To not see how the gov will make any money from taxing private schools?

[AngryHedgehog]

All the other threads seem to have descended into bunfighting over the ethics of the policy, yet I'm not really understanding how this stands to benefit the government as surely they'll be footing the bill for all the kids that move to state schools?

As a disclaimer, I don't have kids and wouldn't be able to afford to privately educate them even if I did, despite earning a half decent salary.

I'm reading that it costs around £7k per pupil per term, so it would take the VAT from around four families to fund each additional child moving to state education.

Given that this may be 4/10 kids in private education moving to state schooling, I don't see how this doesn't create a net loss as there will only be 50% more kids left in private education and there needs to be multiple times that for the VAT increase to foot the bill.

Surely I'm missing something here?

In London, I don’t think many will
close. But I think the demographic of the families within the schools would change. They would lose some of the ‘lower-paid’ middle classes eg doctors, teachers with some inheritance, high street lawyers and accountants (ie not city workers) and be filled up with wealthier families instead. There has recently been a surge of foreign very rich families who would gladly take up the places. Who work in business, property etc.

Somewhat controversially I wonder if the academic standards might drop at the more competitive and very academically selective ones here. As the doctor families may not have been able to help finance the new library, but they kept up the A star counts and university successes for the schools’ PR machines.. Maybe I am wrong.

@FTPM1980 "If there is sufficient movement to mean fewer teaching jobs in private, those teachers could end up back in state schools."

No they won't. All of our teachers have left the state system because they couldn't stand it any more. Most will retire, or tutor or change career completely. Our language teachers would simply move to another country or go home. Sports teachers have a myriad of options.

Stopping scholarships isn't being done out of spite. Our school simply can't afford it so have stopped offering scholarships. If you were giving to charity and were about to go bankrupt you'd have to stop. It's not pleasant but we have no choice when fees are going up circa 28% and numbers have already dropped.

If you don’t have that buffer then private school wasn’t the best idea.

SEN schools are separately registered as Section 41 schools and are easily identified as being exempt from VAT. These are the approved specialist schools - some for high functioning disabled kids who get GCSES and A Levels. There are big nationwide providers eg the Priory etc and they would have consulted with Labour etc

For those saying maybe private school wasn’t for you if you can’t afford the increase, is that what you say to people who have mortgages who are struggling after interest rate hikes, and people struggling to pay heating after utility costs went up.

Parents paying school fees will factor in increases every year, but not 20%

But plenty of people do have a buffet and this will take much of it.

How big of a buffet do you think people should plan? My kids aren’t private so it’s hard for me to imagine.

I have heard people should always plan for fees to go up 10%. But expecting people to have a buffer for that or job loss etc AND in case there was CoL, wage stagnation, Vat slapped on top etc.

How would you plan for these things?

@YourPinkDog I'm a full time working single mum of one ds. He has a 50% academic scholarship.

Every penny I earn goes on £9k a year school fees. I'm already stretched to the limit, but he was desperate to go and was very unhappy at his previous school. He's taking his gcses now. He only has two years left so I need to find at least an extra £3,600 in the next two years. £6k gross earnings.

My options are to go into debt or to work weekend evenings in a pub. This is what I will do. I don't begrudge him a penny of it.

But if ds was 11 now I wouldn't have even put him up for the scholarship. I wouldn't have been able to meet the half fees. So of course it makes it more elitist. Even scholarships will only be open to the moderately well off.

Whether a mortgage or rent housing is essential and everyone has to pay. But yes when we got our first mortgage interest rates were around 4-5% and we got a fixed rate but we were advised to calculate what we could afford if interest rates when back up to 15%.

Heating is also an essential but one you can economise on.

Private education is not an essential.

Scholarships are not necessarily a charitable thing. Scholarships actually help the other pupils as the schools fish for the most exceptional students at aged 11 or 13 etc This rises the general academic levels and gives the other children worthy academic/ arts/ sports sparring partners. Many scholarships go to parents who can afford to pay fees as an inducement to pick that particular school. Some are a token eg 10 or 20% off.

If these schools stop scholarships that’s great for state schools to keep those exceptional kids. There ranks in the GCSE league will increase etc

Funny how no-one here talks about schools lowering their fees, and taking some of the hit.

Given that the teacher/pupil ratio in private is half that of state, schools could easily take on 20% more pupils, still provide the advantage parents are paying for, and lower their fees by 20% so the overall cost is the same.

Am I missing something?

Scholarships are not necessarily a charitable thing. Scholarships actually help the other pupils as the schools fish for the most exceptional students at aged 11 or 13 etc This rises the general academic levels and gives the other children worthy academic/ arts/ sports sparring partners. Many scholarships go to parents who can afford to pay fees as an inducement to pick that particular school. Some are a token eg 10 or 20% off.

If these schools stop scholarships that’s great for state schools to keep those exceptional kids. There ranks in the GCSE league will increase etc

Spot on

That’s because scholarships are different from bursaries. Scholarships are usually only 5-10% off fees and are awarded in very small numbers. Bursaries are up to 110% of fees and are strictly means tested

My sons school isn't section 41 registered. It's listed as 'independent other'. All the pupils have an ehcp and have autism or autusm and adhd.

His previous school was also listed as independent other and everyone had an ehcp too.

Some independent special schools aren't section 41 or non maintained as the proprietor or trust wants to be able to decide who to admit and not be compelled by the LA naming people they don't think they can meet the needs of.

It’s ridiculous fearmongering. Short- Mid term 10% of kids will move to state, if that. It will be a great injection of cash for kids and parents in state schools and hopefully under a Labour government we won’t have classrooms falling apart and teachers having to dig into their own pockets for basic resources and pencils and pens etc.

@HeartseaseGarden

Over 90% of children in the UK go to state schools. If the will was there to improve state education it would already have happened. But it hasn’t. This isn’t about money, it’s about attitude

Then the private schools will have absolutely no issue absorbing the 20% VAT themselves. Just put a couple of more kids in each class. A few less iPad Pros.
They’ll still be way better off than state schools.

Its not about money - it’s about attitude after all.

A lot of schools are going to absorb some of the 20%

And it's all risky, because people don't want to pay £30k for classes with 30 kids in, when they could go to the local outstanding state grammar or whatever.

Let's pick some numbers for the sake of discussion.

Income for a pupil is £20,000 on fees. Reduce this to £16,000. Total school population is 5 X 100. So fee income is £20 million. Just say.pying for 80 members of staff on (AVG £40k), which means staffing costs are around £60k with pensions etc.

If you have 100 pupils in 5 forms each year, and now you have 120, income remaining at £20m.
d need to keep ratios, you need a 5th form, and so extra staff/classes/costs...so you'd have to pay an extra member of staff ££ for being a tutor. You might be able to squeeze those 20 lids across 4 maths sets, but now there's 25 in a class instead of 20. But if you want to keep ratios, staffing costs will have to increase. Or otherwise timetable load increases on existing staffing. As well as increasing administrative burden across the staff.

In addition you have the extra initial spending eg... you need to provide 5 extra chairs per classroom, 20 more textbooks in each subject , , laptops, etc all with the same amount of money. Of it's a boarding school, 20% more.food, 20% more beds, perhaps more staff for ratios, more running costs...

They still have to pay the electricity bills, gas/heating, water etc all increased by extra people... Yet no more money.

The only realistic way to afford it ,is to reduce staffing costs, as that makes up the bulk of where money is spent on workforce.

Also, you can't just magic up 20% extra roll overnight just by reducing fees by 20%, it doesn't work like that.

None of the schools in Scotland are Section 41 as that law does not apply in Scotland, and nor do pupils have EHCPs. Yet not one of the posters telling us SEN pupils won’t be affected have explained how that would work in Scotland.

@anotherside what injection of cash are you looking at? The funding per pupil is not enough for schools. Certainly not enough to fund repairs of classrooms. Many calculations show that this policy might not even break even.

Labour have said it will be used to fund extra teachers (even though very few people want to be teachers)

@WittiestUsernameEver

A lot of schools are going to absorb some of the 20% And it's all risky, because people don't want to pay £30k for classes with 30 kids in, when they could go to the local outstanding state grammar or whatever

And yet a poster just above you is insisting that the secret of private schools success relative to state isn’t money at all - it’s all about attitude. 😅

I’m not sure listing those “statistics” will garner any sympathy when that’s what state schools have been doing for years.

And even pp who are for it say the money doesn’t matter, even if it raises nowt

So no extra teachers then

I'm just saying that it isn't a realistic thought process to say reduce fees by 20% and magically increase roll call by 20%.

Houses in the "excellent" state school catchment are about 400k more than where we are (desirable suburb with less good school) for equivalent... Most people wouldn't get that extra on their mortgage if they can't afford 40k pa