To be a private school parent who doesn't mind the VAT?

[PrincessOfPreschool]

I just wanted to write this to show the other side. Not all private school parents are moaning and I think it's the ones who understand the spectrum of society and their privilege within it, who aren't the ones moaning.

Writing on behalf of my friend who is not on MN but is sick and tired of all the school WhatsApps going round bemoaning VAT. She thinks it's fair, she's happy to pay it. She's aware of her privilege.

She has one son in state school (with SEN) and one in private school. So she knows both systems. She's grateful for the privilege of being able to send one child privately. Most of her close friends (her children went to state primary) do not have children in private school. She's sensitive to her privilege.

She is firmly in the real world. She works for the NHS and she's a bit shocked at the lack of awareness of privilege that all this moaning is showing. She's not at all wealthy but they have enough for the VAT because they don't spend much on other stuff.

These people do exist!

You can try explaining this over and over again. They just won't get it.

This might have been the case 25 years ago, but it definitely is not the case now. Graduate recruitment for top jobs is fierce...multiple interviews/role plays etc. You don't get the top job because of connections!

@PrincessOfPreschool
Ha-ha expensive cars and houses. If only…

Many private school parents, just like us, don’t have money left for those things. But we will if we send our kids to state.

Imagine, instead of paying VAT and continuing driving my old beaten down Toyota I will have bigger pension, new car and part-time job. My kids will take your kids place in the catchment and your NHS consultation will be delayed by another two months because I now only work 3 days a week.
(I am not in patient facing role to be absolutely honest. But I work with a few who have the same sentiments.)

I don't mind paying, but I really wish they would spend the whole lot on SEN provision instead of spaffing it up the wall on ANOTHER recruitment campaign.

You said that in many industries, a private school education doesn't make any difference and so I wondered how you knew that.

You might be surprised at the reality of it.

For example the apparently leftwing Guardian newspaper employs just one journalist without a private school background, grammar schoolboy John Harris.

Can you tell me how you know this? Because it goes against the results of published research.

Oh, yes, well if you want to work for the Guardian you need to be in the network. Now they've made their little club even more exclusive by adding VAT, I'm sure their chuffed 😂I was thinking more of the jobs like medicine that people have been talking about on this thread.

I meant 'they're chuffed', of course. Need to go back to school myself 😂

You just rewrote what I've written in your own words. Not sure what point you were trying to make...

Reply to @Begsthequestion Oh I'm not saying that there might be a majority of privately educated people in those roles...I'm just saying that they're there because they've had a good education, got stellar results and therefore have the ability to pass the tests. But it's not because of "who they know". And this is the crux of it...state education can be a gamble, whereas with independent schools, you know that your child will be able to achieve their personal "best". Some state schools are absolutely brilliant (Cardinal Vaughan/London Oratory spring to mind) and you'd be bonkers not to take a place there and pay for private. But other state schools can be "meh" or downright awful.
It's also rather insulting to claim that those kids didn't get their jobs by their own merit.

If the ultimate aim is to level the playing field a far more effective way of doing it would be to remove catchment areas. Within any given LA you get allocated a school based on so many from each postcode so you lose the "leafy comp" and "sink school". Backed up with solid and integrated, free transport.

Supporters of the VAT policy seems convinced that it's the duty of "the rich" to put their kids in state to somehow bring up the standards..a view that is grossly offensive to the 94% of kids already there. Unless they do something about the postcode /house price, selection by wealth situation, it's vastly hypocritical to be so vitriolic about the small proportion of parents who use private ..many of whom, as has been stated are already at the margins of affordability due to the CoL, mortgage rises etc but persist because the state system cannot cater for their SEN children.

To face reality is to accept that this stratified society benefits the privately educated greatly. The old boys networks work in their favour and as such they are overrepresented in almost every industry.

The only industries in which state education is overrepresented is men's and women's football.

https://www.suttontrust.com/our-research/elitist-britain-2019/

See, I don't think you have any facts to provide on this beyond your own anecdotes.

Here's some information I just found in a second from the bmj: https://www.bmj.com/content/352/bmj.i632

Just to really flesh it out:

We live next to a big hospital, and in an expensive catchment of a very good comprehensive.

In my sons form about a third of parents are doctors married to doctors - they have to send to private because they cannot supplement a state school education, they work too many hours. That’s who you will be punishing with the VAT. No, unlike the imaginary friend these parents don’t want to pay VAT on top of school fees. They want to quit their NHS jobs that are hard, draining and not that high-paying after all the expenses.

Many, many other parents in this same catchment earn more by working in IT or finance and having a part time working spouse. They send to the state school, and won’t be affected by VAT.

VAT on education is a stupid populist idea that plays on jealousy and only serves Labor. Not the people’s welfare.

True enough. But, you see, they're not actually abolishing private education, but making it only affordable to the super wealthy who aren't going to miss a bit of VAT. All we get in return is a very small amount of tax from an ever smaller elite.

From what you're saying, it would make sense to abolish private schools altogether.

Then more fool you/your friend.

Giving even more of your hard earned cash to our incompetent government to squander.

The old boys network will only apply for the elitist public schools. There is a small rural private school near us, non-selective, mainly chosen for its pastoral care. People aren't going to be getting top jobs from there simply by saying they are alumni.

This is the thing with this policy, schools like that are going to be hit hardest not the Etons of this world. So the inequality will still continue.

How do you know this?

Well, yes, it would, if what you're aiming for is to abolish the old school tie network.

@Begsthequestion how do I know what?

If that were true, then there wouldn't be enough of those private school graduates each year to add up to the amount of over representation that exists in all but two industries in Britain.

How do you know the things you said you know in the post I replied to.

I thought we were discussing the privileges of private school education. You brought up abolition.