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?

Arran I am going to pm you to try and explain why transport would not work. But i do, really, appreciate your thoughts. It's too outing to post online.

Exactly yet some posters immediately rush to the "you are lying" position.

There is no good state education available for my children. Zero. None. I’ve checked, out of interest. The schools available are one which “requires improvement” or another where only 17% pass maths and English GCSE.

@twistyizzy believe me if another independent school had closed in Scotland since August I would have heard about it. I’m in plenty of groups where a big deal would have been made of it.

OK but I've been given the name of one that closed end August. I'm probably in the same group/s but it hasn't been published on there

OP states the school is closing ie…hasn’t yet !
Happy to wait and see if MNHQ are in a position to confirm

@twistyizzy I’m happy to be corrected. Please could you PM me the name so I can fact check myself? I’m not coming up with anything at all other than the merger of Glenalmond and Craigclowan which I’m really pleased about as I hadn’t realised or had happened and feared for a while the Craigclowan would be an early victim.

Don't forget the National Insurnace contributions going up! The schools that had just about balanced their budgets for VAT didn't see that one coming. It's a double whammy from Rachel and Bridget who don't see privately educated children as 'our children' according to that fatuous tweet about astroturfs and embossed stationery.

All of the state schools in Edinburgh are not full

Some are oversubscribed

😂 funnily enough the Unions do this on our behalf. Thanks for the helpful suggestion.

Perhaps it’s time to support more homeschooling?

But those groupings didn't all have the same policy on private school VAT so I am not sure that is relevant to this thread. Lib Dems opposed Labour's plan.

As did Lib Dems, Greens, Reform + Tories ie every party except Labour opposes this policy.

Don’t worry …. Birth rates been dropping since 2015 so less and less kids coming thru …. until get enough new people to fill the gap

No just pointing out when posts are lies.

I’ll leave that to the unions & parent bodies and just focus on my job which is providing the best education with the resources I have

Lies? No, you may disagree with them but they aren't lies. I can back up each post with facts and evidence. You however are just on a mistaken witch hunt.
Children lie at the heart of this and the fact you constantly minimise the impact on them is disgusting

I fully acknowledge that lots of private schools are probably on a shaky peg just now and VAT will just be the straw that breaks the camel.

From a personal perspective I just wish this had been more thoroughly thought though and more invested into education before loading the camel with more straw!

My post says it’s due to close…..

@Silverbook but 84 children have left already?

My post doesn’t say that.

You said it in your post at 11:34

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

@Silverbook umm you literally said it yourself…

Good! You might think that is totally bitchy response but, quite frankly, myself and many other parents have faced so much abuse on here and other forums for arguing about the negative impacts of this policy and I know of children who have been abused in the street (by adults) whilst wearing their private school uniforms, that I am past caring about how it will impact some state school children and teachers. I’m taking an all right Jack approach now. I have a DC whose state school won’t be impacted as it’s a state grammar with strict entry criteria and my other DC will be staying in his private school (thanks to a remortgage).