AIBU to think that Bridget Phillipson is exaggerating the level of middle-class support for VAT on school fees?

[TepidWatersOfManagedDecline]

Bridget Phillipson has been quoted as saying that the policy is supported by "middle-class parents in good professional jobs with housing costs who just can't afford that level of fee" and want "brilliant state schools". www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c86wd1y7v2xo

Is this true, in your experience? Most middle-class parents with professional jobs who I’ve discussed this with think that it’s a spiteful policy (including those who don’t use the independent sector).

AIBU to think that Bridget Phillipson is exaggerating the level of support for the policy?

I know. All this talk of 'he will survive' 'she will cope' 'they will manage'. School isn't (or shouldn't be) and endurance event children have to get through, it should be a positive experience which aims to meet each child's individual needs, whether they have a SEN, are exceptionally bright, or brilliant at sport or music.

There is so much push for 'equality' that we lose sight of children's individual needs and personalities in a one size fits all approach. No wonder there is such an increase in mental health struggles in young people.

My aspirations for my children are much higher than survive or manage, i hope that they will 'thrive' 'learn' 'grow' 'enjoy' 'reach their full potential' and will do anything in my power to make that happen, within the resources we have.

We should want better for children than survival.

Presumably you could have understood the point nonetheless that a candidate who cannot see and has to read braille with their fingers is a different type of challenge to a student with dyslexia or ADHD who is impacted by slow or disordered processing rather than inability to see text.

Of course they have different needs. No-one has said otherwise. That doesn’t mean extra time isn’t needed or beneficial in other cases.

This is such an important point.

@Mirabai Where do you get the figure of 10,000 private school children moving into state schools from?

Exactly, if there was ample provision for SEN in the state sector, the borough where I work wouldn't have doubled the number of specialist places in the last 5 years and still have over 500 children waiting for a specialist place. And my friend wouldn't be considering selling their home and moving 80 miles to be close to the only identified school which can properly meet her sons need to avoid him needing to travel for 2 hours each way every day.

Just because there are random spaces in schools available, doesn't mean there are spaces in the right area with the right provision for a specific child who has been pushed out of private provision

If you read that more carefully the point I was making was that there students who may benefit from extra time but who don’t have identified disabilities - not that diagnosed disabilities are required for extra time.

Ukrainian children not private school children.

As posters are saying, we knew it was coming. I don't find it spiteful. Our eldest was in a fee paying school for a limited time ( part church-subsidised). Yes we'd have had to tighten our belts or think seriously if it was introduced back then. However if the money goes to state schools I think it needs doing. My brother and sister in law are both in state schools and I believe what they tell me about spiralling costs.

It came across as though you thought a diagnosis is required. Apologies if that is not how you meant it.

Do you have any evidence that smaller classes of the same cohort acheive the same outcomes as larger classes of the same cohort?

In our village, we have 2 primaries. One, more popular, on the richer side of the village, with lower SEN and pupil premium (so less deprived families) has full classes of 30+ children.

The other, on the side of the village with more social deprivation, more SEN intake, classes average 20 children, it's less popular with middle class parents due to its location.
Both are ofsted as Good so teaching standards are broadly in line.

Guess which school acheives the better literacy levels, sats results, more children passing 11+?

Ah yes, 'reach full potential' is the phrase I meant much earlier, not best education possible. My misremembering!

And I totally agree with you.

There’s no legal duty for LAs to educate a child to his or her maximum potential. This is covered by case law.

Great example, thank you for sharing this. This +VAT policy is both hurtful (to kids) and stupid in not achieving its own stated aims

Fundamentally, though, this rhetoric about how pushy middle class parents would make the state sector better has been around since the sixties, and it hasn’t happened yet!

Don’t posters who seem to believe this understand what they’re asking for?

On a SEN level, more children with diagnosed or undiagnosed SEN moving back into state just puts more pressure on already limited resources. And who gets those resources when the pushy middle class parents are in the school? The kids whose parents don’t care, or the kids whose parents are pushy and middle class?

In terms of the pushy middle classes, at the moment DD has got a scholarship and bursary and I can relax knowing that at least her school can occupy her with Latin and music and extra maths and so on. What happens if we have to put her back into state (which we may well have to now?)

Well, I can tell you that I’ll be down there at the head’s office a couple of times a week; and I’ll be pushing for my kid to get all the resources going spare - from making them teach her extra maths, to hoovering up all the extension funding and the remaining external funding for Oxbridge programmes and extra music and all the spaces she can get in lunchtime clubs, and so on and so on. And what happens is my kid gets those resources rather than kids whose parents aren’t pushy. And I’ll be putting the 8k we currently spend on her school into finding private Latin teaching and so on (VAT free!)

Don’t you understand that all those lovely pushy parents will be hoovering up the remaining resources in the state schools instead of your kid? And taking up the teachers’ time instead of them teaching your kid? And that the prizes and music awards and Head Student spots and top references for universities are going to their kid and not your kid or any of the other kids without the pushy parents? I can attest to this first hand, as I went to a big state comp in the 90s in a deprived area of the north with no local private schools, and that’s exactly what happened.

What it doesn’t do is mean that more pushy middle class parents in state schools suddenly makes them provide Latin for all or hire better teachers or whatever. It just means they hoover up everything on offer in the state system too. Anyone who believes this guff is a gullible fool with no real experience of how education works.

My DS is 10 and has an EHCP as he is autistic (as said upthread). As teachers we can’t afford private school and his EHCP does state 121. He’s going from a one form entry to a secondary school of 250 in a year group. We selected this school as first choice and he won’t have 121. I have to have hope he will thrive - and not be succumbed to the fate that posters on this thread predict.

No, but that is the aim, even if it's not a legal requirement. Or that's what DS' school said the aim was.

And neither is the parent wanting a private education.

In reality, the head teacher won't engage and certainly won't be having three meetings a week with you. You won't get past the office staff. Also, if you try and 'make' anyone teach extra Maths you will be severely disappointed. The school staff will decide who gets extra support and it isn't allocated due to parents asking for it.

State schools are very good at dividing their very limited resources where they are needed. We've been doing it for many years. Sharp elbows don't generally work in state schools but it's been eye opening ready your post and listening to your assumptions about how state schools staff can be bullied into doing what you want.

The school misunderstands EHCPs.

Which no-one has said either.

My position is that extra time is rather a one size fits all adjustment - I’m not sure that it’s that helpful in some cases, and there may be other more beneficial adjustments that aren’t offered. There may also be many who might qualify or benefit from extra time who don’t get it. I responded to a poster who commented “I feel like all exams should allow enough time to be answered properly for everyone” which I rather agree with.

Its awful to see the disruption to kids’ lives, their familiar surroundings, their wider family support, to their parents’ working lives, and how successive governments have been pushing more families into precarity with this lack of funding for SEND provision in the state system.
It is affecting every aspect of parents lives- and we are only talking about the luckier more financially secure ones here.

Even less ‘choice’ as a SEND parent if you are renting or in social housing and would need to move for a suitable school. This is a horrendous crisis that successive ableist governments seem happy to let happen. The + VAT is just another aspect of that.

Of course the parent isn’t making the final decision on section I of EHCPs. That doesn’t change the fact independent placements can and are named in EHCPs and parents can pursue that regardless of whether others think they can or not.

Bearing in mind they wouldn't apply for one until their attendance stats were affected, that doesn't surprise me.

I still hope he can achieve his full potential with the extra support though.