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?

Of course there will be a solution- it just won’t be a very good solution given the total absence of any sort of contingency planning. And if you don’t care about the private school kids (which is despicable) consider that children in the state system will also be negatively affected by larger class sizes, loss of outdoor space due to portocabins, shrinking catchments, etc.

I haven’t made a single comment on the IFS report, so no goalposts have been moved.

I have commented on the allegations made by Guido and then repeated by The Telegraph (and taken as gospel by some) that there must be collusion between Sibieta and Pennycook.

Yup I just googled ‘school name pupil numbers’ and the link is right there to the council website. I can see that not just my area but my entire city and most of my county is very very nearly full. The larger area I live in has 11 private schools, of which I think 5 are at risk, 2 very seriously.

That’s really interesting Thankyou.!
Off to do some research now, I do love a bit of number crunching 🥳

It’s all connected. The IFS report is the story and the collusion behind it. There would be no story if Sibieta hadn’t have been the sole writer of the report. Or if he and Pennycook didn’t have the friendship that they have. They are facts not allegations.

😅yes and no, you can look them up online of course.

But, I can physically see the pupil numbers dwindling year on year. One of them can no longer play sports against other schools without mixing year groups to field teams. I see the other ones walking to their PE lessons across the road and the classes are looking very small. Like everyone says, these are businesses, they will not all survive.

You can also look up historic admissions - so the catholic prep used to have 220 pupils. Now it has 180. That’s a massive £336,000 loss in fees over the last couple of years.

The information is out there for us all to see.

You can also see how many pupils school are over by. It’s really interesting.

If I were running, I don’t know, a country say, I’d be more worried about this than prison capacity. But that’s just me.

No, the fact is that Sibieta and Pennycook are known to each.

The allegation that there is collusion is just that - an allegation.

And there is no allegation against Pennycook currently under investigation listed on the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards website.

And there is no allegation against Pennycook currently under investigation listed on the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards website.

This does not prove that there wasn’t collusion. I don’t think you would believe any evidence because it’s not convenient for you to do so.

What evidence?

All that has been provided on this thread is a Guido post saying that they know each other (a fact) and a Telegraph article saying that a complaint has been sent to the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards.

The PCS says that the complainant must provide evidence for a complaint to be investigated. There is no allegation against Pennycook under investigation listed on the PCS website.

So again, where’s the evidence of collusion? Because just saying that they know each other isn’t evidence of collusion, is it?

Are any Left-leaning news outlets covering the story …. If not, I suggest they aren’t reporting because they cannot spin it to look like it wasn’t a chummy-pals-getting-paid for bespoke research…with an expected result.

Sibieta’s IFS report was funded by the Nuffield Foundation.

Not sure how you can spin ‘chummy-pals-getting-paid for bespoke research’ when the research in question was not funded by a ‘chummy pal’?

Exactly

So the decline is nothing to do with VAT then.

I suspect they will be fine. Parents are going to find solutions, not leave it to the local authority.

Blame Labour. I see 2 schools closing in paper today. It was blatantly obvious this would happen and it's often DC with SENs that have to be pushed back into mainstream schools where they might struggle to cope.

@FloofPaws, you do realise that it takes years before an EHCP is put into place and without it there is no additional funding.

It is a very mixed picture across the UK. There have always been some smaller struggling private schools. My own private primary which started in about 1905 where I went to school in the NE closed about 10 years ago presumably due to falling numbers and that there are other private schools in the same town and decline of NE (my siblings and I all left our home town for work). Down here in London there are many thriving very hard to get into private and state grammar schools where there are vast numbers of pupils per place and most who want to go there do not get in.

My London borough had a 9% population increase between the last 2 censuses and population grew more than inner London even - we are full to the seams here and very popular and one of the most mixed London boroughs.

So it is quite hard to say across the whole of the UK VAT on school fees will have XYZ impact as areas differ. However I am against the measure and I hope the courts strike it down.

Never let facts get in the way of some good old dirt dishing propoganda. So predictable isn’t it.

A tad silly to expect people care about what you demand them to and then call them names if you think they don’t? That kind of entitled stance tends to have the opposite effect.

It is this ‘everything will sort itself out’ attitude that I find maddening - it is an attempt to remove all responsibility for considering the consequences of policy, both positive and negative. Yes, people will find a way through it - some will do so with minor adjustments and for some individuals and communities the impact will be much more profound. But if you cannot bring yourself to examine the potential negative consequences of the policy then you cannot really say whether it is a good or bad thing for society more broadly.

Great hypocritical point about name calling. To clarify, I find it despicable to disregard the potential negative consequences on children from any walk of life. If you find yourself judged by that sentiment, so be it.

I haven't called anyone despicable. Your holier than thou attitude is quite nauseating as usual. Your sentiment does not apply to me but I still don't give a toss if you judge me or not.

That's a bit insulting to the 93% of parents whose children are already in the state system, don't you think?

Are you really suggesting that none of them care about state education? Or that a few extra parents per school will make a difference when the hundreds of parents already there couldn't? Bizarre.

i haven’t called anyone despicable- I DO find the mindset that some kids aren’t worthy of concern despicable, though.

so far you HAVE called me ‘silly’, ‘entitled’, ‘nauseating’ and ‘holier than thou’. I just think your a hypocrite to take umbrage at a perceived slight while hurling all manner of personal insult.