…In thinking that parents would welcome cheaper, less flashy private schools

[Newbutoldfather]

This is (obviously) occurred to me over VAT, but also in thinking that the cost of private schools has gone up way way beyond inflation.

The school I went to (ok, left 40 years ago) is now 12x what it cost when I went. (General inflation is 3.3x over same period for reference.

So, where has the money gone, given that they can’t make a profit? Not class sizes, which are actually, on average bigger, certainly pre sixth form. Not teachers’ salaries, which have failed to keep up with inflation. I think a lot is around the overall offering and a bloated, overpaid SLT structure. When I say the overall offering, I mean flashy facilities, wrap-around care, a myriad of available sports, a loss making 6th form offering subjects with only a few takers etc etc.

AIBU in thinking there would be massive demand for a ‘basic’ private school, which would maybe cost 1.5-2x a state school (minimum 3x where I live), have excellent academics and good pastoral care, but ‘ordinary’ facilities, a normal 6th form offering and good but limited sports. Or AIBU and most private school parents want expensive facilities and a huge choice of A levels, wrap around care and co-curricular and have no issues with how much it costs?

Yes, but the average funding for state schools has to cover a lot of children with various kinds of needs, difficult family situations etc. A no-frills private school could actually undercut that substantially if they essentially were there to teach kids who don't need a lot of special support.

In Japan, we have some very affordable Indian international schools, mostly used by Indian expats here (software engineers, things like that) who are middle class but not getting massive expat packages, so they need private English (and Hindi) medium schools that do the job but are affordable. Their facilities are a little skimpy, but they do the job just fine and the kids academically do very well.

If parents just want the academics and a functional safe environment with decent behavior, private schools can actually offer them pretty cheaply because the schools do not need to serve a "social worker" role.

For example, if you are serving functional middle class families who can be trusted to put their kids into swimming lessons at the weekend anyway, there is no need to provide swimming lesson provision (whereas a state school kind of has to do this - a lot of the parents won't bother with getting their child to swim or lack easy access to a pool, so you risk ending up with huge numbers of non-swimming children at risk of drowning unless you provide some swimming instruction. I'm just using this as an example, but there are other things).

I think the market for this in the UK is limited, though, because as mentioned, the way that the UK housing market works generally means that it is a better deal to buy a property near a good state school and then pay for some tutoring on top, rather than use a cheap private school.

I think your points are fascinating, OP. It’s the main reason we didnt opt for private for my dc2 - in our area, state schools are quite good. Yes, 27 or 28 in a class in primary and 30 at secondary. But I can pay for all the extra curriculars we might ever need locally, and our state schools have invested their own and PTA funds well (we are a bit unusual with an affluent primary school that has great IT and outdoor learning and sports provision).

So what am I buying if I go private? The main thing is good behaviour, I think (some local state schools put up with ludicrous poor behaviour).

Now if someone offered me a private school that had AMAZING maths, science and engineering provision then I might sit up and listen. My son would love a school that taught him to code for Roblox, technical Lego and helped him build large structures in wood, or learn karting and maintenaance of engines for example.

a state school without state school kids? that’s what you’re saying right?

Thanks everyone for your contributions, it has been interesting reading them all. This thread, as I should have said in my OP, but did clarify later, is primarily about secondary schools (which I know a bit about from various angles).

I still feel that people are very unquestioning about what they pay and what they get for it. I think there is a significant status quo psychological bias going on, reinforced skilfully by the (large and expensive) marketing departments continually putting out social media feeds of all the wonderful things that the children get up to.

It would be strange if this were the perfect time for private schools, not too much luxury and bells and whistles, and not too little. Parents would have said the same a quarter of a century ago (when they were around half the current price in current terms).

Will the trend continue or will more choice come into the sector? I guess the truly wealthy wouldn’t really notice them doubling again in real terms, with class sizes of 15 and real state-of-the-art lab, I.T and art equipment, and proper restaurant lunches with menus and service. Easily done at 80k to 100k per annum (again exists in u.s and Switzerland).

My personal view is the country club aspect has already gone a bit far, as have fees. I actually don’t think it is healthy for the pupils. They will (and do) struggle with the mundanity of uni accommodation and life, and really struggle when they realise what the beginning of a career looks like.

Some have said that what I am suggesting is a private grammar school, and I guess that is close to it.

I do think small class sizes are important too, and worth paying for (which I think private schools haven’t emphasised enough, but many teachers think are really important). I also think sport and fitness is important, so the ability to do that (but not a private gym and minority sports) is important.

As for drama and music, this can be done out of school, and better. The same goes for minority sports. It involves more parental input, at least at the early stages, but I personally think that is a good thing.

Ultimately, I think that you could do that at the 12-15k per annum mark, still making them a lot cheaper with VAT than the current schools without. There will always be room for the schools like today’s and a few of the ‘ultra’ schools at around the 80k/annum mark, but I think parents should have more options and think carefully about what they want for their children and how much they are paying for it.

Agree and you're massively underestimating a teachers salary there. The average teacher is earning well over £40k.

As for drama and music, this can be done out of school, and better. The same goes for minority sports. It involves more parental input, at least at the early stages, but I personally think that is a good thing.

Having stuff done out of school creates logistical issues for parents who are trying to work though. A more sensible solution would be to carve everything up into chunks - you can just pay for basic tuition separately, and then choose which extra curriculars or clubs or extras you want to add on top (or choose to do none at all). I think private schools are likely to go this way anyway, because this enables them to put VAT on some things but not on others, since it's accepted that swimming lessons offered separately would not have VAT levied on them etc.

What would tempt me is a school that is expensive enough that parents have made a deliberate decision to send their kids there but not so expensive I can't afford (clearly). Therefore, you have a classroom of children with parental support, so hopefully, fairly well-behaved kids who want to learn and won't disrupt lessons or force many teachers off long-term sick. Then, the class can cover way more in a year than in some of our less happy state schools. If that can be done at an affordable price, I'd be in. Amazing facilities are nice extras.

Me too.
Although tbh I think we are getting this currently in the primary state system. Both my children (reception and year 3) are in classes of about 20. There are 2 classes per year group, but 3 teachers per year group, which enables lots of small groups interventions. The school say this means they never need supply teachers as have extra teachers on staff, so is more cost effective, but I still have no idea how they afford it with fewer children. Every class also has 2 teaching assistants, and they are a teacher training centre so student teachers in most year groups too. On site pool, forest school, cooking and science labs, specialist PE music and drama teachers in addition to already high staffing levels.
Excellent behaviour, lots of enhancing oppurtuinities from visiting drama groups, yoga, individual music lessons from year 3. And a broad mix of children with approx 20% FSM.
I'm not quite sure what else we would get in private?

But secondary we will definitely consider it as our local secondaries are not great.

@GreenTeaLikesMe ,

‘Having stuff done out of school creates logistical issues for parents who are trying to work though.’

I am just not sure contracting out parenting works as well as some parents, schools (and the government) think it does.

Ultimately, involved parents need to deal with these logistical issues and be a bit involved. To some extent, you often get one parent working a high level career in order to pay for the wrap around care in private when, if either or both parents took a small step back, the logistical challenges would disappear. I know that parents also need personal fulfilment and many get it from a ‘big’ career, which is all consuming. However, a big career plus private with wrap around is often far from perfect from a child’s perspective.

At the extreme end, this is affluent neglect, which is a very real thing in many private schools (they run staff CPD sessions on looking out for it). At its less extreme end, it is the child who comes to breakfast club at 7:30 every day, does an after school club or study hall every day and leaves school at 5pm. These children are frequently exhausted and stressed.

There is no magic solution which suits all, but I am a strong advocate for variety of choice and I do think the current offering isn’t right for many many pupils and parents.

I went to a sink school. A craze went through the school to slash (with a compass) the brand new interactive white boards. One kid admitted to doing the first one, and thought he was a hero for doing it. He got a detention.

My friend was deliberately tripped up ‘for a laugh’ and lost her two front (adult) teeth. School advised her mum it was a police matter as they couldn’t do much about it.

I cannot afford 30k a year to send DD to a bells and whistles independent but I’d prioritise 10K to send her to a school that did have a basic expectation for behaviour.

Or, maybe all of this could be helped if schools could easily expel kids that constantly drain all their resources with their lack of respect and parents who just treat schools as free childcare.

And I think Starmer ought to be the first to start paying (a large contribution) for his kids' state education.

He's worth millions apparently. State schools are in crisis. So pay up.

I agree . Start one ! It’s a very valid point .

I think there would be a market for this.

Some parents might want an academically selective school with good teaching and manageable class sizes for a lower cost. Be prepared to forgo the acres of pitches, the drama studio, etc etc. Parents can access sports and music and other extra curricular outside of school.

Yes this puzzles me too.

There should be demand for a niche offerings that don't do the expensive stuff. The obvious one would be a cheap super-selective school, where the value is really in the quality of the other students not the expensive facilities. Tightly banded selective schools would not necessarily need small classes either, as it's much easier to teach a narrow ability range of very able students.

I wonder if it's scholarships that break that model (the super-smart kids get subsidised elsewhere anyway).

A cheap, private Michaela might work too.

My kids have done both and it’s like night and day. It’s not just the facilities are better it’s that they have proper qualified teachers for all their subjects who aren’t off sick all the time with stress related illness. Smaller class sizes mean they get support when they are struggling so they can catch up. They do music and art and drama properly because not every lesson is drilling for sats or made up ofsted bullshit. I don’t think the things that make it better are things I should be paying for frankly but the education system has been underfunded for years and I am fortunate to be in a position where I can fill in what’s missing for my dc.

This highlights the financial gains of the policy and hits home that it is 100% ideological and nothing to do with improving schools.

@twistyizzy ,

I am not sure that really ‘proves’ anything, other than you really don’t want to pay the tax.

All big taxes are made up of smaller pieces. Is paying taxes on super luxury items an ideological war on the rich because the total raised is a small slice of the pie?

Is trying to limit the non dom arrangements ‘ideological’ or just fair?

Is it 'fair' that we pay tax (DH higher rate), take zero from the state, relieve the burden on the state for the education of our child yet are now being hit with more tax?

@twistyizzy ,

I find that comment really strange, what do you think tax is but the richer supporting the poorer? And I speak as someone who has paid an excess of 1 million in taxes in my lifetime.

Any society needs to balance allowing people to become wealthy with sharing the bounty of a (still relatively) rich society. Our taxes are still lower (in total) than most of mainland Europe, and the wealthy pay a lower tax rate than the middle classes in total (both Starmer and Sunak paid tax rates of about 25% on total income of £500k plus). So, this small tax of a few grand shouldn’t get people as excited as it has.

Private schools have a really weird status in the UK, not really shared with anywhere else. Of course there are really fancy schools in Upper Eastside Manhattan costing $100k per annum, but no one feels they are really letting their child down by not sending them to a private school (same in Europe).

Taxes just aren’t paying for use, they are subsidies so that everyone can get educated, healthcare etc.

OK so answer this: how is it fair that Labour have today announced that state boarding schools will be exempt from VAT?
Parents pay the boarding fees at these school but they now won't have to pay VAT.
How are they any different from parents paying for private school boarding?

@twistyizzy ,

I can’t answer that fairly obscure question but it is fairly irrelevant to the conversation as it affects vanishingly few pupils. Maybe private schools will ask for VAT exemption on the boarding element and get it?

I don’t think it will necessarily be a successful policy or raise a lot of revenue. I can foresee it floundering on legal challenges and impracticalities, but I don’t see how it is any more unfair than any other consumption tax on luxuries.

No one likes taxes and most see their own as somehow unfair (especially the wealthy who pay a far lower percentage than the middle classes).

As I have said 100s of times we would be happy with an education tax through income tax as we have no issue with paying our taxes. What I object to is a spite tax that will have zero impact being used as smoke and mirrors for the fact Labour aren't committing to actually improving state education in any meaningful way

@twistyizzy ,

If you really cared about that, there are loads of local state schools who are in dire need of a donation, which will go directly into improving the state sector.

Instead of waiting for HMRC to come calling, you could help them both by giving time and money. I do.