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?

Our Scottish school is absorbing the increase for the spring term.

There’s also a paper going from the Scottish Council of Independent Schools to highlight the negative consequences and a KC has been engaged to take legal action as the Scottish Independent sector is nothing like Englands and therefore imposing blanket legislation is extremely punitive.

So the reality is that state schools will be absorbing a couple of children per year without funding for two terms in order to make things fairer for everyone going forwards?

My childs school is in so much debt, they are having to get rid of a lot of TAs, the government want schools to have more sen children and also more children in general because of what's happing in private schools.
I am really worried for schools and I can see a lot more teachers leaving due to stress of having to have a large class including children with sen with no money for extra staff!

And even if EHCPs include 1to1s the money is just not enough to cover and then they end up having to look after other children which they should not be.

Scotland has a handful of “prestigious” private schools. Our local one provides a sports hall, pitches, theatre and gym for local clubs and schools to use.

Staff are paid 10% above the EiS pay scale but most aren’t in the SPSS pension scheme so they aren’t as well paid as you think.

10 children are going to the local grammar school from our independent this year. Normally 1 goes and the rest stay in private. That’s 9 grammar places that will be taken up by wealthy children that would have usually gone to other children. It will be more next year. We have hardly any children going to start in reception now so we are changing to only taking children from year 3. That is now so many children going into the state system and costing taxpayers a fortune. Some parents are taking their children out to homeschool and mom is giving up her job to do it! One mom was on 60k Barely any children are staying for 6th form now and are taking their places from loca children as they often have better GCSE results. Absolute shambles!

....but were divided in their opinions, so split that vote.

If by “a couple” you mean the 84 that have come to our school then yes.

Our funding has been cut every year for the last 4 years. The waiting list for Ed Psych is 20 months for an initial consultation and classroom support is the most sparse it’s ever been. 6 years ago every class in my school had full time PSA (TA) we now have 3 hours a day. I share that between 5 children when in reality I have 8 that require it.

Im sure there is a plan though and it’ll soon be a fair system for everybody….

This policy was just designed to give a spanking to the rich, out of spite. It was sold to voters by saying some rubbish about the money raised being used to get more teachers/breakfast clubs at state schools etc. It actually hoodwinked people into thinking that the state sector needed money from private school parents in order to get better - NO - the state sector needs government money to get better. It isn’t the responsibility of the only people guaranteed not to benefit from it!

Money isn’t going to be raised in the short term anyway - govt is going to need to pay Eton £5 million on the VAT they can now reclaim on their spending. And the kind of difficulties the OP mentions over school closures - yes, also a natural consequence of this idiotic policy.

Labour always excuses awful policies by saying “few/minority of people impacted”. I wonder how much longer the public will drink up this bullshit. I guess it depends on whether you find yourself in a minority that gets hurt. And you don’t have to be a private school parent to fall into that minority - OP is going have a much rougher time at work with increased pupil numbers.

again with the farmers - labour simply say “most not impacted”.

i can’t believe people fell for this shit

I guess there will now be more parents out there that really care about the quality of state school education. Sounds good to me.

The children absorbed by some state schools are going to be in massive blobs of 10s-100s as the OP is experiencing. Other state schools won’t need to absorb any if they aren’t in areas where there are school closures etc. It might be an average of 2 per school - but that’s just the average. It’s not reality for individual schools.

How exactly will the education system be fairer if everyone is schooled based on house prices - “catchments”? It’ll still be grossly unfair - possibly even more unfair.

It does sound good doesn’t it. But instead of soundbites, let’s check reality - OP’s school is deluged with a ridiculous number of pupils and it’s going to struggle.

What is the name of the private school that is closing due to VAT changes?

You mean the 4 that have closed this week?

Indeed this. What a mess. Nobody doubts that state schools need money. But the way labour have gone about dressing up this raid - from the pockets of the only people who won’t benefit - is absolutely ridiculous. I’m glad mine adult/almost adult.

So is it down to ex-indy parents to improve the quality of each state school? Are we that influential?

I mean the one central to the OP's post obviously.

Your issue is the legal limit on class sizes. I'd focus on that

I know! Nonsensical 😂

You design the catchment to take in from all kinds of housing, therefore varied incomes and social groups.

The one in her small town which would be immediately outing? Why on earth would she tell us that?

Why would she not? It would be a matter of public record so anyone who lives locally would know already.

I'm sorry to dash everyone's hand wringing with annoying and very recent data that shows there is NO increase in private schools closing. In fact the opposite is true.

Private schools close every year. They also open. VAT hasn't caused closure in previous years. So why pretend ? when 46 closed and 77 opened.

Facts are so annoying !

www.theguardian.com/education/2024/oct/26/no-rise-private-school-closures-england-since-labour-vat-proposal-data

Also, other children go there, not just hers.

Thank you for that. That's actually really interesting.