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 ?

I would also like to see an increased cooperation between the private sector and the state sector (instead of finishing off the private sector). And more work on a local level instead of trusting politicians to actually fulfill a pledge (they never do).

In our school we have initiatives where parents and pupils are helping state school children with their homework. We also have (now had) an increasing amount of (full) bursaries and let state schools use the facilities. The senior school also had career days, helping state senior schools with personal statements, choice of universities etc (in addition to study help and partnerships).

Unfortunately I think this will be ending. One part of the bursaries came from parents who decided not to ask the deposits back as children lest the school (almost a term of fees). I don’t think this will continue as before with the VAT. Given the toxicity, I also doubt that the partnerships and volunteering will continue.

i think this is a shame. We will switch to state school and I would have loved for this to continue. It was a good way to fund state pupils and also to enrich local state schools.

i am hoping that we will see a difference in the money allocated to state schools - but with the NHS creaking, increasing amount of mental health issues, aging population, potholes, defence etc, I don’t believe it will happen.

But this is not a sudden thing. Labour didn't come up with this suddenly last month. This has been around for years. Even Gove talked about it.

Had politicians mooted adding 20% VAT onto mortgage payments in a similar way, then yes it would be sensible to assess the affordability of that scenario.

How do you even define luxury? If a village school only fills one year with 16 pupils, is this 'luxury education'? Should the state refuse to fund it?

@VivX exactly.
It's not sudden. By the time it even comes into being it could have been years since it was floated.
I can think of more sudden changes which will have affected more people far more acutely - the change in child benefits to benefit two children only for a start.

If that happened it’s likely the school would combine year groups as it’s an unsustainable model.

@HooverIsAlwaysBroken ,

Private school deposits are generally non-refundable. Bursaries are generally funded by (very) generous parents and alumni. As many have said, there are very few genuine 100% plus add on bursaries. In some schools there are vanishingly few.

It would be an immense error if private schools go to war over this, reduce bursaries and stop partnership programs. A lot of it is synergistic. The bright state school pupils who attend Oxbridge enhancement courses provide depth and competition to sometimes smug pupils, and going in to primary schools to read is beneficial to the private school pupils who do it. Finally, if private schools don’t share facilities, don’t expect planning permissions to sail through.

I honestly think private schools had years to show they wanted to enthusiastically support their local communities and only paid lip service to it. VAT would have been far harder to introduce if communities saw their local private school as a positive addition to the community.

They're usually closed if there aren't enough children attending to be able to fund the minimum staffing and maintenance costs.

Irrespective of one’s stance on this issue, the IFS report scuppers the scare-mongering and nonsense touted by the right-wing press that suggests state schools will not be able to cope with the influx of children being pulled out of private schools.
”… the state sector could easily accommodate extra pupils given that overall pupil numbers across England are due to decline by at least 100,000 per year on average up to 2030 – i.e. a total drop of more than 700,000, which is bigger than the total number of children attending private schools.”

You said there were too many threads on the topic - which suggests people are just making a fuss about nothing. You then started a whole diversion tactic of talking about how schools ask for money for charity and trips, as if private schools never ask for money for these things too, and that was the same as 20% VAT

My local Catholic school had quite fluctuating numbers in each year - some years were full, some years were tiny. It wasn't closed, even though the main primary school was oversubscribed. So, no, they only close them if they are really too small even if there are alternatives.

overall pupil numbers

This phrase is the problem. It doesn’t take account of local issues. It looks at the national picture. Someone living in Brighton couldn’t care less if there are spaces in Newcastle for example. Not all areas have spaces in all school years.

And people made a fuss about it. And rightly so.

@Araminta1003
And the type of thinking VAT on private school fees comes from - our state schools will be next!

I am not in favour of putting vat on private schools but the above sentence doesn't make sense. The schools receive money from gov directly or through councils and trust me, gov will not tax themselves 😆

Exactly. On London in areas with good schools all schools are oversubscribed

I’ve just had another thought… the OP asked us to consider a scenario where class sizes in state schools would rise to 40. I’d like to know how that number was arrived at because this scenario is extremely unlikely. Firstly, as I mentioned above, the IFS has shown pupil numbers are declining in state schools and there are already lots of (less popular) state schools with plenty of available spaces without pushing class sizes beyond 30. Secondly, even if all state schools already had 30 children per class, there is no possibility that ex-private school pupils would push these class sizes up to anywhere near 40.

6-7% of all children go to private schools. Therefore, even if half of all private school pupils were suddenly withdrawn from their schools, this would equate to an increase in class sizes of 3-4%. In a current class of 30 pupils, 3-4% equates to an increase of around 1 extra child per class - hardly a catastrophic rise in numbers for any teacher to cope with and certainly not enough to threaten the current SEND provision.

My point was in my first paragraph.

Possibly you've misread it (or misunderstood it)

I don't agree with the low level of funding for state schools (quite the opposite) and am pretty sure that I have never said I did.

For the umpteenth time the IFS report has already been discredited to some degree by all sides.

It includes a number of wholly unrealistic assumptions which if included would show the policy to be a net cost on the taxpayer.

For starter it completely ignores changes in income tax paid by parents who move from the private to state sector. That alone blows the 1.6bn figure entirely on its own.

I'm not sure I did say there are too many thread on the topic but even if I did it is the same as saying "people are just making a fuss about nothing" and certainly doesn't mean I am a "windup" or whatever other insults you hurled at me.
I also didn't start a "diversion tactic" about school asking for money for charity and trips. You were the one saying "Imagine for a moment that the government said 'School finances are in a terrible state, the roof is falling in, classrooms are overcrowded, so every parent has to pay" I just said state schools do ask for money (and it's not necessarily just for charity and trips btw). I meant that it is not hard to imagine. I agree it is nothing to do with the topic of this particular thread as the OP is about the impact on state schools, if anyone was diverting the topic it was you.

Yes, the rhetoric surrounding this has been vile, the anger it has whirled up, whilst so few have grappled with the underlying details and consequences - is astounding. It reminds me of ‘Brexit means Brexit’ the inference being that no one dare question its legitimacy. Such a dangerous place for society to be, children’s lives and education being toyed with by untrustworthy politicians - to aid vote grabbing. The Labour party has no real strategy in place to deliver this plan, proved by the numbers (which are incorrect) and further demonstrated by the long waiting lists that exist for many primary schools.

Yes, that's why it's so odd that they describe the exemption of education as a 'loophole' that private schools are 'exploiting'. What education do they imagine the legislation is designed for? Applying VAT to government supplied education would be pointless! They're not 'closing a loophole', they're abolishing a VAT exemption entirely (at least for children - maybe adult education is different?).

A lot of people seem to believe that, because education is provided in state school and everyone has a place, paying for it is a luxury, so we don't need the VAT exemption. That's a point of view. After all, if the government started handing on pan loaf why wouldn't need the VAT exemption to afford bread, so why not tax it? You might not like the bread on off, but that's your choice, right?

But why not come out and say that they're abolishing the VAT exemption on education, instead of saying that they are closing the loophole for the private sector. What is this other mysterious third sector educating our under18s apparently is going to carry on unscathed.

Please reread my post - nowhere did I mention assumptions by the IFS (or anyone else) regarding the overall financial loss or gain to the tax payer of introducing VAT on school fees. My remarks were purely about the scaremongering going on regarding class sizes in state schools increasing (according to the OP by 33%) - which is clearly impossible given only 6-7% of children are privately educated!

Private school parents do themselves no favours by trying to scare state school parents into supporting their cause! Whilst I have yet to research your point regarding the overall net loss to tax payers, this is a far more compelling argument than spuriously suggesting state school pupils will inevitably suffer huge class sizes and loss of SEND provision if VAT is added to school fees.

Yep, it’s absolutely shocking, most of MN either can’t read or perform basic mathematic equations, a rather worrying state of affairs. Lots of post-factual threads containing little real information on the topic. Sadly it’s like watching turkeys voting for Christmas.

‘My original point was that all the posters saying other parents could easily afford the VAT and resenting all 'the fuss they're making' would be making a big fuss if they were asked to pay it!’

I don’t particularly like paying VAT either, but do When I have to.

I never pay my VAT. When I get an invoice, I just deduct the VAT and pay the basic. Thank goodness we have good citizens like you that pay their taxes. What would we do without you.

@80smonster ,

Are you actually in the uk? ‘mathematic equations’? Most would just say equations or, correctly, mathematical equations. Do you actually have skin in this game or are you just politicking? Are you at the point of considering moving to the state sector?

More to the point, it isn’t really a question of solving equations, there are a lot of assumptions around it, which both sides will manipulate towards their own end. There is the question of how many will leave and, of those who do, what is their marginal propensity to consume.

It really is a ‘how long is a piece of string’ question. I will continue to say few will leave because of how few have left over the regular inflation busting fee increases.