To be glad that the VAT on school fees

[Shaketherombooga]

Is now going to be happening in January? what’s the point in stalling it? I think it’s one of many decisions that we just need to get in with.

YABU - it’s SO unfair. Labour hates ‘strivers’ etc etc

YANBU - Yup, Labour said they are taking away tax breaks for private schools, so let’s get on with it.

This is kind but he's not really at that kind of school. He's at a tiny alternative independent where the fees are a tiny fraction of a 'normal' private - there just isn't the money for the school to do any more. My fear isn't paying the VAT, i'll manage, i'll have to. My fear is that too many parents simply won't be able to (lots of whom are there for the same sort of reasons as we are) and the whole school will close down.

You could pour millions into the state sector, you've still got to find teachers willing to work in it. It's a bullshit policy that will just ensure that only the super rich can use private schools and therefore increase the gap rather than close it.

We live in a nice area with good state schools. This doesn't make me a better person than someone 20 minutes down the road, in a not so nice area, who spends £1,500 a month on school fees instead of a mortgage.

The kids at my son's school are not Hugo with his straight A's and grade 8 piano who will be a credit to his local comp (but will stay at his private anyway) - the kids at my son's school are the ones who can't cope with busy, large environments (they may be academically average, but academics are the last thing on the parent's minds). They are the kids who will take up a disproportionate amount of time and resources and generally make the local comp teachers groan - because that's how they ended up leaving the state sector in the first place.

Well there is always the option of prefabs on school grounds, extending existing schools and so on. When my county went from the three tier system to the two tier system which meant primary schools grew from EY through Yr4 to having EY through Yr6, they added on to our existing primary school. I was part of the PTA and gave input on the plans - got the gender neutral toilets changed to seperate boys and girls toilets using the argument of some of the girls will be dealing with periods and need privacy- but I digress. It was pretty seamless. Construction started as soon as school broke up for the summer. Yr 5 and Yr 6 were in prefabs on the school grounds for autumn term. After Christmas, they moved into the new school wing.

This increased the school population by 45% in one year just by adding on to the existing school.

We do need to keep sight though, that any family who can afford to choose a private school, SEN or no SEN, is very much privileged. The average UK family can't afford it, regardless of needs.

And whilst the SEN provision is generally shite, there are pockets of brilliant care and education in the state system for those who don't qualify for specialist provision.

If you can afford 3 children in independent school, then your family is clearly very financially privileged. Your kids are likely to do well wherever they are. They're also lucky they've had a few years of independent school (providing it was a good one, some seem very questionable to be honest), which is more than the average child has.

Our ex head sent their children to private school, I found it very off-putting. Why didn't you lead a school that was good enough for them? Why didn't you offer wrap around care for the working families who attend your school? It's like a chef who won't eat his own cooking, it's disconcerting.

Do you really think so many teachers from the indie sector will be running to get a job in state ed????

I won’t. Neither will many others.

Talking from experience, I do know of several teachers who left my school to go into state. One moved back to indie after a year owing to the terrible behaviour in the “good” rated by Ofsted school. Another, is sticking it out but has. A lot of time off for health reasons. The third is setting up their own tutoring business and planning to leave ASAP.

I know one teacher who left our school and is happy in her state school. However, it’s a high achieving state grammar.

Obviously this is only anecdotal but I can’t imagine there are going to be loads of indie teachers who desperately want to teach in a school where behaviour is below par, Ofsted looms and it already requires improvement.

@RunningThroughMyHead “very much privileged”. Hmm. Or in receipt of generous bursaries and/or scholarships and sacrificing absolutely everything to make it work. The range of parents in our schools is vast. It’s not a homogenous mass of trust fund managers.

I think so yes. There will be teachers in the private sector made redundant and the competition for fewer private teacher jobs will be fiercer. Teachers at private schools are not usually independently wealthy and so will need a job. Other jobs teachers can do will also be more competitive to get. So a certain number will have no choice but to take a state school job to put food on the table. There will be new teachers qualifying, teachers immigrating….

It will balance out in the end. This is no where near the upheaval we had when Thatcher closed the coal mines. All those miners had to go get a different job. It didn’t matter at all that they didn’t want to. They had to.

This isn’t only industry where this has happened btw, tons of other ones have had to shift from one thing to another. Most of our manufacturing jobs. Many jobs have been replaced by AI and automation.

This isn’t a big deal, it’s actually quite a small ripple.

You’re badly clutching at straws with that response.

This assumes the Head has the means and resources to make their school work. Mostly this isn't the case. It's not the Head's fault, it's years of under funding. It's like blaming the chef when they've been given shit, gone off ingredients. It'll take decades to fix, and schools absolutely do need more investment (as does the NHS, and everything else the Tories decimated) - but shoving a load of kids with SEN into the state sector now will just make things worse in the short term...the resources won't magically be there. Of course it's massively unfair that the only way to get the right support is to go private, but taking those kids and putting them into the state sector doesn't do the kids already there any favours - it just means the already decimated resources have to stretch even further, and everyone suffers.

Are you seriously suggesting using prefabs etc as the solution should there be an influx of private school children to schools in my local area?
How would such over-crowding benefit any of the theoretical children involved?

Anyway, this is getting off the topic.

We had around 6 children funded by local authorities at our independent school, because there was no provision.

Presumably the councils are either going to foot the increased bills (meaning less money for other services) or stop funding places at the detriment to all.

Well it sunk your fallacy of painting this as some egregious wrong when over 2 billion parents literally have to pay school fees to send their 6yr old to a state funded primary school or their child doesn’t ever go to school.

A basic education isn’t even universally free in the world, so why you think it should always be tax free is a bit of an entitled attitude.

It’s not about penalising private school parents but you can’t give them tax relief when the state education system is sinking and the nhs needs shoring up. It’s not fair. Governments should look after those at the bottom not line the pockets of the already wealthy.

Lots of families are scraping by to feed and house their kids.

You need a wider perspective. I'm not judging, as if you spend a lot of time with range roving, skiing, house renovating parents, you're going to forget that more children than ever are living under the poverty line. That affording school uniform is a real struggle for many.

Im sorry, but if you're scraping by and managing to send 3x kids to private school, then you're very privileged.

It’s a good temporary solution while existing schools are extended or new ones built. It’s been done all over the U.K.

Having worked in the public sector for decades, my guess would be they'll pay the increased costs.

I do have a vested interest in making sure state schools are as good as possible. I have one child in state (because he can cope with it) and one child in independent (because he has SEN and anxiety and hates himself) - I want the state schools to be excellent, but I will not apologise for doing what I had to do for my child to survive when the state system let him down. And I do not believe that the landscape that got him into this mess will magically have changed by next September - nor do I think having a kid with my son's needs in the local comp would actually help make anything better, it would take resources from the other state kids and cost the school.

As for overseas teachers - well I’m finding this is solution just crazy!

My friend works on an ever-dwindling PGCE course that recruits a huge number of foreign “would be teachers.” He said that most want the English accreditation so they can then go and work at British schools abroad.

He says that quite a few struggle because of their own cultural backgrounds being so different to what English schools expect. For example, in their home country teachers are treated with respect. Ha!

There’s often an issue with heavy accents (no matter how good their English language is) and kids in school play up over this.

Foreign teachers are not much of an answer, I’m afraid.

In addition, there is the cost of teachers’ pensions. Schools pay an additional 28.68% on top of each teacher’s salary. How much will this cost the state hen the indie teachers move sectors?

Also some parents prefer single sex education which is what PS tend to provide

Oh Christ no I would never have my children in a school I work in 🤣 they’d be forever knocking in my door and I’m there to work not mother them- I like to keep my private life separate to my work. Jokes aside- my school isn’t in there catchment to where we live so they wouldn’t have got in.

To answer your questions- why didn’t I lead a good enough school for my children to be in? I do- it’s gone from special measure to outstanding, and we have a very high proportion of disadvantaged children and EAL with a very high turnover.

Why didn’t I offer wrap around? We do- we also do a free breakfast club and after school we use the local independent schools resources and I take the children to play football and swimming etc so not just a run of the mill after school club. But I personally over see this and that answers your question as to why my children are in private school. I need to drop them in at 7am and pick them up between 6.30-7pm so I can run these clubs / breakfasts for children so their parents can work the hours they need to.

Also yes we are financially able to pay for our children (I’m not going to say privileged as the hours my husband works in his job requires the pay he gets). I never said we weren’t . But we can’t afford the 20% increase going forward. And we will use the money in different ways or my hours will reduce to work around their new pick up and drop off times.

If we're talking oxbridge there were more children admitted from the City of Westminster school than the entire county I live, including those "poor" little rich kids at private school. More of a. North - South divde than private /state school. Chances of getting into oxbridge are very low from many Northern private schools. I'd happily take my chances at a southern state school. Lazy politics and thinking, which will do nothing to improve education where I live.

The date for the budget will be announced before Parliament goes into recess at the end of the month.

Well he only sees the foreign teachers that aren’t already fluent in English or were not born in an English speaking country. There are tons of “foreign” teachers from US, Canada,Australia, New Zealand, S Africa that do just fine.

I wouldn’t worry about the teachers pension as it is one of the unfunded public service pension schemes. This means that the % paid isn’t put into a fund for when current teachers retire, the % extra is calculated based on the money need to pay the pensions to retired teachers now. The total money won’t change, as the number of retired teachers now won’t change. They will recalculate the % per current teacher and as the # current teachers go up, so there won’t be any extra money needed for that. Extra cost = zero

No, it’s more private vs state than it is north vs, south. There is a small north vs south element because grammar schools are concentrated in the south and they are counted as state schools.