To marvel at privately educated Keir Starmer's hypocrisy?

[Bursarysadness]

Both Kier Starmer and his wife are privately educated. Kier's senior school converted into a private school in the second year of his attendance and he has received a generous full bursary up until his A levels. He has built his life and his success on this education, supported to the end by the bursary funded by the same schools and parents he is now trying to destroy. It pains me as my children receive 50% bursaries from a brilliant local school. We've worked incredibly hard to cover the remaining 50% but it has been worth it, seeing how my children blossomed. We had a very different experience in their primary state schools, including bullying and racism. We don't live in a great area. We have just been told that the school will probably reduce all their bursaries to be able to lower the fees for the non bursary parents who are now struggling because of the VAT introduction. I don't know what the future for my children is now and they have so many close friends where they are. They are both academically brilliant and work very hard - hence the bursaries were granted. I feel so depressed that, from what is becoming obvious, they won't be able to benefit from the generosity of bursaries the same way Kier Starmer did when he was a child ..

It was a state school when he was admitted, and he was able to remain there on a scholarship. His parents couldn't have afforded to pay the fees. And he was literally a child - it's not like he had any choice in the matter. I'm sure that many of us could look back on things from our childhoods and think 'That thing that benefited me was really unfair on others, and for that reason it shouldn't continue.' That's how progress works.

I would have thought that seeing a really good state school removed from the state system, and therefore made unavailable to other people like him in years to come, is actually an experience that would make someone realise that private education is fundamentally unfair and should be discouraged in favour of channelling both funds and children from wealthier families into the state system to level the playing field.

I am sorry that your children's bursaries will be reduced, I hope it is not by too much. If they are thriving at the school, and it sounds as though they are, do all you can to keep them there, it will be worth it.

Please don't resent Keir Starmer (or his wife), for their education. It is parents who decide where their child goes to school, as long as child is happy with the school. He was there on a full bursary so his parents couldn't have been all that well off, and, like your children, had academic merit. It was also a long time ago and this is now, he is 61, everyone is feeling the pinch to some degree.

Feeling as you do about Starmer's education is pointless, it only eats away at you so please give it up. I hope you don't share these feelings with your children, they will be no better off for knowing their mother harboured resentment against someone for a situation not within his control, umpteen years ago. We all surely want to bring our children up to be happy for the good fortune of others and never feel jealous.

Keir Starmer's parents had four children, they were ordinary. His father was a toolmaker and his mother a nurse but she had a very unpleasant chronic illness so life was not plain sailing for the family.

My only child had a bursary at a private school, which used to be grammar (my late husband went there). It wasn't a great deal, I can't remember the proportion as it was a long time ago, bur it helped.

Congratulations on having two clever kids, they will do you proud.

Oh dear a post like this just gives way to a whole load of bullying!

Really sorry to hear this about your children and also sorry that you can't express disappointment without people being abusive xx

He passed the 11+ and went to Reigate Grammar which went independent whilst he was there, however pupils in the school at the time were allowed to complete their education to 16 without fees. For the sixth form he was awarded a bursary so at no point was he educated privately and his parents paid no fees.
in any event kids don’t tend to get the choice as to how they are educated it’s a decision made by their parents.
Sorry to let simple facts get in the way.

I teach in an independent school and all three of my DC went. I voted Labour and understand the political signal that this policy is sending. It is, to be clear, a political rather than economic policy but that’s important too. I wish they’d waited until September though.

That is an excellent point.

You could have just tried a different state school. Moved house to a nicer area, you can obviously afford it. You chose to pay the fees, presumably Keir's parents didn't have a say in his school becoming fee paying.
It's understandable that you are disappointed that will be slightly more stretched, but it isn't anyone else's fault that you chose to pay for something you can't really afford.

I'm a SEN parent @LoveSandbanks and I think this decision is a disaster. My son's life changed when he moved to a private school. They had more time, more tools, more patience and more commitment to help him. The classes are smaller which makes a big difference and there is more flexibility. There are quite a few SEN parents at our school and I know from my SEN network that many private schools are better at dealing with SEN children. I'm in the desperate group not know if we will be able to afford the school going forward. I literally can't sleep remembering how our and his life used to be before and worrying this is what we will have to go back to. As you say, the situation when it comes to Sen support is awful, especially in senior schools. I think it's a disaster. I agree that there should be no need for private schools at all and all schools should be good and sufficient. However, this is not the case right now, especially where Sen is concerned, and I don't think the VAT introduction will raise funds to make it better. So, before they manage to fix the education and make it better - what should happen to our children? Should they just become a forgotten generation? A sad casualty of this societal transformation? Is it fair to push everyone back to state BEFORE the schools are fixed?

I found it more hypocritical that Rishi Sunak wanted to stop immigration given that he's a second generation immigrant himself. Same goes for Suella and Priti.

Plenty of kids not only won't have the opportunities they had, they won't even be born in the first place.

I am sorry to read of your children going to a school that did not act when racism occurred. However, I doubt that every single fee paying school always acts upon racism or other abuse, so see this as a failing of one school not a system.

Look at the behaviour of some who went to Eton, one of whom repeatedly has used racist language, another of whom thought it OK to dress up in Nazi uniform.

I mean it's easily solved by the schools covering the VAT, which is what they would have to do if all the parents refused to pay it, because they'd no longer have a business.

One of my dc had one racist joke made in her whole state education. Teachers were on the culprit like a tonne of bricks. If anything my child was embarrassed because the sanction was over done. Point is all state schools are not full of racists and all state schools are not useless

I don’t get these threads at all. It is nearly always bursary recipients who have happily leached off the full paying parents because they can’t actually afford the fees but yet somehow feel totally entitled to it all. No one is being stopped from attending private school, they just have to pay for it.

And no, KS didn’t go to a private school by intention as you well know.

Ah yes, because the sort out people who can afford to send their kids to private school are famously never racist are they?

He's not a hypocrite. For a start I doubt his parents gave him much choice about where to go to school, and second, he's not banned private schools, he's just taxing them.

@DadJoke that figure is now highly contested, I wouldn't be so sure.

Oh dear a post like this just gives way to a whole load of bullying!

Really sorry to hear this about your children and also sorry that you can't express disappointment without people being abusive xx

Did you read the OP?

Children dont do well if they have the capability at every single school. That is naive boardering on deluded! There are failing schools where crowd control is the norm. Surely people dont believe that regardless to where they kids go they will do well...

My husband went to Starmer’s school on a full scholarship. He earns an absolutely ordinary salary. Private school is nice (one of my kids went to one) but it’s not some golden ticket to magical success.

So tired of all the snivelling about this. Next you'll be moaning about how hard it is to afford a Swiss skiing holiday every year.

s it fair to push everyone back to state BEFORE the schools are fixed?

Why do you think no one will use private schools?

Yeah but their children are extra extra extra special, hence the bursaries….

I fully agree with you op. He’s pulling the ladder up after himself!

Before he and the education minister change anything they need to work a term in an under funded, inner city state school.
Total hypocrites.

I am a state school product, but educated my dc privately, spending all I earned on the fees. I don't have a car, I don't have savings, I live in a small flat and we don't go on holidays. I told dc that if I don't make enough for the next 2 terms (I am self-employed), the move to a state school is inevitable. And I hope all the bursaries will be cut - because there were many parents like me, depriving ourselves of stuff to finance bursaries for others whilst our fees increased every year. The first duty of a private school is to the fee-paying parents, not to people who wont' sacrifice their holidays, re-mortgage and do everything to stay below the threshold to come with their begging bowl for a bursary. In our school the fee-paying parents who struggle to pay the fees, organised a petition to cancel bursaries and I am glad to say we were heard. Our school will honour the already awarded bursaries and won't be awarding any new ones. P.S. My dc were unable to afford foreign trips and understood why (minor day school). Guess what - all the bursary recipients went! Quelle surprise!

@Qwertys 👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼

Exactly @Tracker1234. One of our friends is a very experienced maths teacher in a very "difficult" West London school. He says he spends 90% disciplining and very little teaching is taking place. He is thinking about abandoning teaching