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!

I think you miss the main points entirely, namely:

Labour have targeted PS on very spurious economic grounds, when the truth is much more ideological and spiteful (listen to the rhetoric and read the tweets)

The supposed windfall for the state sector will not happen (because there is none) and not a fuck
will an additional 6,500 teachers be recruited and retained.

Labour have already started making excuses and it will be some existing state school kids and PS
kids who will suffer in the short term.

Longer term the state sector will suffer disproportionately given budget cuts etc.

All because of vicious and badly calculated
policy.

Just watch how this plays out.

I'm not saying it's surprising but if you compare against say, Wes Streeting, he comes across as far more measured. Everyone has beliefs (or ideology), but you could also have a belief that for example it's important not to be divisive, that the actual impacts of a policy matter more than ideological purity. It's not uncommon to talk about pragmatists vs ideologues, so I'm sure you knew what I meant by that.

Why is she so intent on shutting down democratic debate? Her Facebook page also seems to removing any comments questioning the policy.

I've been impressed by her in general. Apart from the Taylor Swift tickets.

She's doing the one thing that has been lacking in the past decade, she's talking to the profession, parents and policy advisors, and actually listening. Having experienced the change of government last time with Gove and Teather at the reigns, I can assure you they didn't. They haemorrhaged ringfenced capital funding, cut the Building Schools for the future and Children's centre programmes, I was reading reports about RAAC back in 2011, and so were they! But they didn't give a shit.

If you are so interested, sign up to her 100 days briefing next week, instead of anecdotes from Mumsnet.

No, but the impact is already starting to be felt.

Thanks.

Your view on the Govts ability to fund, recruit and retain 6,500 new SS teachers please.

The man who prioritised King James bibles over crumbling schools and cut vocational qualifications? I wouldn't trust him with a penny. He is a walking ego, more interested in media soundbites than actually policies. In his first 3 days, he removed the terms 'children, schools and families' from the name of the of the Department. I think that sums him up!

Thanks.

Forget Gove, I am referring to the current governments manifesto pledge. With the windfall they will receive from the PS VAT.

Divisive othering of groups is terrible politics. My dc don’t have embossed paperwork from their school but they do have actual qualified teachers in subjects like maths, science and computing - something all dc should have and did have about 15 years ago. Me paying through the nose for something that should just be there does not make me a bad person or my dc’s school an immoral establishment.

British politics has been a shit show for years now and I’m afraid all we can do is look after ourselves the best we can (whilst paying tax like we live in a socialist utopia if you work and are paid a wage that is what you should be being paid for your labour). I am sorry for any dc that are not getting the education they deserve and the I feel for the individuals trying to make a broken system work.

This is Mumsnet, I don't have time to regurgitate the 13 page modelling paper from the National Institute of Teaching, but it's publicly available and shows that it's not one minister in isolation making sweeping statements. She is working with all levels of the profession to find a solution to the underfunding that it's been subjected to.

She's stated it's complex and will take time, I find that level of honesty refreshing, especially after the previous government's rhetoric and BS.

I’d say her tweet was BS

And sadly exposes her motivation for a poor likely damaging policy which is not much above playground spite

That’s the sad part for dc

Ditch the policy and do it properly

It’s nothing short of childish bullying. Her petty social media tweets are beyond ridiculous. She’s not even capable of a sensible, civilised debate. She’s removing social media comments and trying to avoid any parliamentary discussion on this.

What gives with avoiding parliamentary debate?

The rest is far too juvenile to be in that position

I don't recognise the portrayal of Phillipson in this thread. To me, VAT on school fees is a no-brainer - VAT is generally payable on goods and services, so why should there be an exemption for school fees. It doesn't make sense to me. I say this as a fee-paying parent.

For those saying that there is no extra funding for schools under Labour - this is untrue. Something called the core schools budget grant has already been announced, and this has increased school funding - this fully funds the agreed pay rises for teachers but (in the case of the schools in the academy trust I work with and I think but am not 100% sure in all schools) giving a surplus in addition to this amount (precise amounts received by individual schools are determined by a complex formula, as usual for school funding).

And sorry to hammer home the point but demand for school places is falling not rising. There are projected to be 1.5 million fewer children in the UK by 2040 (as against 12.5m now!).

SEN funding is huge problem that needs to be addressed BUT the increased focus/funding for early years should help this (as I believe primary SEN is exacerbated by social inequality/lack of school readiness which can be mitigated by quality pre-school care)

edexec.co.uk/education-in-england-a-closer-look-at-2023/#:~:text=Changing%20demographics%3A%20Despite%20an%20overall,vulnerable%20children%20being%20disproportionately%20affected.

It’s very concerning that we have a minister criticising those who wish to use parliamentary time to discuss and debate important issues. Why is she so keen to avoid scrutiny? We are supposed to live in a democracy.

There are several Facebook groups, Twitter pages full of angry private school parents, and they are all absolutely spitting blood about BP - very personal tone to their posts.

Despite the OP's claims to be a state school parent, the general tone and feel of her post are extremely familiar-sounding.

None of the state school teachers I know seem massively bothered about her one way or the other.

Despite the OP's claims to be a state school parent, the general tone and feel of her post are extremely familiar-sounding.

What do you mean?

It's also really unusual for a state school parent to refer to private schools as "independent schools" IME. Just saying...

Really? why?

I’ve heard it many times

VAT is generally payable on goods and services,

This isn’t true. There are very many exceptions - universities, nurseries, private health care, care homes, plus many goods (including cake and caviar)

Pretty much every other country in the world doesn’t tax education, including the whole of the EU. It’s against EU law to tax education. Starmer said he didn’t want to diverge from EU law. This policy goes directly against this.

And sorry to hammer home the point but demand for school places is falling not rising. There are projected to be 1.5 million fewer children in the UK by 2040 (as against 12.5m now!

This varies by locality. There are no school spaces within about 10 miles of us if we left the private sector. Some areas are facing school place shortages because of new housing developments. Looking at projected numbers of children in 16 years time is irrelevant to anyone using the education system now.

Fudged.

But that’s Labour - long on ideology, short on the detail including funding.

Speaking of shorting - here’s a tip for you - short sterling because Labour are about to embark on the mother of all debt binges to fund their bullshit policies.

Phillipson has even instructed PS not to attempt to make savings by scaling back bursaries. Many of these bursaries are funded by existing parents and other benefactors, not the school.

Quite simply, she can do one.

Yes, on one hand they say “make cutbacks”. Then they say “ah, but don’t make cutbacks there”. Of course schools are going to tighten bursaries.

Why have they moved out of independent schools when the vat hasn't even been applied yet plus the schools if they gave a shit about their pupils could do what many state schools did under austerity and tighten their belts like get rid of swimming pools etc and not pass the vat to the parents.