To think that those private school parents banging on about their fees

[Thegreatergoodgerald]

Seriously have misjudged how little anyone else gives a stuff??? NHS, social care, state education, public transport, bloody potholes everywhere - that’s what matters to everyone I know.
Not whether or not VAT is added to a business.

YANBU - it’s hardly the end of the world if Clemmie or Charles end up going to a state school. We have bigger things to worry about in the U.K. right now

YABU - of course everyone cares private school parents might have to pay more

Whatever else I may be, I am not ignorant on this subject. But thanks for that.

Pulling strings gets you nowhere these days - most companies have strict HR policies and vetting. It’s no longer the 1980s!!!

Why post that, not necessary

SofaThrow · Today 21:39
VeraForever · Today 21:37

No we won't care. We'll just judge you for being too poor to pay for your private education, which, obviously you could barely afford anyway if VAT was going to push you over the edge.

Show quote history
I've seen some fucking horrible posts on MN over the years but bloody hell....WTAF

I agree, SofaThrow, I’ve seen some pretty vile posts but this is one of the worse. Still, if it brings pleasure to the poster then I suppose one person is happy.

I think plenty will care when SEN parents who have been mopped up by Indies will be applying to already skint councils for EHCP’s so they can name the best state schools.

You can be middle class, well educated and comfortable financially but still be ideologically opposed to private education. Nothing to do with jealousy.

Polishedshoesalways · Today 21:42
Pulling strings gets you nowhere these days - most companies have strict HR policies and vetting. It’s no longer the 1980s!

Ok, so even the old boy network doesn’t work any longer.

Well, better pension now, for sure!

Also things like fridge to keep milk in so you can have a cup of tea,
seats in the staff room! (one private school I worked for had no staff room, just a sort of tiny shared kitchen you could use, but had to stand up in, and leave if more than 5 people wanted to come in)

SLT that support you if parents are unreasonable,

no requirement to be contactable by parents on days off, a limit to the amount of cover you are asked to do in a week - my current school never asks for more than 2 cover lessons from me, and generally if possible, I am matched to subjects I know, and children I know... in private school I have had to cover Mandarin, of which I speak not one word!

In private schools too, there has been no upper limit on the number of students I can have, I remember one day having around 70 children all at once, in the sports hall, as about 4 staff were off with flu - then one child had an asthma attack, so I had to leave 69 children alone unsupervised to deal with the one. This does not happen in a state school, if staff ratio falls that low, a year group would be sent home - that NEVER happens in private school.

Also things like "oh, by the way, you are in charge of the year 5 netball team" - I know nothing about netball, and yet I am suddenly responsible for all their training, and matches, in my spare time?

Another thing that I have hated in private school is being told to buy clothes that are only used once or twice, once we were ordered to come in in blue track suits, I can't remember why - a brand new outfit - for ONE day!

And you have to go along with what parents say they want, even if it is ridiculous, one child had to have her seat facing East, or something, another needed the classroom lit with blue light. Parents want you available at 9pm to answer questions about HW, parents don't like the HW you have set, and want and argument about it at 9pm, and you have to agree to whatever demands they are making, etc

Also, the behaviour is not great. It can be OK, but you can also have to put up with a lot of snobbery, and being treated like a servant by the kids, and that sort of thing, and you are not allowed to complain about it.

And then there is things like bullying, and so on among students, you sometimes have to take the side of the better payer, whatever the child has done....

One private school I was looked down on by students, parents and some other staff because I can't speak French.

I have never been in a state school where you couldn't make a cup of tea and sit down at the end of the day!

All of that, and the pay is worse, the sick pay is worse, the unpaid leave situation is worse, the pension, of course, is now worse....

There is a lot more. I am sure, some state schools have terrible conditions, but my personal experience is that private school conditions have always been worse.

Starmer is hell bent on wrecking anything remotely successful in this country. No kid will stand a chance under his zero sum politics. So buckle up peeps, the Corbynistas are on the war path and anyone hoping for a better life or future for their children should bear in mind he isn’t promising to improve your children’s education - only to ruin it one way or another directly or indirectly.

This is why I work. I will not continue to work if Labour go ahead with this. We cannot absorb the cost so will move to state at the next appropriate point. On the plus side, I can stop working and be available for all the extra curricular. Obviously, I won't be paying any tax.

This is really awkward. I am middle class. Top 1% of households. We use the best state in the area so fees don’t impact us. Bought a nice rural house in a great catchment. More holidays for us.

I can still see how dumb and illiterate this policy is.

You will care when the average private school closes and those kids flood your state school.

I won’t care as my kids will stay in the school they currently attend - one of the 24 original public schools - as will all their friends because those schools, which are the target of this stupid policy will not care a jot

I said ignorant statements and I did not direct it to you personally.

NI is about £100 per month each.

Take home pay is over £20k per person so £40k for a couple after income tax and NI.

Quite. So if private schools are full of pupils who aren’t clever and need spoon feeding, with incompetent teachers who wouldn’t survive in the state sector (all things which are often claimed), where is the “unfairness” or “privilege” if connections don’t help either?

Labour’s claim the money will be spent on state schools is another Brexit Bus, I’m afraid. Or a school bus, in this case.

Is it really unpleasant? Or is it more that the truth hurts.

So many , many posts complaining about VAT on private education when the the vast majority of us have to slum it in comprehensive mainstream education. Please read the room.

Surely you only see them as “banging on” because you are reading the threads and media coverage? It’s a very easy issue to ignore, just let them get on with it?

Nope. Wish it did.

Quite. So if private schools are full of pupils who aren’t clever and need spoon feeding, with incompetent teachers who wouldn’t survive in the state sector (all things which are often claimed), where is the “unfairness” or “privilege” if connections don’t help either.

Another - I would be very interested to know the answer to this.

Such a misconception on who private school parents are, we are immigrants my parents are illiterate and as were my grandparents. They worked in mills, foundries - doing work others in England didn’t want to do.

I went to an inner city comp, drugs was rife as were teenage pregnancies. I was racially discriminated against, discouraged from my career, being told I wouldn’t make it, I quietly worked my socks off, still being subject to racism in the workplace. I fucking vowed my kids would not go through this shit, so I work my arse off to send them to private school.

I don’t live in a big house, I drive a 16 year old car, I don’t have any bursary support.

People just want to shaft hard working people. Assuming we’re all toffs, I see how kids in India and South Korea and China are educated. If we drive our country to the bottom with policies like this we will be BEHiND the WORLD.

Absolutely disgraceful policy. Trust me ladies if I could make it, my dad was an alcoholic too. Then anyone of you can do it, END OF.

Sounds like you worked in a terrible school. I have never come across anything like this.
And many independents are still in the TPS.

This isn't taking into account the falling birth rate, though? Some state schools need to increase their numbers. Primary schools initially, but in time secondary schools will too. Some of this number will just be absorbed.

Primary school applications are dropping and more and more parents are getting their first choice.

I doubt many people in shit catchments are ‘ideologically opposed’. Such privilege here.