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?

Most of us of SEND parents just get on with it with the best we can.

tips on how to respond to it with your experiences: https://www.specialneedsjungle.com/snjs-advice-and-prompts-for-submitting-evidence-to-the-2025-education-select-committees-send-inquiry/

The policy is economically illiterate.

My DS starts school next September. We currently have a place reserved for him at a private pre-prep and have also applied for a very good local village state school which we have a pretty good chance of getting a place at because there are virtually no children living in the catchment area. Based on the LA birth stats there were just 4 children born in the catchment area in his year group.

If we get offered a place at the excellent village state school we’ll probably take it. We can easily afford the private school fees but are wary of entering the private school system until there is a new pro-education government in place. Hopefully this will happen at the next GE which will be well before DS starts secondary school.

By deterring us for the time being Labour has imposed a huge cost on the taxpayer.

The taxpayer will pay 7k for the state school place. 4k VAT won’t be paid and income tax will also fall. We will put the equivalent of the fee money into a pension and pay no tax on it. This means the Treasury will get around 16k less income tax from our household than we currently pay.

In total that all adds up a 27k bill for the taxpayer for each year that we use state over private schools.

If we use state until 11 that is thick end of a 200k loss to the Treasury. At the same time we will accrue well over 100k extra savings over that time period without being a penny worse off in terms of disposable income. The taxpayer is effective paying us a 6 figure sum to use a state primary school.

It is a seriously messed up tax policy that creates such a scenario and understandably not something Labour like to debate as I’m not sure they want people to understand the actual financial impact of the policy.

So, you believe that a private education offers no real advantage over a state education because the grade difference is minimal, and that this shows that most state schools are good? Where is the inequality between the 2 sectors then; the apparent inequality which this ludicrous policy is seeking to address?

This has been discussed at length upthread.

You might consider how far the % of SEN students at top performing private schools will impact results. The reality is they only take the high achieving ones.

I would guess there are many more SEN children in state school than private... I challenge anyone to provide statistics that proves otherwise, I know a few private schools that have actively removed their SEN children.

Lots of SEN children in state are the on SEN register but with no EHCP..I appreciate it's complicated. I will be interested to see a proper investigation.

And yes I agree they tend to only take the high achieving ones who often have relatively well off parents.

Same.

Guardian says:

’The DfE’s figures show only 1.2% of children and young people with EHCPs attend mainstream private schools, while 5% attend private or non-maintained special schools.’

I am looking for data on non-EHCP SEN pupils - the difficulty is always going to be that the definition is somewhat context-dependent. A child on the SEN list in a generally very high-performing affluent school might well fall within the ‘normal’ range of abilities in a school with a much more challenging cohort with much higher average needs - because in the former, their ability would mean that they needed specific provision outside normal classroom practice, whereas in the latter, general class approach, provision and teaching might be pitched at exactly their level.

(The further difficulty being that in the statistics I can find, private special schools are included in the private school figures - and as eg c 5% of EHCP pupils attend private special schools vs 1.2% mainstream private, SEN figures that lump special and mainstream together aren’t meaningful)

A lot of Parents don't choose Private School to get higher grades either.
Its not why we did, they might well have got adequate GCSE's at State but it was about the whole school expereince for us and they couldn't get what we wanted for them at our only State option for Secondary

Exactly and then there’s all the children that are missed in school for various reasons with SEN, who had they attended a better school or had parents who understood the system might have been placed on the SEN register or perhaps even been given a EHCP…private schools are not the answer the crap system we have for our children who have SEN or in many cases a EHCP

Once the VAT is being paid and state schools are still in a mess where will the extra funds appear from then. We all know the amount raised is going to be a drop in the ocean. State education in the UK has been on the decline for years , they have little to no hope of it improving any time soon. It needs a massive overhaul and cash injection that isn’t happening on their watch, but they will claim
it as a victory. Regardless of your stance on the VAT, children from all walks of life will
suffer and the education debate will rumble on.

@cantkeepawayforever you can see the data here. You have to edit the parameters. Unfortunately, you can’t link with them already set, linking them wipes some of them. If you edit step 4 to just look at 2023/2024. Then edit step 5 and untick all but ‘independent schools’ from ‘phase of education’ and just tick ‘other independent school’ and ‘other independent special school’ under ‘school type detail’.

In other independent special schools (that doesn’t include NMSS, they are listed separately), 94.3% have an EHCP and 4.1% are on SEN support without an EHCP.

In other independent schools, 1.4% have EHCPs and 17.3% are on SEN support without an EHCP.

Although some schools and LAs may try to interpret the law differently, the legal definition of SEN applies the same to all children and young people.

Thank you! That doesn’t remove the issue of SEN definition between schools, and also doesn’t quite match the 42% of private school pupils who claim extra time in exams, but it’s great to get at the source data.

@cantkeepawayforever I edited my post just as you were posting. Although some schools and LAs may try to interpret the law differently, the legal definition of SEN applies the same to all children and young people.

That wasn’t the point you were attempting to make. You attacked Gove for harming state school education. He didn’t. He improved it.

Whether private schools follow the curriculum changes that Gove introduced has nothing to do with your false criticism of him.

@cantkeepawayforever This was always the leafy lane SEN issue. Measuring SEN in a cohort of bright DC is usually tricky. DC look further behind than they possibly are. Often articulate parents get more out of the system too.

Has anyone ever wondered why top private schools get great results? It’s genetic and its selection. Bright parents with high paying jobs often have bright dc. They don’t need a private school for exam results. They use them for breadth of curriculum, facilities, breadth of sport and extras available. Some schools offer a way of life. Often better music and drama can be top class at the best schools . Many state schools cannot replicate the best independent school. Not even close.

Some small independents are not viable with 10 in a class. My DDs independent prep had 18 in a class. It’s difficult to see how some will survive without change. One cannot see merged year groups though. The larger schools will sweep up richer parents and smaller cheaper schools with dubious value added might suffer.

In practice, though, having taught in schools at very different ‘ends’ of the ability / socioeconomic scales, the internal metrics used to ‘flag’ pupils as needing special support, individual education plans etc etc will vary in accordance with the general ability and needs of the cohort.

Yes, a child with autism or a sensory impairment would be flagged in any school, but the line between ‘lower ability’ and ‘SEN requiring individual provision’ is somewhat moveable in practice.

And this is why we ought to be assessing children more, this ridiculous approach that many schools and LEA’s take of “supporting” the child on the SEN register without actually knowing what the specific need is needs to be addressed. And waiting until the said child has fallen x number of years behind their peers before serious steps are taken has to stop.

‘The policy is economically illiterate.’

Mmm, let’s find out. Not that it’s entirely about. Economics, obvs.
you keep being gouged by these businesses if you like, they have you sheeple brainwashed into thinking that state schools are hell and private schools are the saviour.
So now you have to pay a bit of tax, no biggie. Can’t afford it, don’t use them.

Ah haaaa...the use of 'sheeple' says it all!

Don't engage further!

Shame, for a while there this was an interesting and reasonable discussion with some useful evidence and facts. Oh well.

I didn’t start yet another bloody private school poor us we won’t be able to afford skiing at half term thread.

Someone’s been at the hooch.

Harsh. I think some private parents are just worked up, not pissed up. Fair enough, I would be too probably.