensive list of other stuff you do to compensate for that and to allow you to make such comments?

Well they told me that they have given notice. We were talking a few weeks ago and they were doing it in time for the end of the Easter vac.

Most people are in the catchment area of a 'good enough' state school, they just choose to believe its not good enough for their offspring

“The attitude of this post is repugnant.”

I totally agree. I thought this thread was about ‘school places’ but as per usual I stupidly forgot that this is MN and the implication (which being WC I missed) was ‘school places where my precious child won’t have to rub shoulders with riff raff’.

Oh the horror of having to send your kid to a state school… 🙄

You think that most private schools have room in their budgets to absorb an extra 20%? Away from the famous public schools (populated by the elite who won't be feeling the pinch) most private schools are on very thin margins and the parents really can't absorb an extra 20% either.

This policy will just ensure that a good education is exclusively reserved for the mega rich, rather than available to the middle classes too.

Listen, I know this is a spiky subject and I'm not coming at this from the point of view that this is a good policy. I'm aware that some people are lumbered with shitty state schools. I was just observing that some areas have seen a shift in school cultures between the generations which seemed pertinent when you said that your own experience led you to privately schooling your kid - not mentioning the quality of your local schools.

YABU 90% of state schools are rated Good or Outstanding by Ofsted so good schools are not hard to find.