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!

My concern with her is evidenced all over the mumsnet posts .

Shes caused hatred and division and the spotlight moves has moved from what she is actually doing and instead giving air time to these silly rhetorics and causing ridiculous arguments.

Perhaps we should stop the VAT endless debate on here but instead talk about what practically needs to happen in state schools- and hold her accountable!!!

So where are the 6500 teachers coming from? We’ve seen that 4300 leave a year. Why are they leaving? So to cover the teachers that leave we need 4300 a year so really is it just 2200 extra she’ll be funding into the system?

Appreciate some areas have spare places in schools but what happens to those areas where there’s no places. Where do all the children go?

Teachers are burned out- so how can they change the curriculum / marking / work loads in general to stop this and make it a better job. If we ask teachers what would help them maybe this is where we start with?

Teachers - (I was once one and also left the profession when I had my own kids as I couldn’t give it the time it deserved) what do you want to see change?

Yes I can imagine this. From my PGCE class half have left the profession from the survey we completed 3 years ago. No idea how many now a further 3 years on.

I think she’s actually a lot more clued up about education than the previous education secretary. Teacher retention is just such a shit show there’s not a lot she will have been able to do in 3 months. There’ll are no quick fixes to any of the big, difficult questions in education.

I think there are some really hard conversations to be had . We live in an increasingly globally competitive world - our kids really do need to achieve but on the other hand we need to encourage someone to actually want to teach them .

I’ve suggested teaching to my kids as a career - they both think it’s a terrible idea , mostly because they’ve picked up on how done in their own teachers are

I was at school with her and I can attest that she is a woman of principles.

True, she's just come in to post. I just dislike her messaging. Also, remember she's a career politician, with no experience of the education sector at all, just like Williamson - and all the many before them. Wouldn't it be nice if education was run entirely separately to the circus of political parties - where a minister works with them only so far as to identify sources of funding, but has no say in operations, curriculum or ideology. And that department could be run entirely by ex teachers, or educators who actually know the system inside out.

You clearly haven’t read the OP. They are a state school parent being impacted by the policy.

Yes, quite a few have left the private sector already. Some made the decision over the holidays when it was announced that VAT would be imposed from January (not September as originally implied). Some families simply can’t afford a 20% hike in fees.

purely anecdotal but I know 3 families with kids in private year 11 and all 3 are applying to move back into the state system for year 12 - two of them have dyslexia and that was the reason to move to private in the first place

Thank you - not to dismiss the independent school parents but I want to shine a light on to state school parents and the impact on us.

There’s been so many posts arguing about the VAT - the VAT doesn’t impact me but selfishly it does impact my children in my local area where their class sizes have now gone over number and their TAs are out the classroom more.

I wasn’t happy with the class size already and as a teacher (though I’m now not working) I found a class of 32 with all their different needs hard enough but to add more in to the System and one can expect a proportion of those to have SEN - there is now extra stress on an already existing problem.

The majority of areas do not have spare spaces ; even though I agree some do, but the majority according to the data do not. So all I can assume is that Bridget is happy to expand class sizes. This is what needs talking about! They won’t magically build a new school and resource it in my local
area. So yet again state school kids are being negatively impacted. Edit to add also sorry- and also the independent school
childrne who move across. It’s not an us and them situation at all. I empathise with them.

Luke Sibieta….

It hasn’t been executed yet.

Yes, horrible evil woman and someone who should not be in government in a civilised country. I hope she is forced to resign soon. Unfortunately, she is part of the loony pack that we have in power.

I’ve read the OP, and yes, it’s a whine about VAT on private schools barely disguised as a general attack on Phillipson who has not had the chance to introduce a single policy yet.

YABU.

I think this is what a lot of supporters of the policy are missing. We know that it will raise a “tiny” amount of money and won’t affect spending on public services (the IFS have said that). The only thing the policy does is financially penalise private school parents, and disrupt children in both the state and private sector. It indirectly negatively impacts the state sector, because of families making the switch (it will be worse in some areas than others).

I just can’t get my head around the logic of disrupting all children (state and private) for a policy which doesn’t raise money.

Well, on a positive note.

Legal challenges, policy flip flops, resurgent unions,
markets, and government incompetence should keep things interesting.

It’s not an attack on the VAT per se. It’s pointing out that some state school pupils are being negatively impacted by pupils switching from private to state.

This is my concern. I’ve chatted with the parents who have moved over - they said a good proportion of the independent school children had additional needs but they could be catered for and they had much smaller class sizes (this is what I want for state schools not the opposite!!), my understanding from them is that if they have an EHCP they won’t pay VaT . But in this case the ones who moved over (very lucky for them as places don’t come up but we had triplets in my daughters year who relocated) couldn’t afford the VAT and don’t have EHCPs. They plan to get them but I know as a teacher how hard this can be so I expect it won’t happen or will take a good while. And selfishly for them to need an EHCP they will need a lot of
support that isn’t budgeted for before they get it. And this takes resources from the children already in class. I wish Bridget would talk to them and us about real situations day to day in classrooms and understand the problems. And she’s refusing to do so.

Obviously, the situation you find your children in isn't what you hoped for for them. I don't think you can entirely put the blame for that on an Education minister and government who have been in power for a few months.

Class size legislation pre-dates the current government so there have always been cases where there will be large classes post KS1. VAT as the sole factor? It may be other, multiple factors: personal circumstances of the families involved, cost of living, some private schools don't do well at SEN etc.

As for teacher recruitment and retainment, something needs to change. Whether the proposed plan to recruit 6500 more teacher will have much impact, I'm not sure. The working conditions that teachers have currently is the issue. Until something is done to make the profession more attractive, in terms of the workload, the renumeration and having the professional respect it deserves, I can't see it effecting much change.

In term of the mechanism for recruiting and training teachers, that set up has to be able to accommodate the numbers, doesn't it? So although an extra 6500 doesn't sound enough (it isn't) there's not much point in promising numbers beyond those that can be accommodated, or, ironically, you'll have too many teaching students to fit into classrooms, lecture halls and find teachers, placements and mentors for.

The whole system really needs review, but it's massive and monolithic. Government is short term and increasingly populated by careersists with no long term strategy. I hope she doesn't disappoint but I'm not hoping for too much to begin with! I don't object to the VAT as part of a solution, but there needs to be much greater funding and foresight to improve the education system and it'll take time, probably more than one parliament unfortunately.

@eurochick if the policy isn’t finalised is there any chance they could exclude SEN children paying the VAT? I wonder if they would help state schools. I’m not saying private schools should become an alternative to proper state funded SEN schools but it would help the children in state schools as there would be less resources taken up if they move over?

@SurroundSoundLol she has literally done nothing yet. “Divisive and populist” can only refer to the VAT on private schools, and to be fair, that does divide the 7% of people who send their kids to private school from those who don’t, and it’s certainly popular.

I don’t think that a general “SEN” exemption is practical as it’s too wide. There’s already provision in the proposals for those with EHCPs.

she has literally done nothing yet.

She has published draft legislation and stated that VAT will apply from January.

I’m not sure if you’re being sarcastic but if not then yes I agree with this🤣 you put it better than me . But I unfortunately did vote labour at my detriment hoping they would want to change schools for the better and now I think I may have been fobbed off by a headline title and nothing meaningful will change!