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?

But it is a start. For the past 14 years we have had 2 Ed Secs who have ruined education (Gove and Williamson). No one can remember the names of the others. I would rather an Ed Sec being remembered for trying to reduce inequality. Maybe not succeeding, but trying to.

in your too tight diamond encrusted shoes

And right there is exactly some of that spitefulness on display that I’m talking about. Doesn’t matter if kids are adversely affected, if it actually entrenches privilege, or if the policy makes no money for state schools at all - because it’s all about feeling like you’re striking out at the children of people you don’t like, and that’s exactly why posters like this support it.

Could you share this data?

I haven’t seen it, and I imagine it would be extremely hard to gather and interpret.

Data on state vs private prevalence in ‘top jobs’ doesn’t tell us anything about private vs the top state schools (ie does buying your way into the catchment of an elite state school buy more or less privilege than going private?).

And of course it doesn’t tell us about counterfactuals.

Data on US university choice suggests that students who are selected by Ivy League schools but don’t go do just as well in life outcome mesures as those who do go. In other words the old-boys-club effect may be overblown. Maybe those private school children would end up as high court judges regardless of what school they go to. Moving them to state schools would not really therefore widen opportunity, though it would give the appearance of it.

Another nasty sneering post from you, to go with this one from last night:

I thought private school parents loves a bit of well rounded resilience/ independence etc ? This is the perfect chance to develop a bit of grit in kids who have pretty much had a easy life… Children do change schools, all the times for all sorts of reasons… parents jobs, moving cities, divorces. House moves etc. it’s hardly unheard of.

Why can't you stick to arguing on the facts instead of throwing insults around? A bit of empathy for the children caught up in this through no fault of their own wouldn't go amiss either.

Oh they’ll be fine. Take a chill pill. Some - mostly won’t- but some may have to change schools and go to,
GASP. a normal
school. No-one’s going down the mines .

No, it isn't a start. That's the point. It's not going to help. Even the labour politicians can't actually manage to sound convincing on that score. The money it will raise, even if it COULD magic up 6500 teachers is less than 1 per school. It's not earmarked for anything specific and certainly not SEN. Doing ANYTHING is not always better than nothing.

“The onus is on parents to apply for school places, with if certain time frames, and any movement mid year falls outside that.”

That doesn’t make sense if they have intervened with a punitive taxation policy mid year pricing some families out of a school place. If the state intervenes in this way and obstructs the education of some children, logically the only way to counter balance that is to guarantee state place for every displaced child. It’s certainly how I would rule if I were a judge.
Given the year 10,11, 12 and 13 year challenges with curriculum and exam boards I would simply tell them there VAT is a breach of those kids right to an education. They cannot guarantee those children an education in the state sector - the VAT is not proportionate for them. Same goes for SEND.

Im assuming you haven't read this thread and the many posts from parents like me who have reluctantly broken their financial stability and security because of what happened to their kids in state. Please do that before you make such ill informed and offensive comments about diamond shoes and mines. You have no idea.

Well as a teacher of 25 years, a Labour government has kept me in the career for the foreseeable so that’s value to the pupils I teach.

Gove’s changes have pushed state school performance in England well up the international rankings. Those changes didn’t apply in Scotland or Wales. Both of those nations’ school children have slipped down the international indexes.

But everything bad in the world is because of the Tories. Volcanic eruptions, bad coffee harvests, shortages of Ozempic, the lot. 🙄

Well now I know it’s time to leave this thread if a poster is praising Gove’s changes to education - which PS and free schools don’t follow!

Ruining your finances to pay for something g that is free ( sorry, you have already paid for in tax) is entirely a personal choice.
Most private parents however are not living on the breadline while sending kids to £20k,£30k a year schools. Thats facts.
its also why, quite literally no-one other than private parents ( or the grandparents they’re tithing for help) care about VAT being added to fees.
The other 94% care that date education is good, and improving. That’s all.

Give! OMG. Gove crates the most TURGID prescriptive curriculum ever. Teachers hate it, parents hate it, kids are bored stupid by it. Fucking Gove.

I feel the same as an erstwhile Labour supporter. This is actually their second educational fuck up in 20 years since the closing down, wholesale, of special schools in line with “inclusion” policies to absorb SEN students into the mainstream without the resources to do so.

The Workforce Remodelling Agreement which was supposed to support this policy by increasing the numbers of teaching assistants, recognising their skills, improving their training and pay - was never properly implemented.

And now numbers of TAs are falling. 75% of primary schools cut TA numbers this year despite increasing SEN demand.

They type of pastoral environment my kids need (as it turns out) is not free. State secondary led to EBSA and self harm. I'm a single parent, teacher actually, and my parents, thank fuck, are helping me to meet this situation that absolutely is not a choice. This policy is not going to do anything to improve that. I have already said upthread that I would be fine with it, despite the personal cost, if it actually was going to achieve meaningful change.

its also why, quite literally no-one other than private parents ( or the grandparents they’re tithing for help) care about VAT being added to fees.
The other 94% care that date education is good, and improving. That’s all.

Well, I'm part of the 94% and I don't agree with the policy at all.

If 94% believe that state education is good and improving, I've a bridge to sell them.

The reality is though that state education with some notable exceptions is comparatively crap and deteriorating. And this policy will do nothing at all to change that.

It’s comparable to the lemming like delusion that Brexit would improve the economy, from people who understood nothing about economics.

RhaenysRocks

It’s comparable to the lemming like delusion that Brexit would improve the economy, from people who understood nothing about economics.

On the plus side, Brexit has allowed Labour to introduce this policy. #sarcasm 🙄

@Mirabai

"The reality is though that state education with some notable exceptions is comparatively crap and deteriorating"

By what metric?

According to the Sutton Trust, privately educating your child on average results in them getting one grade higher in one A level - so a pupil who might have got AAA at a private school is likely to have got AAB at a state school. That probably contributes (though doesn't account for all) the difference in admissions to elite universities.

Doesn't really suggest that most state schools are 'crap', does it?

And then a new study out this year from UCL suggests that at least in England "Pupils in England who attend fee-paying schools no longer outperform their state school peers in core GCSEs once results are adjusted for socioeconomic background".

www.ucl.ac.uk/news/headlines/2024/nov/private-schools-lose-gcse-results-edge-after-socioeconomic-adjusting#:~:text=Private%20school%20pupils%20in%20England,Faculty%20of%20Education%20%26%20Society).

"If 94% believe that state education is good and improving, I've a bridge to sell them."

The vast majority of children from supportive middle class homes do well in state schools.

That's what the evidence suggests.

There's evidence that the very few bright disadvantaged children that can access fee paying schools may do better there than in state schools.

I also suspect that low achieving disadvantaged children would also do better with the tiny classes and wrap around individualised care that private schools can provide, but we don't know because this group is entirely missing from the private school cohort, as they primarily use the bursary system to strip academic, musical and sporting talent from the state sector, and have zero interest in providing their charitable largesse to those children who need it most, namely those impoverished children failing spectacularly in the state sector.

I suspect

@izimbra nope, wrong again. Got quite a lot of "low achievers" at my school. They mostly manage to stay in education and get at least a handful of decent grades, despite having had EBSA or huge struggles elsewhere. The tiny classes and exceptional pastoral care can't be replicated in state and it is expensive, but it's what some kids need.

If you’re happy with the general standards of state education, that’s fine.

You can adjust stats to make them say what you like. The bald fact is that private schools outperform state at GCSE and A level and the top performing state schools are predominantly selective.

I do believe major reform could fundamentally alter this imbalance. But dicking about with VAT in private schools will not change a thing.

Maybe that is because private schools are better at cheating the system...Private schools ‘using the system’ to get extra time in exams in England, expert warns

Those interested in legal reforms to SEND system please have a read of this news and quote from the IPSEA website - they sound worried about government direction of travel
https://www.ipsea.org.uk/news/new-parliamentary-inquiry-into-solving-the-send-crisis