It's a private school one.....

[Noangelbuthavingfun]

Many threads on MN ... I want to know this: why haven't Labour given any info on their modelling of what will likely happen and the different scenarios that could play out when they impose VAT? It matters - because if they get thus wrong ... and a shed load of kids leave private because their families have scrimped to send them there ... the state sector in some councils will quickly be overwhelmed with kids needing state places that does not exist....which could be a lose lose for everyone! You don't build a new school and resource it in a month.... these things take years . I feel for all kids as they will all lose out if this happens and labour having got contingency in place.
How would you feel if your child is in a good state school , perhaps they get some SEND support...and suddenly there is an influx of private kids as they need the spaces. Class sizes go up to 40, all SEND provision gets cut as not enough funds, extra curricular gets cut and teachers are even more stressed, so the vicious circle if teacher shortages now intensifies....the spiral continues for years to come. Who has won?? No one ....
What are your thoughts on this ?
I don't disagree with the principle that private is a luxury and probably should pay VAT... what I disagree with is the notion you can just implement something that will fundamentally shift things on a seismic way in one big bang. No thought whatsoever. Tell me if you agree or have a different view and why ?

That’s hilarious! 😆

The FB page is getting funnier by the day too… the guy who’s paying the cost of a ‘brand new Tesla’ each year for his kid’s school, the woman who wants what she pays in taxes for the state school place she hasn’t taken up re-directed to her child fees are particularly good —

BUT at least a few are starting to ask what their private schools are planning on doing - most aren’t very helpful it seems…

How helpful can they be? They're first responsibility is to their staff. They can't cut wages or pensions to pay VAT.

They don't provide it to you.

However, schools send in returns monthly to local authorities confirming exactly that for fair access panel purposes and also have to submit migration reports within 5 days of any pupil leaving or starting at a school that also contain that information.

Then there's the departments working on school place planning, both at local authority level and higher. And the regional schools commissioners and the DfE in general.

Then there's census, which also has the numbers on roll, and the live connection to the DfE for the register so they can see numbers on roll, attendance, SEND, FSM and many demographic details.

The information absolutely does exists and multiple places have access to it.

You, sadly, are just not important enough to have this information.

@MyNameIsFine ,

Well, teachers have generally got smaller pay rises than fee increases for at least a couple of years, so most have built a ‘war chest’.

And there are plenty of costs they can cut. They can defer new building projects, downsize the SLT, cut the marketing budget etc etc

How do you imagine state schools cope when their budgets are cut year on year?

Apart from this being quite a nasty way of looking at things, it's a little bonkers.

The point of taxation is to fund a societal need not to buy a service for personal consumption.

Otherwise people might opt to fund the A500 and never be able to drive in Kent because they didn't contribute to the roads there.

In the event if a war, presumably nobody would be saying: please leave 153 Acacia Avenue and 12 Oak Road and all the Starbucks branches and Amazon warehouses undefended because they paid insufficient tax to cover their defence.

@VivX "The point of taxation is to fund a societal need not to buy a service for personal consumption"

Exactly. I have never (fingers crossed) needed to use the fire service, but I am happy to contribute to it. I have never been burgled, but I am happy to contribute to the police service. I am committed to nuclear disarmament, but accept that I contribute to the nuclear "deterrent" because I like living in a democracy.

What absolute bloody nonsense. They could use an average of kids admitted from the list, say over the last three years? They don’t tell you your placement because each school admits based on various priorities, one school may be religious, another prioritises SEN and another purely distance from school and so on. So what you mean is they cannot predict if a SEN child or church going child (or one that lives on top of the school) will join the list, thus pushing you further (and further) down the list. This wouldn’t preclude them estimating the rate they move through the list, i.e last year we admitted 5 from a list of 125. Because many schools hold their own list (even atrocious academies), the local authority has zero idea of when or if you would be offered a space. In many built up cities, there are no spare places, the schools are oversubscribed and underfunded, throwing more children into this system is a bizarre vote grabbing operation, which will have dire consequences for all involved.

I think I would support this if there was a guarantee the money raised would go directly to improving school provisions and no where else. That would go some way towards addressing inequality. I think the IFS calculations suggested it could raise 1.6 billion which could make a massive difference to state schools.

I’m sorry, maybe there is more polite way of saying you should put into society what you expect to take out. Not expect to be maintained by other tax payers. I have a cat, who we insure and pay for private medicine for, I do not have 5 cats because that would be unaffordable. People need to accept that other tax payers are covering the cost of their large families, who are actually a drain on public expenses, whether they choose to see it or not.

Societal need has to be balanced by those contributing, with the overall contribution per child raised from taxes (ideally those taking from these services will be contributing via their taxes). Those with large families whinging about ‘the state of schools’ need to consider if they themselves have overstretched the state.

The point of taxation is that you should raise taxes from those who use the services - to fund them. Not charge those who don’t use them twice.

@80smonster ,

That isn’t how it works long term. We have an aging population and people unwilling to have children. Even if larger families are taking out more now than they are putting in, in 15-20 years those children will be much needed next contributors.

Why would knowing your place on the waiting list even help? You might be first and no space opens up in your year group ever. Or you could be 25th, and 25 kids die in a horrific bus crash. If you can't handle the uncertain wait apply in the January before they start reception/year 7 like everyone else.
You could always spend some of that school fees money and rent a house in an area with spaces.

If that’s the case why was Brexit pushed through based on immigration concerns? If we need more people, we have access to many who would like to join us? Why on earth would we need ‘make them’. Anyone procreating for the benefit of the British public can slip their pants back on.

Just because the state doesn't reat teachers well doesn't mean private schools have to copy them!

If you can estimate how many you admit each term or year, then you can quite easily create an average. Not sure what about this concept is blowing your mind.

Even if they could, they don't have to. Did you think you were so special the council would rewrite policy just for you? Diddums is getting a reality check.

They don’t cope. There are endless threads from teachers about the state of their schools, lack of SEN support, having to buy class provisions themselves etc. Taxing private school fees won’t help with that though. Even the IFS have said it will raise a tiny amount of money and won’t make any real difference to public services.

It's a legal requirement for all schools that are funded by the State (so includes all academies/those who are their own admissions authorities) to notify the Local Authority of each application that is on their waiting list every month.

School Admissions Code 2021.

Teacher's pension costs have risen. As explained elsewhere, new buildings are generally paid for by fund raising, not fees. Schools that fill the places and have waiting lists don't bother much with advertising. It's the small, failing schools that have upped that budget in recent years.

@80smonster ,

I didn’t vote for Brexit, but massive immigration swaps out one problem for another.

A nation cannot just swap out the indigenous population for immigrants from very different cultures and very different values without some serious problems.

We do need to replace our own population (or at least close). You see large families as selfish, some see one child or fewer as a selfish choice, especially if you can comfortably support them.

Economically, a young population (with some but not excessive immigration) is optimal.

I live in a Grammar school city. There is one private all through school. I know a few staff from the private school who have each, individually made comments that reflect that many of their pupils would not have secured places at any of the Grammars. They always have an open day just after Grammar results have been released because they know they will attract parents whose children have failed to secure a pass or borderline chance of securing a Grammar place. Those children are not going to immediately be completing for Grammar places. The state options available will be of the non selective schools which are less popular. There are surplus places available but they are unlikely to be attractive to parents currently paying for the private. Instead I think younger siblings might be sent to crammer preps to try to get them over the Grammar pass mark, but if they fail to secure Grammar places the parents will keep on paying. The private school sixth form could be the first area to see numbers drop because switching around to state sixth form happens a lot so ex private pupils who secure good enough GCSEs would be able to access good places.

You are assuming that private kids have more intelligence than state kids assuming that the private kids will take all the grammar school places. I can assure you that there are huge amounts of kids in state schools that are far more intelligent than private kids.

There are wait lists because people want to get their kids in the most popular schools. There are still plenty of places in the less popular schools

@HistoryCasual that's my experience too of growing up in a grammar school area, private schools are full of children who didn't get into the grammar.

@80smonster

If your children are in private school and need a state school place, then you need to use the admissions system that 93% of the population already use and you could have used in the first place had you not decided to opt out. That was YOUR choice. Yours.

To use your own phrase, I'm not sure what it is about that concept that is blowing your mind.