Private Schools- hear me out before you judge!

[Silverbook]

I'm a state school teacher in Scotland. Class sizes are - 25 for P1, 30 for P2-3 and 33 for P4-7. I currently have a class size of 25, most classes in the school are 25-28. Relatively small town- 2 primaries, 1 independent and 1 secondary. The next nearest independent is 45 mins away.

The local independent school is closing due to VAT, the pupils are largely coming here. This is pushing all our class sizes up. No extra funding or staff, obviously. My issue with independent schools closing is that is directly impacting the state sector and no extra funding, resources or infrastructure is in place to support it.

Yes, our classes are still within legal limits but it will always be the most disadvantaged children/those with greater need of support who are impacted most by larger class sizes as there is just less time to spend with them.

I really feel this has been a poorly thought through and knee jerk policy. Surely you invest and create capacity in existing resources before increasing pupil numbers?

Surely each additional pupil comes with funding. That's how it works in England.

As ^^ says. Plus you can apply for extra funding for TA support for children with difficulties can't you? My sons primary dad this and he had a TA about 50% every day

No, our system doesn’t work like that.

Any support currently in place won’t change because the school role increases.

Yes it'll be a shit-show in the years to come. My DS has just moved to a Scottish private school. Huge class in his old state primary. Very disruptive and teachers completely missed his dyslexia. A few months in and we don't regret our decision (despite the financial strain). I have friends who are struggling to get their DC the help and support they need in their huge state school classes. But also think VAT is a great idea. I really don't think they realise the numbers of kids this will drive into the state sector.

Fully agree. My school announced it was closing in April last night.

@Silverbook

I really feel this has been a poorly thought through and knee jerk policy. Surely you invest and create capacity in existing resources before increasing pupil numbers?

This policy was always about ideology. Even the IFS have said the funds raised will be tiny and make no difference to public services. It’s disrupting the private and state sectors for no gain.

I don’t know about Scotland, but as far as I’m aware, in England, school funding is set at the start of the year. No pupil transferring mid year from the private sector will attract additional funding for their state school. Going forward it will, but that doesn’t help with large class sizes. It also means the taxpayer now has to fund £8k per child, which could have otherwise been spent elsewhere.

If we chose to move our children from their existing private school, the state schools currently available are unsuitable for various reasons. If those schools were the only option, I would be appealing to get them into the oversubscribed schools. This would take up lots of state resources and could ultimately mean that places have to be found in already oversubscribed schools. Many families will be in this position. They won’t just sit back and accept whatever school they are allocated.

The policy and its impacts have not been thought through.

But not until the next year. The basic funding is based on the October census of the previous year. Funding for next academic year 25.26 is based on the number of pupils in school on census day in October 24
So any pupils joining now won't add to the GAG until 26.27

There is ONE day in the year that the funding is calculated on and that day has gone!
We won’t be getting extra funding, we won’t be getting extra TA’s. We will have bigger classes. No children are going to benefit. Education should NEVER be taxed, it’s a tax on children.
All the local schools in my area rely on the private school to host sport activities, theatre events, swimming lessons and translating when we receive pupils who don’t speak English. Apart from the swimming they charge us NOTHING. Well guess what, that’s all about to change!
I loathe the ‘Well if we can’t afford it no one should have it’ attitude. It’s pathetic. No one benefits. I hope all the jealous state school parents are happy now!

The census day for this academic year has passed. Any additional children this academic year will be completely unfunded. That's how it works in England.

It worked to get Labour votes and popularity from jealous people though. Who cares about the children?

This policy was always about ideology.

What's wrong with that ?

And as with all ideologies some will agree. Some will not.

Loads of Tory policies were also about ideology. Sauce. Goose. Gander.

If you want evidence based policies, you are living in the wrong country. If not planet.

They didn’t even get a large number of votes. Only 1 in 3 voters voted for them, suggesting that 2 in 3 voters don’t agree with their policies.

It's awful and the snow ball is just about to start rolling.

Seen a thread on here today about a school closing but anyone who is anti private school dismisses such concerns.

Well pockets are only so deep even for private school parents.

My ds' fees are going up £400 a month in January. He's in year 10 so we will see him to the end of year 11 and then we are out.

Dd isn't going to private (current year 6) and we are going to put the earnings which are taxed at a ridiculous % into our pension.

So it's definitely won't be a net gain from our family.

I don't think they are just closing due to VAT.

Brexit has pushed up prices for everything

Staffing is problematic

Parents are increasingly demanding

They are not making the profits they once were...

They could choose to fundraise and offset some of the rising costs but of course thst would be a lot of work

In Scotland nearly all independent schools are charities. So they don't make a profit. And yes they fundraise and their facilities are shared with communities and state schools. It's quite a different landscape up here. But of course Labour didn't consider that.

They put ideology before practicality.

The biggest own goal for the LP so far.

Our private school has provided a theatre, playing fields, peripatetic music teachers and computer science teachers and translation services to the local state schools. We also recently built a lovely new theatre and 3 boarding houses one of which has taken 14 Ukrainian refugees.

All that will stop. They have said it will stop. The state schools can pay now. Bursaries are reduced. The loaning of teachers for free ends. The provision of various rooms for exam overspill will stop. Plus when I went in last week (I am an exam invigilator for the school as well as a parent) the finance team were literally on their hands and knees with boxes of documents from the last 10 years trying to work out what we can claw back on VAT for capital works.

It;s an ideological policy, not a fiscal one and this Labour government are fucking nuts who do not give a shit about the consequences.

@Heatherbell1978 lol, they don't make a profit...!? Well someone is profiting as their staff are well paid and their marketing departments must be well funded with all the costly advertising they do.

Perhaps it depends on the school but I grew up next to a very prestigious private school in Scotland and nobody I know ever set foot in the place. What they did do was poach the brightest students from the local system and offer them scholarships to boost their results.

The staff are often paid less than the state sector. Many private schools are also withdrawing their staff from the TPS. Many private schools do not have marketing departments.

You said that you grew up next to a “very prestigious” school in Scotland, probably somewhere like Fettes. Most private schools are nothing like that. Most are not “very prestigious”.

@Yolo12345 as a charity they are very limited as to what they can make a profit on. Any profits need have a charitable purpose ie put back into the school. If you're talking about Fettes, as you're well aware the parents of those children won't be batting an eye at paying VAT. It's in the same league as Eton. Those schools aren't the ones anyone is worried about. And my DS certainly doesn't go there.

@Heatherbell1978 no it wasn't Fettes - it was in rural Scotland

@Yolo12345 Gordonstoun? Where our king was educated?