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.

How does your country do it then?

very poorly thought out policy, in my opinion. My children have been schooled at independent and state at different times in their lives, we’ve just reacted to what’s best for the children.

Currently my entire net income goes on school fees. My husband and I have
discussed the fact that if VAT is imposed on the children’s last four years of school, and if we are suddenly looking at £45x2 plus 20%, it’ll tip us over the edge. I will then stop working so I can get them to our local outstanding state option and be around to support them. They’ve both had the benefit of a good start, and universities are now penalising those coming from public schools, so it may be beneficial anyway.

I’m quietly quite excited as I’m old, tired and fed up with giving the tax man so much money and getting so little in return. I’m sad for the people I employ to help around the edges - dog walker, cleaning lady etc, and would be sad if their lovely school closed, and the hundred of locals employed by the school lost their jobs, but never mind. I don’t think their school will close. Nor will Winchester, Rugby or Harrow. Some more reasonable day ex-grammars without all the endowments and legacies will close, but not the schools that The People really want to punish. My boys’ school may want to cut costs by not paying their head of classics to go and teach after school club in the local comp, or to lend their minibuses to the primaries to enable trips, or to provide swimming lessons for primary aged children. It will undoubtedly end its support of the local academy it’s been partnering with for over a decade, as it tries to mitigate costs. Shame.

Very wide catchments, not like here where it could be as little as 0.1m in some of the most desirable areas and lottery system.

From the perspective of an outsider, the state taxing education is sooooo bonkers, I can't even find words. Many other developed countries offer a tax rebate if you go private. But I guess the UK has a unique path.

Bringing it in in January versus an extra 9 months would make the difference to me between possibly being able to ride it out for my two children and not a chance.

I do understand that not all state schools are like that. However, I live in a city with a high level of deprivation and unfortunately, the majority of schools here are exactly like the one I attended. And there were and are far worse schools than the one I went to.

At the time of my eldest starting school, I quite simply could not afford to buy into the catchment areas of the better state schools in my city. I could, however, afford the private school fees. There are so many parents at my children’s school who are in similar positions.

I am always surprised at how people are so focused on the inequalities between private v state schools, but ignore and do not want to address the inequalities that exist between state schools. There seems to be absolutely no problem with parents “buying advantage” for their children when purchasing homes in areas that the majority of people could never afford. It’s the same thing, no? The only difference being that one set of parents pay for their children’s education, and the others are quite happy to allow the tax payer to pick up the bill for their children attending a school that the majority of children could never access.

Earn too much money 🙄... like how dare people do so.

Earn more than the average, means its only fair, they subsidise everyone else....

Literally rolling my eyes through this thread ...

Jealous that someone can't afford a 20% increase in something 😂.
Can't be that loaded then.

Hence the associated transport system. Posters on this thread seem unconcerned that some private school kids might be hugely disrupted, have their SEN not met and also have to travel huge distances to whatever schools have places. Some are gleeful at the prospect. If it's all being done in the name of levelling the field, I can't see how the "normal people" as opposed to the "rich bastards" could object. Or do we only want levelling measures to apply to other people?

The people who have the means to buy into good catchments, particularly the type you describe, are very likely to bepaying high taxes. They are possibly paying significantly higher taxes than many other parents. Therefore I wouldn't really class them as "being quite happy to allow the tax payer to pick up the bill for their children attending a school that the majority of children could never access" They are significant tax payers and have also paid lots of stamp duty. They are hardly freeloaders! You are not alone of course but your post does read quite resentful of them.

If all the Indy schools remain full, then there isn't really a problem! What we're looking out for is fewer kids in private as a proportion of state - since that shows a change in parent school choice and will stop the policy from raising the money that Labour expect.

If the percentage of kids going private instead of state drops by 5% long term (ie 6.65% of kids go private instead of 7%) then the amount raised will be half what Labour said. At 10% (ie 6.3% go private instead of 7%) , the tax makes £0. Any more than that and the policy loses money.

This year might still not reflect the full long-term change, but I think that most people at a natural entry point apply for both state and private if they aren't 100% sure, and then see what offers they get. By the time the offers came out this year, it looked likely that Labour would get in, and they'd published their plans for VAT. So looking at YR and Y7 (and maybe Y12) should reflect what parents will choose if they aren't already tied in.

Of course, some people might not have applied to state/might not have tutored for grammar in time/might have accepted or emotionally committed to private before knowing about VAT, so it will still be an underestimate of how much movement there will be eventually. But it should give an indication.

At a rough guess, I'd say that if the proportion of children starting private in YR and Y7 next September drops by 5% compared to this year, that would be a red flag to stop the policy before real damage was done.

The loss of students won't be evenly spread, even locally: some schools are more popular than others, so if there's an overall reduction of 5% then some schools will still be full (with some kids getting in who wouldn't have in previous years) and less popular schools will be down 10-20% (assuming kids have 2-4 schools to choose from within reach). A school might survive a 10-20% drop for one year, but not long term.

I'd also look at a local level whether LEAs have managed to place all the students applying, to check for potential pinch points in the state system where there is a high percentage in private - like Surrey, Edinburgh and Bristol - which might require bulge classes or even new schools which would reduce the financial benefit.

I'd be more focused on standard entry points than on how many students currently at private school were moving at a non-standard entry point - since that's a short-term anomaly - but I'd still want to check other years too to see whether the state schools were coping locally.

I'd also aggregated nationally, to even out local differences such as specific problems with schools, catchment areas etc.

I'm not sure how it would be possible to check what type of students were migrating - eg whether the fears came true that students with SEN (who cost more to educate) would migrate in disproportionate numbers. Perhaps checking how the number of EHCPs applied for has changed compared to last year would give a rough idea.

That's where I'd start anyway!

Following on from @BibbleandSqwauk if Labour really wanted equality they would fund state schools in line with private schools. I have often wondered how my local comp can possibly provide a similar education to the local senior private school, when one gets ~£7,500 per pupil per year and the other gets ~£21,000 per pupil per year.
There is also the issue of delayed payments for state schools as funding is worked out on last year's pupil numbers. This means if you have an influx into Y7, you have to wait to get extra funding. This doesn't happen in private school. Fees are paid termly in advance or monthly on a payment plan.
Honestly if Labour are serious they need to concentrate on upping the state school game, so parents would choose state over private.
And don't even get me started on the woeful underfunding of SEN. Again only parents with money, time, and often a legal team really get the required outcome for their children in terms of support.
VAT on private school fees is a red herring to distract everyone from the main agenda.

🙄Someone else who has no clue how widening participation actually works. Universities are not penalising those coming from public schools. They are simply trying to level the playing field to a degree. It's funny how fair feels so unfair when unfair has been the norm for so long.

Where I live, parents are obsessed with catchement areas. You’ll find deprived areas close to wealthier areas, but the division line between catchments is clear. I know many people whose children attend the best state schools in our city, and they all like to give themselves a big pat on the back for having “principles”.

But if the more expensive catchments opened up to say, take 20% of pupils from the deprived catchments, it would be chaos. You think the reaction to VAT on school fees has been bad, well you ain’t seen nothing! People in wealthier catchments would lose their shit.

Do you think that incentivises teachers and schools to perform well, or to perform badly??

So, like overlapping catchments? Or fewer, bigger schools with huge catchment?

Looking forward to the amount of VAT private schools can now reclaim. Once that it is taken into consideration as well as the additional cost of kids moving into state schools (with slightly richer parents/parents who prioritise education pushing up the house prices near the best schools excluding poorer kids even more). It will be interesting to see if there is a net benefit to the Exchequer or, as most sensible people think, it’s just a way for Labour to beat the better off over the head. Of course the really well off won’t care about another £10k per year. It will hit the squeezed middle.

Why do you sound so happy about this - hopefully I have misinterpreted your meaning here. However I think it very unlikely the children will end up in “bash street school”

@llamajohn the key to a good school imho as a teacher and parent is small schools. Mine has 500 kids (secondary). I know every single one of them by name. Tutor groups are about 12. SEN needs are met often without special provision or TAs but simply by the smaller, quieter classrooms. We can create bespoke timetables with certain subjects lifted out and learning support sessions added in place. The 1000+ comps are where children get lost, overwhelmed, bullied in plain sight and told that one size must fit all. In an ideal world you increase teacher numbers by 100% and cut all schools in half. You remove the pernicious selection by house price and be honest with the electorate about the link between "class" or demographic and behaviour and attainment in schools. But that would be massively unpopular with voters. Much nicer and easier to have a good old bash at "the rich" who don't live "in the real world like us". Never mind the economic reality of this policy..that would spoil the fun.

The people who have the means to buy into good catchments, particularly the type you describe, are very likely to bepaying high taxes.

As they should. Paying tax isn’t a virtue.

You think private school parents aren’t paying high taxes?

Funny that you didn’t even pick up on the points I made about inequalities between state schools.

I’m not resentful at all. Just sick of reading all the awful comments about private school parents and their children, when there is another section of wealthy people getting props and pats on the back for similarly “buying advantage” for their children, but the tax payer pays for their child’s education at a fantastic school the majority of children could never access.

If we are going to be talking about inequalities in education, why limit it to a private v state discussion?

Because these people are happy about it. The policy has nothing to do with raising funds, it’s about punishing people who are perceived (often falsely) as being well off. They don’t care about equality, they have little interest in raising people up only taking down a certain demographic a peg or two.

They’re idiots, with no idea about how either life or economics work. Reminds me of Bellatrix in Harry Potter. Absolutely bonkers. So intent on one misguided objective they lose all reason.

Welcome to the next five years of country crushing bollocks.

It will make very little difference. The real question for me is why isn't the government and all of those claiming to want equality doing to lobby universities to take more UK students and less foreign students?

It's interesting how the increases in foreign students at universities are so much less discussed than the apparent disparity of private to state school admissions. Restricting the numbers of the profitable foreign students would release more spaces for gifted children from deprived areas than any pretend leveling ever would.

45% of students on a course I guest tutor at are foreign students.

But it's usually not as black and white as high performing and under performing. I gave you the example of my daughters school, high (ish) performing, high numbers pupil premium and high SEN, very mixed catchment of professional families and low income families, and asked if this would be a school you would give to or take from and you wouldn't answer. Its because you know there is no clear answer - it's well performing, so you would in theory take money, but then high pupil premium so you would give money?

The better answer may be to increase class numbers (not sizes) in higher performing schools where space allows, allowing a greater number of children to attend well led aspirational schools, and close the failing schools. But then people would moan they had to potentially travel further. And the schools that worked brilliantly as small 1 or 2 form entry may not thrive as larger schools as they lose their personal touch.

The follow on school to my daughters, which has same children and families doesn't perform anywhere near as well as its not led as well. Nothing to do with funding, catchment or demographics, just less effective leadership. More money will not make it better, only a change if head will do that.

The sector is underfunded and needs the revenue from international students. What is the problem with international students in our universities any case? I think it enriches the mix and makes life more interesting.