To really dislike Bridget Phillipson?

[Sensiblyplease]

I just absolutely can’t stand the woman.

The lady seems to be making decisions based on personal prejudices and causing intentional division in our education system.
She’s not listening to anyone, and the consequences her decisions are having is far too impactful to ignore. As someone in her power she should model balanced politics, based on evidence, instead of in-sighting hate and division.

My children are in state school- we’ve had 3
more children come into their year group with SEN but no EHCPs as their previous independent schools could cope without one. The parents inform me it’ll take a few years and that’s if they get one- and then they can either go back to their previous independent school (as apparently they won’t have to pay VAT with an ECHP?) or have the help they need according to the results of the ECHP.

Im just so angry. I have nothing against these children and can understand they can’t afford the VAT increase and needed to move back into state schools, but it’s now really disrupted the class. The TA is apparently out the class all the time now and the class teacher has 32 children on her own. It appears that Bridget’s insistence and personal hate against the private sector is damaging to state school children. It’s really pissing me off - our children’s education is important and not to be messed around with.

I feel like the woman likes a good headline but is prepared to throw our children’s education away in order to meet her personal objectives / vendettas.

What is she actually doing for state schools? Her headline grabbing titles is deflecting from her actually trying to improve state education in any meaningful and impactful way. 6500 teachers - so my kids get 1/3 of a teacher for their school? That’s shocking. More children entering the state system now puts pressure on their school, and their teachers. What is she actually doing to address this. Where is she magic-ing these trained and qualified teachers from? What is she doing to retain teachers and help with their current work load?

I’m fed up with her agenda effecting normal people. We need someone with a level head to sort schools out. End of rant!

Spot on.

And there are consequences- we stopped donating towards a bursary for another child because of Labour. It wasn’t an insignificant amount.

This is simply not true across the board. Many schools are now removing fee reductions for scholarships, and channelling the money into means tested bursaries instead. My children have scholarships and we don’t receive a penny off the basic school fees. I don’t have a problem with that - I agree that the money should be put towards those children without parents who can afford the fees.

Many schools share facilities without charging the market rate. Our school often hosts events where state schools visit and use the facilities, led by our teachers, and are provided with lunch etc. That is all subsidised by fee paying parents. Again, no one disagrees with that.

Many schools actually offer 100% bursaries, PLUS an allowance for uniform and fund school trips (which, incidentally many fee paying families are cutting back on to save cost).

Oh, they’re remaining are they? Thought they might be… that’s fine. All good. Just as IFS predicted then, despite all the claims to be flooding state schools with pupils, demanding places etc.
What you need to realise is that no one NOT using private schools cares whether or not you send your child, whether you can afford it or not, how much money the school gives you or anyone else in discounts.
We just don’t. Pay it or don’t. Send your kids or don’t. That’s up to you. Draw all the ‘lines’ you want because it doesn’t affect me, my kids, or state kids anyway.
You want to pay less? Then you should be negotiating with the business educating children, about their extortionate fees, about their increase of charges for the last decade and why they aren’t doing something to help out the parents who so value them.

For someone who “doesn’t care” and who won’t be affected, you seem rather aggressive in your views on private education. You are correct on one thing though. The VAT won’t affect state kids, because state schools won’t see any funding as a direct result of the policy. Even the IFS have admitted that.

or state kids anyway

This dud policy does

Why do you believe that increases in private school fees is justification for a new tax being imposed on them? Day nursery fees have increased massively over the past ten years. Do you think they should have VAT on them as well?!

Thing is you may not care about the private school families , you might not care about the winter fuel payment but will you care about what comes next ? Might be an assault on pension tax free sum , might be VAT on University , might be IHT - who knows . It’s all squeezing away at small sections of society though - people they don’t think vote Labour anyway . If money needs spending for the benefit of all on education , NHS - whatever - everyone should be funding it

She's awful. Just a terrible, hate-filled nasty piece of work. See also Rachel Reeves and Angela Rayner. Then there are others in the cabinet that are just plain old fashioned thick as mince like Cooper, Miliband, Lammy (god help us with him in the FCO), Nandy and Dodds.

There’s already speculation about increase in university tuition fees.

Come now, you care alright.

And when Labour fail to raise the revenue they wished for, they will come for something you care deeply about.

Deep down, you know this.

No shit - really?

Your comment “it’s your turn now” was in response to a previous poster mentioning the IFS warning that the government needs to find an additional £25bn in taxes from somewhere. That affects all of us. This ridiculous them and us attitude is getting really quite silly.

Most private schools are charities. As such, they are not businesses. A charity cannot make a profit unlike a business. They do not have shareholders. Any surplus is held in reserve or re invested in the school. This legislation will however make them more business like. I do not believe in tax on education. An educated society is good for everyone. I cannot afford Eton, Winchester, Marlborough etc. And you know what I don't begrudge those who can. Lucky them. You sound very bitter.

The whole education system is a mess to be honest. Schools are either struggling to get teachers with full classrooms or closing because there are not enough children to fill them leaving teachers running around trying to find jobs. Schools can't afford to pay experienced teachers what they are worth so more teachers are leaving the profession or expensive places to live like London.
There just needs to be more money and investment and there is none.

We had our NHS which was the envy of many countries, people sent their children here to be educated because our education system was seen as the best. These are very different times and no quick fix will repair either of them. I just hope that they can be repaired over time into something we can be proud of once more.

@oldwhyno "Then there are others in the cabinet that are just plain old fashioned thick as mince like Cooper, Miliband, Lammy "

It's so lazy to dismiss as thick people who are objectively not thick. It means you don't formulate objective reasons for your dislike/disagreement.

Curlew!

Where have you been? Presumably busy on others threads?

We missed you.

Anyhoo, to continue.

Evidently, a number of posters know nothing about markets, or finance/economics, but pretend they do (y’all know who you are - we know who you are…)

Just in case you are horrified by this woman and her posts.
www.change.org/p/request-the-removal-of-bridget-phillipson-from-the-position-of-secretary-of-state-for-education?recruited_by_id=56fc3d40-84f5-11ef-8090-bb49c1fe9757&utm_source=share_petition&utm_campaign=psf_combo_share.initial&utm_term=psf_combo_share_initial&utm_medium=whatsapp

What an absolutely stupid petition.

She is wonderful. We need more policies coming from an ideological standpoint to help transform this country and reduce inequality. The wealth divide in this country is appalling.

yes it is, but VAT on education will only serve to make it worse.

Nobody, in any forum of debate, has ever been able to explain how making independent education more expensive, available only to an even smaller and wealthier section of society, is a good progressive policy, or how it will do anything to redress wealth inequality.

On the charity point, Labour are also removing private schools charitable business rates relief. So there will be absolutely no benefit from them being registered as a charity. At that point, if they are legally able to, I imagine many of them will voluntarily drop their charitable status, so there will be no requirement for them to offer any bursaries/scholarships, or loan out facilities.

Labour did look at removing charitable status for PS, but quietly dropped it when they realised it was essentially impossible from a legal perspective. But PS will no longer receive any benefit at all from being registered charities so there are no 'threats' that can be leveraged against them if they drop any charitable activities.

You do realise that the greatest inequality is between fabulous state schools and terrible ones. I'll give you a good example of someone who is extremely privileged but flies under the privilege radar due to the fact that everyone ignores the differences between state schools and other state schools:

Rachel Reeves' parents were teachers and they were sharp elbowed enough to get her bussed off to a lovely all girls state secondary school. She is extremely privileged having parents that were invested in her education, finding her a great school, supporting her and getting her to the University of Oxford.

Nobody is going to address this - we're playing this silly game of messing with private schools when the real inequality is within the state sector.

@MoneyNeverSleeps did you have a thread on the NHS? Why would that be against guidelines, it seems to be disappeared