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.

Is those same parents paying tens of thousands less income tax because they no longer need to pay the fees also a good thing.

Are you willing to pay more tax to bridge the gap?

These threads always make me laugh - tons of Labour supporters saying it won’t make any difference! Of course it bloody will!
Private school parents generally not a bunch of billionaires gliding through the golden gates - they are mostly doctors, dentists etc and certainly won’t be able to ‘absorb’ the VAT at all. It is going to put unbearable strain on local schools. It will ripple out and affect everyone eventually.
Thousands of schools are likely to close.

The schools that do survive will be for the Uber rich only - further increasing the divide. It’s a terrible strategy but Labour are hell bent on implementing it.

I'd be willing to pay more tax for a fairer society, yes.

Is the feeder school system really still in use anywhere? If it is a thing then won’t that just move the pressure into Yr5/Yr6 primary?

Yes, it's still in use for some schools (the one that springs to mind is (the newish) Bolingbroke Academy in Wandsworth, set up like that to maximise chances of pupils at 6 local primaries being able to get a local secondary place). Yes, it might mean that parents planning ahead move their DC out of a prep a year or two earlier than the might, with aim of getting in to that secondary as they have decided 20% on fees leaves them in too precarious a position.

(BTW, I think it's likely that Wandsworth will be one of the boroughs most affected. It has a higher than typical proportion of pupils in private schools (especially preps) and no real room to expand other schools. It's a very mixed borough, some areas affluent but others with very high indices of deprivation, more or less next to each other).

Unfortunately yes. They could just stick to railways or whatever and they’d still likely get the votes without what you describe happening

That's your prediction.

I didn't say it would be a win. I simply there wouldn't be much sympathy for private school teachers having to find job in the state sector.

Same. No ‘feeder schools’ for our Y7 admissions.

Well in our area, there is a shortage of sixth form places in the schools people want to go to. And they want to do A Levels - as that is what the selective school offers.
I guess whether those affected by the policy themselves (in this case I am only referring to any state school pupils potentially pushed out by the greater numbers applying as external candidates) may not think this is as good a policy as those unaffected.

It has already happened in DD’s grammar school. Score required to get in this year much higher than ever recorded. I think a lot of private school parents have done the Maths and decided private schooling plus an anomalous state penality on top of it, no thanks. It just tips the balance for many, even those who could afford the increase with VAT, especially in grammar areas. It is just far cheaper to tutor and pay for extra curricular to supplement than to pay for private school.

There is a facility to pay voluntary income tax. How much extra do you normally pay?

If all schools are state schools, things will be monumentally unfair still.

How about this: state 6th form, 78 kids to Oxbridge in one year.

You've got to be happy if you live near there!
And a bit jealous if your 6th form gets nobody into Oxbridge?

An incredible number of Oxbridge… | Hills Road Sixth Form College

No everybody absolutely does not want to do Alevels. Many many don’t.

You are being obtuse and know exactly what I meant.

I didn’t say they did. I said the large numbers applying to the limited places for our selective sixth form do want to. They must do as the sixth form only offers A levels

I am willing to bet that the Labour Party are going to have to “save” some private schools in certain areas with public finance because the local schools will simply be unable to take a lot of kids all at once. They should at the very least set up an early warning system in each Council so the councils can track which private schools are likely to fold so the situation is managed.

Our outstanding grammar criteria is just 6 GCSE’s of 6 and above.

😂I very much doubt that.

It is just far cheaper to tutor and pay for extra curricular to supplement than to pay for private school.

But that has been the case for many years - and yet many people have chosen to go private regardless.

I am not convinced that value for money is necessarily a factor for many parents who choose private education....if it was, most private schools would have gone out of business years ago!

What plan does Labour actually have when thousands of schools go bust overnight - and local schools collapse under the strain. I haven’t heard of how they plan to manage this crisis - have you?

😂Crisis- seriously!

Nope they can’t do that, it would be illegal and discriminatory. We have seen schools collapse here literally over a weekend and the local schools had no choice but to take every child due to the law that states every child is entitled to an education. They had to use the village hall, church rooms unheared. Cancelled all hot meals. Sports for over a year.

“Hopefully the redundant private schools will become grammar schools.

Well that's a nice hope, but it's more likely the buildings will be sold for development.”

And then sold on overseas, yet again. Foreign developer company, some foreign ownership, plenty of dirty money as well.

The fact of the matter is that most of our politicians are seriously lacking in intelligence and foresight.

Do you know that BRITISH pension funds only invest 5% in British companies? How the heck is that OK and not regulated.
The black market is worth billions and billions, yet they are focusing on punishing some teachers and school children for their “priviledge”. Perhaps they should start actually understanding why this country is going to the dogs.

If they go to the wall, won't the assets be sold? Probably for housing. The government would have to compete with private finance, which seems not likely to make financial sense.

I’d say the many students not in their schools because of crumbling concrete is a more accurate description of a crisis. They’ve just be absorbed into other schools, not sure why ex private students should be any different and more deserving of a hoo ha.

Good point. I haven't heard how they plan to manage it if cows start to fly either. It's like they haven't actually spent time coming up with plans for total bullshit, isn't it?