Discussion over private schools brings out illogical viewpoints, sheer hypocrisy and the worse traits in people?

[ByPeachJoker]

First off, not that it should impact an objective debate, but we do send our son to a private primary school but would consider ourselves middle income earners.

As you can imagine, this is linked to the PMs debate just now, but having read a recent MN thread on a lady who wanted to know how she might be able to avoid paying VAT on school fees should Labour come into power, I was shocked at the vitriol thrown her way. As far as I could tell, the issue wasn't so much that she wanted to avoid the VAT but the majority of comments were coming from people who essentially felt like this lady was somehow getting her comeuppance, that she automatically deserved to suffer some form of penalty just by virtue of choosing to send her DC to a private school. She made a 'bad' choice and should suffer the consequences.

One comment was simply 'how about sending your kids to a state school like 93% of the population'. It completely disregards the fact that there is a child at the heart of this and that a fairly arbitrary tax change is a) going to lead to an additional cost for exactly the same thing and b) for many parents, this change will mean they cannot afford the fees and this may lead to a child's education and social environment being uprooted. I'm not here to necessarily discuss the actual fairness of VAT being imposed on private school fees but more that there is this automatic reaction by a majority of people whenever private schooling is discussed and that this reaction is rooted in nothing logical and is based on the worse of human emotions such that people ignore the fact that many parents are making a financial/lifestyle sacrifice for their children.

Much of it comes from this completely incorrect assumption that you must be wealthy to send your child to a school. I get the impression that many are misinformed and assume that most private schools are like Eton or Harrow and have fees in excess of £20k a year which really is not the case. I think the negativity comes down to the fact that it's people's children that are involved and so people naturally come to see parents who send their kids to private schools as paying for some form of advantage and this being inherently unfair. Now I accept that there are a lot of people who simply could not afford private school fees BUT (and I know this will be incredibly unpopular) to be quite frank, most middle class families can but the parents simply aren't willing to make the financial and lifestyle sacrifice to send their kids to private school and yet they are happy to try and hate on those that do.

Ultimately they might choose to spend their money on a more expensive car, a bigger house, a nicer holiday etc. I used to live in a new build housing development where people in one bedroom flats had brand new Range Rover Sports parked up outside. It was ridiculous that people who could seemingly 'only' afford a 1 bed flat were buying or leasing cars that were almost a third of the value of their home. However we let them make their choice and move on.

Now you can argue about the ethics of private school education but I think those who automatically view parents who send their kids to private school as people who should endure some form of suffering or deserve whatever is coming to them need to look at the hypocrisy they show when compared to their own lifestyle choices but also understand that we're not all millionaires and have actually made a sacrifice for what we hope is the benefit of our children - have you done the same?

So ALL of the above has been tried?

My point is, however, that IF staying in private Ed is important enough most families will find a way. AND families on low incomes have these dilemmas JUST TO EAT! AND of all the families in the world, these families are most able to adapt to change and uncertainty. The handwringing and whining is embarrassing.

I already do all of those things and don't consider any of them outrageous. Taxing education is just a bad policy, which hardly any other European country follows. Maybe you can afford it, but others won't be able to. The government needs to make education more affordable for everybody - including things like swimming lessons, music, sports and preschool settings. The state education system isn't really providing this, so they need to find away to subsidise alternative settings - not make it more unaffordable.

So you have no TV subscriptions and work shifts in the evening? Right.

Similar to my story. What I wouldn’t give to have a state school my child could thrive in! Then I could actually use what I pay my taxes for.

Not that it's any of your business, but, yes, actually. And I don't own a car at all. Not because I'm 'making sacrifices', but I don't really value those things, and I can't drive for health reasons. But some people need their car for work. Many parents cycle, partly to save money on a car.

Did you miss the bit about most private school children come from families in the top 5% of earners! Cut your cloth.

On MN everyone is both rich enough to afford private education for multiple children while being unfortunate enough to live in the catchment area of a school where murders appear to be happening on a daily basis!

Or the children at private school have SEND that couldn’t possibly be ever met in state school and so the family live in a tent in the park to save money and forage for food.

I have no issue with private education but making out like you’ve sacrificed sooooooo much is embarrassing. Admit you can afford it and therefore, you have it.

I went to both private and state school. My parents didn’t make excuses. They told me they could afford it and they told me I was very lucky.

People acting like they have no choice but to use private school is ridiculous. What do you think those who cannot afford it do?!

You have ‘taken in ironing’ and do some cleaning shifts? You are really at the end of what you could do save money or make more money? You have no other savings and cut backs to make? No more options to bring in extra? To be frank, I believe strongly that any family using PE will be able to find the extra. It will just depend on how much they are willing to sacrifice. It’s about choice. Lots of families have very little choice in anything. The complaining about this tax is demeaning and embarrassing.

Do some online surveys?
babysit?
car wash?
dog walking?

probably best to avoid housing costs by making a one off purchase of a tent and you can pitch it in the park near the private school. Saves on transport! With any luck, it’ll be near a cafe and someone will drop a stray chip or two. You could find a park with a pond so your washing problem (both clothes and yourself) is solved easily.

Are people on here telling mothers to take in ironing and do online surveys so their kids can go to private school?

We just had our first holiday in 5 years, a week in Tenerife, it cost 1400 for 4 of us. Our car is 14 years old. Costs about 3k to run per year. We still can't afford private school if we got rid of car and holiday. We are on an above average household income of £40 k after tax. We have 2 kids which I guess is our own fault - it would cost our entire income for them both to go. Clearly ridiculous to suggest ordinary families can afford private school if they make some "sacrifices".

Will that mean 50% of private school teachers will be looking for teaching jobs?

The thing that strikes me is the complete inability of parents with children at private schools to understand the viewpoint of those of us who object to the existence of private schools on the strength of the profound inequality of educational opportunity they represent.

There's a refusal to understand the structural and ethical issues around this astonishing unfairness towards the vast majority of children.

There never used to be such a massive gap in access to educational resources between privately educated children and state educated children as there is now. It's broadened and deepened to a degree that's ethically unsupportable.

This is no criticism of parents who want to use private schools for their children. It's completely understandable.

It's a criticism of people who are incapable of looking at how the the current system is playing out and acknowledging its profound unfairness, and the arguments for the state passing legislation that begin to address this inequality in some way.

If just one parent here said 'yes, it's absolutely disgusting and unfair to children, but because it benefits MY child I'll defend the status quo until I'm blue in the face' I'd have more respect for them. Instead you get bs about a lack of diversity in some state schools, and there being lots of (middle class) brown children at their dc's private schools.

@Delatron

"This is the essence of it. You can dislike private schools all you like. But right now if you have a child in a state school, it doesn’t really affect you. If 50% of people pull their children out of the private schools and put them in to the state school system (which is woefully underfunded and there is a
teacher shortage) what do you think is going to happen?!"

First off, what makes you think that private schools are completely incapable of cutting costs to substantially reduce fees? Teacher salaries are far and away the biggest costs in education. Fee paying schools have on average twice as many teachers per child as the state sector. Why is it unthinkable that they should increase class sizes to cut costs like state schools had to do during austerity? Private schools increased their fees in real terms by an average of 20% between 2010 and 2020. If state schools are expected to provide a decent education for on average 5.5K to 7K a year then why do private schools need to charge an average of 15K a year to do the same? Most of them are charities. If they're prepared to ditch loads of pupils from slightly less well off middle class families in order to maintain very small class sizes and lavish provisions for their better off pupils, they certainly don't deserve to maintain their charitable status for starters.

As for it 'not affecting state schools' - of course it bloody affects state schools, because 1. they have massive and growing shortages of STEM staff, who are being snaffled by the private sector as they usually have better facilities, more resources and fewer challenging pupils. 2. Pupils from state schools are competing for the same university places at pupils from private schools who've often had far more access to individualised support (and no, just going to a state school doesn't automatically qualify you for a contextualised offer at a good university). 3. State schools in areas with the largest percentage of kids at private schools are currently being affected by the financial fallout of falling rolls, partly due to poorer families being unable to afford housing there but also because more and more children in those areas are attending fee paying schools. Camden has recently had to close 4 primary schools because fewer pupils = less funding = unsustainable to run a school.

The point I’m making is that this is what people on low incomes have to consider. So you joke about tents but that is what some people are driven to do. What I won’t accept, is some of the most privileged people in the world lamenting their terrible situation. It’s tone deaf.

Absolutely. The ‘poor me’ narrative of done of the most privileged in the world is embarrassing.

👏

I doubt it’s that simple unfortunately. Plus I don’t think the money is all
magically going to go to state schools. It’s just going to put pressure on an already over burdened education system.

Just be careful what you wish for. Resources are already stretched thinly. So we really want a huge influx of pupils in to this system?

I don’t disagree with you but is the answer forcing huge amounts of children to leave private schools and come in to the state school system? How will that improve the issues you have highlighted?

I send one of my children to a private school due to dyslexia/ADHD - this is against my principles but the primary school state system let him down badly. He is there on a sports scholarship. Other DS is happy in state school.

My worry is how the state school education system will accommodate all these extra children?

It’s hyperbole that ‘huge’ numbers will leave. We have no idea how many. And of course any survey asking at the moment parents will say they are thinking of leaving to paint the bleakest picture. The reality is that the vast majority will absorb the cost somehow IF private education is a priority.

I don't really care much either way about VAT on private schools. But the tone on some of these threads is unreal. So sneery and smug and such lack of awareness.

The idea that you send your children to private school and you're not well off is laughable. The thought that you've made sacrifices the rest of us plebs just aren't willing to make.

Why should anyone care about the privately educated children having to move to state school? The rest of us use state school and it's good enough for the vast majority of children, so why are yours any different?

Most of us get very little choice in what state school we get. Most of us work hard and make sacrifices.

I understand that you are pissed off you might be charged more but why should the vast majority of people care?

There’s an area in South London in which so many local parents sent their kids to private schools that the local comprehensive decided to turn their admissions into an open lottery so they didn’t have to have a school filled with just the poorest kids in the area. They aggressively marketed the school to the middle classes, appointed a highly paid super head, and now get applications from all over the place from middle class parents who don’t like their local schools. Meanwhile all the local poor kids now have no local secondary so if they miss out on the lottery they end up at the schools no one else wants, often having to trek across the borough to get there. The school boasts it gets the highest number of applications of any school ever and it has no connection to the local area. The kids going to private school locally remain of course unaffected by this situation.

I don't believe that many will move school anyway.

I live near a private primary school and most of the parents rock up in brand new 4x4s despite all of the pleading poverty on here. It's like another world.

Good for you if you can afford to buy privilege for your children but don't expect everyone to get the violins out when there are hard working people worrying if they can pay the electricity bill and afford a week camping for their holiday.

When people pay for things they pay tax. When you buy an expensive thing you pay more tax. I am not sure why you think your expensive purchases should not be taxed.