Private school fees - act now for SEND!

[BellesAndGraces]

The King’s Speech is scheduled for this Wednesday (17th July) and it will be followed by 4 days of debating Labour’s proposed legislation in Parliament, including the introduction of VAT on private school fees.

If you have a child with special educational needs or a disability and send them to a private school because your local state school was unable to meet their needs but do not have an EHCP I would strongly suggest that you write to your MP and tell them why you send your child to a private school and how the charging of VAT on private school fees will affect you. Ask your MP to stand up in Parliament and ask the government whether it is willing to expand the exception they have agreed to make for children with EHCPs to cover all children who attend private school in order to meet their SEND. If you share your story and circumstances with your MP you will be providing them with a case study they can refer to in Parliament about how charging VAT on private school fees will affect those of their constituents who are already dealing with the challenges that having a child with SEND can bring.

You can find out who your MP is and their email address here: https://members.parliament.uk/FindYourMP

I understand your point of view, @Frowningprovidence - thanks for your thoughtful responses and I hope your kids (perhaps now grown up) are doing well.

It’s not unavailable to 93% though. There are plenty of parents who can afford private who chose not to. And the 7% in private school is at any one time- children might start in state and move to private later so far more than 7% spend some time at private school.

And in the context of child with SEN who aren’t well supported at mainstream parents who would never normally have considered private will consider it even if it means remortgaging their house or working longer hours or going without things. Just like other parents might work fewer hours in order to support children with SEN.

So I take the point that many parents could never afford private but it’s not the preserve of only the wealthy in this context.

Most families absolutely can’t affford £18k in school fees.

@Circe7 I think you are right on the figures (I am one of those parents who could afford it but chooses not to), but no matter how you slice it, private education without very significant scholarships - most of which will be unavailable in the situations we're discussing - is going to be out of reach for the vast majority of families in the country.

This policy will make private school very much only for the super wealthy. Those who scrimp and save won’t be able to afford a massive hike in fees all in one go. Schools will also cut bursaries to absorb some of the hit. This policy will actually widen the gap.

The only people who care about the gap widening are those who previously were on the right side of the gap and now aren’t. They didn’t care about the gap before but now they do when there kids are no longer the privileged few.

How do you know they didn't care about the gap before?

I'm not the only state school teacher whose child went to a private primary, in large part because I needed to be absolutely sure I could get wraparound and holiday club.

What a foolish comment. Someone doing what they can to help their kid and you call them out with this nonsense. Grow up

I care and my kids are state educated. Nobody in my family has been to private school - cousins, nephews, nieces, in- laws etc. I can see though that this policy is unfair. I am not wealthy and can’t afford private education.

This policy is not unfair .

In its proposed form it is. People have made a decision on their child’s education assuming fees would rise year on year, but not by 20%! This means they will have to remove their child from the school. I really feel sorry for children who will have to leave their school and friends because of this. Children on bursaries finding out it’s not going to continue- unfair. No other country in Europe does this and if we were still in the EU they wouldn’t be allowed to do it. It’s not fair that people who save the state money are being charged more. Now I’m quite happy to debate the ethics of having a private education system but this is just a nasty dig at private schools. The revenue created is going to have very little impact on state schools. Why aren’t they taxing private health care? Who is gambling not taxed?

Fees for private education are more than many people earn, if you’re after security assuming you’ll always be in a position to pay them is a huge risk. Anything can happen. Many people won’t need to remove their kids as being wealthy they’ll be more than capable of paying an extra £300 a month. Those that do need to move their children, it’s on them. Plenty of children have to and do move school within the state sector . It’s not a calamity.

You prove my point. Super wealthy won’t flinch at the increase but those who can only just afford it will now be priced out. I have sympathy for any child who is upset at moving schools- rich or poor. There is a massive range in private schools. Some near me are 9 k a year and others are nearer 20k. It would be much fairer to say that the policy applies to all those starting private school then people can cut their cloth accordingly knowing what they are signing up for or not apply to private school at all.

Gambling is taxed.

I completely agree.

No tax on winnings. Sorry. I should have been clearer.

i’m not purposefully trying to disagree with you other than to make the point, at my school 35% of children have SEN and that excludes a high number of EHCPs.

A number of posters seem to be missing the huge number of children who aren’t close to an EHCP but who still have additional needs and are struggling (and tbh many NT children are too due to funding).

I’m not sure how 40% of parents is not representative/a united group. All parents should be voting/lobbying for proper funding in education.

I don't feel SEN parents are united, no (with honourable exceptions like the ones who came together to start SOSSEN, IPSEA, Special Needs Jungle, SEND Reform England, write books, run blogs etc).

We're isolated, feel like we have to compete for an increasingly shrinking pool of resources and there is stigma often around even admitting your child has needs.

It's also mostly mums dealing with SEN so there's a super extra layer of misogyny there too.

Just look at the judgement on this thread of people (mums) who've gone down the private route (prejudice against private education came through very clearly from our local authority also).

It's a lose lose situation all around and somehow the children get lost in it all.

Agree - for example - how many pta meetings have you sat through where nits, snacks, trips etc the same old issues on loop - but no discussion of the terrible timelines for HT/SLT to provide input needed for professionals re SEN or any oversight of that or any other issues related to sEN.

Just at a simple school by school level few SEN parents are co-ordinated and it's often because year on year, some win support and some lose. And of course the not wanting personal details of your dc known.

But overall it means less accountability than for NT children.

Completely agree @BarryCantSwim as I said, I am not reassured by labour being in, much as hopefully not tories because of dire state of funding and their no income tax commitments.

My own child attends the school where I teach and one point I was chasing around trying to redact a lot of very personal family information that got emailed to the general school email address... there are serious risks of being open about all this.

Are special schools included in that 6%? (Where you need an EHCP to attend)

I imagine a large number of those parents who choose private because their child has SEN will now start pushing for an EHCP if it will save them the VAT.

Ironically this will then cost the LA the whole fees PLUS the VAT so by not allowing what the op is asking for, there may be much less £ for state education...

Not to mention that some of us are in Scotland where income tax is higher and there's no EHCP. And only 40 kids have what labour thinks is the equivalent 'CSP'.

But yeah, niche. SEN isn't united a lot of it is niche to another group.

If we were in England we'd definitely have gone for EHCP because we spent 5 years fighting various fights for support and failing and watching it all crumble.

And @Phineyj I agree - all the diagnosis reports emailed to the school containing personal family history, other people's diagnoses. Totally risky business. Even if you redact the history, a lot of the other sections contain private things.

I think it is unlikely that a significant number of parents would win such a fight against an LA. Going from SEN needs, paying private fees to getting an EHCP AND forcing the LA to pay private fees is a cliff to climb. It's not going be climbed by more than a handful of people. Although maybe it could have the beneficial effect of LAs finally realising they need to open more special schools for DC with SEN but who can e.g. take GCSEs. Because that would surely be cheaper than continuing to outsource to a more expensive private sector.

@geography21 and that's before the tendency of LAs to cut and paste information about total strangers' children into your documents! GDPR nightmare.