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?

Anyway it won't matter because Labour are going to lower academic standardsand results in schools and then adjust the entry requirements for university admissions. So instead of upskilling our kids to be able to compete with China etc, our top schools and universities will be full of foreign students and our own kids will be unemployed because they won't have the skills or knowledge to compete.
Plus they are going to force mainstream kids to keep SEN kids because it's cheaper than funding specialist provision. They will gradually reduce the numbers in specialist settings and then close them. Then give mainstream schools a tiny % uplift in order to keep kids who actually need those specialist settings.
They will limit, even more, schools abilities to expel kids.

So please don't tell me they care about improving standards in state schools!!

I feel sorry for the kids who've had to move schools - sounds like the teachers clearly resent their very presence

This policy was always ideologically based, and the sums don't really add up. Where privilege is really an issue is with the top public schools, and they aren't really going to be affected - yes, they might lose a handful (but I assume they do every year, as people's circumstances can change,) but they'll have others on their waiting lists, and they're operating in an international market. If you're paying £45K a year for your child to go to school, you were never going to be looking at state schools, just slightly cheaper private schools.

Whereas the small, local day schools, where parents have sent children because they weren't getting on in the state sector, where parents struggle to pay the fees, where they probably aren't adding much privilege, they're the schools which will ho yo the wall.

Longer term, it's right that a lot of those children should be catered for in the state sector, but that requires funding, which isn't currently there, and I any case, many issues in state schools can't be fixed overnight and just with extra funding. Adding extra pupils (which will affect some schools more than others, simply due to the geographical distribution of schools,) without funding won't improve anything.

It also seems an odd decision to me to bring it in in the middle of the school year, when September would be the obvious time. It was obvious this would lead to pupils moving schools, and having to do that mid year isn't helpful to anyone.

93% of children are already at state schools. Surely quite a few of them care about the quality of education, and it’s still dire. Even if half of children leave private, that’s only 3.5% of children. I’m not sure they will manage to change anything if the 93% haven’t achieved it.

Calling voters jealous isn’t going to win the argument or get people to change their mind about this VAT policy (most people don’t care enough either way - but they might if you name call)… stop insulting people then you might have the chance to change things.

I feel sorry for the children who have to switch as well. A lot of state school teachers are very vocal about their hatred of the private system.

And a lot of them aren't. They're not a hive mind.

Because the assumption was that we would "put up" and that noone would move their DC mid-year so Labour could then claim it didn't have any impact on kids moving.
1000s of parents have called Labour's bluff and now we have a serious situation whereby schools are closing and LAs are saying they have no spaces.
Labour and Phillipson refuse to acknowledge this. Hence why there are now 2-3 legal challenges in England and 1 in Scotland.

It's a fucking shambles and the ones who suffer are kids but they are sacrificial acceptable collateral damage for Labour. This policy was only ever about revenge

Even the government admit it will cause private schools to close. The VAT hasn’t taken effect yet. Most weren’t expecting it to come in until next September. You can’t say a policy isn’t causing school closures when the policy isn’t even in force yet.

Oh don't worry, it will all settle in. My private primary school closed in the 1980s (not VAT, just dwindling numbers) and most of us swamped into the local national (state) school. It must have been a challenge but they were awesome and we never felt unwelcome.

@Another76543

So you actually believe that private school BUSINESSES (because that is what they are) Leave their forward until the first day of next years Autumn term . ?

Those taking their kids out needed to notify by September. In order not to pay fees in January.

Additionally. The OPs post about the Scottish primary closing 'due to fees' is also disingenuous.

www.heraldscotland.com/opinion/24522524.closure-two-private-schools-something-worry/

There are few private schools in Scotland. Presumably only a few state schools will be affected. Where I come from in north Ayrshire I can guarantee thee local comp isn't going to be affected.

Would the private school parents be open to volunteering in the classrooms? Or perhaps the PTA could do with some fundraising events?

Weird to read comments mocking your concerns for the other children.

Exactly this.

The vat is just a convenient excuse for what in some cases is simply poor management.

21% of children in Edinburgh go to a private school.

Awful isn't it. Every child is entitled to a free education

Note you said free, not good.

Do the current children's parents volunteer in the classroom? You're making out like it's private kid's parents job to fix this. It isn't.

Not true though as 1000s are being told 0 spaces. This is just 1 such example for 1 family. There are 1000 more examples

I do note I said that. At the moment there isn't a free good education available

Doesn't mean they aren't entitled to it does it. The system is crap and can't handle all the children it needs to. But that isn't the children's fault

I believe most funding comes from the poorer children it's called pupil premium, when our DC started school we were told to apply for it even though meals are free for everyone till year 3 because the school gets more funding. If they were previously going to private school they won't be poor.

Hopefully your school is able to adapt to this op we had to have an extra class fr one year group a few years back because so many children were born in 2013. A porta cabin type thing.

Exactly yet they are the victims

Yes, Edinburgh is the outlier. The rest of Scotland is relatively unaffected. And I bet most of those children in Edinburgh get to stay on in their private schools. In Surrey 25% go to private schools. Again most will keep their places.

And Edinburgh is prosperous enough to support lots of private schools. If one closes (and it won't be due to VAT alone) there will be plenty of private options available, and it won't be a problem.