State school 6th forms oversubscribed

[LordGiveMeStrength]

AIBU to be concerned about the impact the new VAT on private schools will have on state school 6th forms?

Our local 6th form open days have been jam packed with so many year 11s moving from private schools.

Issues I see:

1. kids who have been at the local state secondary school since year 7 have been told their space in the 6th form is not guaranteed and if they don’t get as high GCSE results as other potential pupils they will not have a spot. The nearest private schools have amazing GCSE results so very likely to displace existing students to other state school options a far distance from their homes.
2. infrastructure - the local school is already heaving so accommodating a huge influx is not possible, buildings are already crumbling and it will take a long time before investment actually happens to improve the facilities.
3. false economy- currently kids in private schools don’t cost the government to be educated. Government’s plans are that money raised from VAT will pay for additional teachers (but I don’t see that happening immediately). If lots of private schools kids move to the state system not only will government not collect that VAT, but they will all be liable for educating pupils who previously were in the private sector. I believe the current cost from central government to educate in 6th form is £5k with additional payments for more academic subjects (eg further maths A level pupils will equal an additional £900 per pupil per year in the state schools). Apologies if these sums aren’t correct.

https://inews.co.uk/inews-lifestyle/private-school-parents-vat-state-sixth-forms-3473062?srsltid=AfmBOopXOi5842QMq-qO1NqHGR9g9-4BOi6Gc0v_dlhBbFBTMmU5Prsi

My school is desperate to get as many kids enrolled as possible. You would have it that each extra kid we enrol actually places an unbearable strain on the school infrastructure to the point where any extra funding that they bring will have to be spent on toilet roll, library books etc to the point where there is nothing left.

I'm impressed at a school that has separate toilets for 6th formers.

I didn’t remotely say that 🙄

Also for UK students applying to American universities they publish specific guidance for UK based teachers about references having to include their ranking in the cohort. The reason they do that is because that is not standard practice for UK schools and universities.

And yet the school couldn't possibly increase staffing in response to additional pupils because of all the library books that needed to be funded....

I don’t understand this. The cleaners clean each classroom each morning - there won’t be any new classrooms to clean. Likewise the toilets, the same toilets will be cleaned regardless is 1 person uses them or a thousand (we have driers btw so no worries about paper towels). The lighting goes on at 7am and shuts off at 7pm - again regardless of how many people are in the building.

Surely schools have a number of reasonably 'fixed' costs dependent on the general size of the school?

So admin staff, canteen running, cleaners, heating, lighting. They don't change whether there are 1200 in the school or 1300.

Thus if a school decides to take on extra 6th formers and makes A level classes go from 8 to 12 (or 10 to 15) it really doesn't cost them extra. They benefit from the funding that comes with the students.

It only becomes more expensive if the school decides it needs to employ a number of extra full time teachers to cope with the increase in 6th form numbers. And that only happens if the A level classes get to a size they need to split and there is no spare capacity within the teaching staff. Even then teachers often seem to work part time so it probably wouldn't need a new full time teacher.

It's not a no brainer to me. Although I wouldn't want my child to go to a school with poor results, I would prefer a school with good results and small classes than a very selective one with large classes.

Point - missed 🙄

Trying again. Nearly all the ones I see do because they are high flyers. But the size of the classes doesn’t change whether or not you mention them. 🤣 If applicant A’s school reference mentions it, but applicant B in the same class doesn’t, I still know how big the class is, no?

We see applications for all school types and the UCAS page contains the pupil numbers for years 12 and 13. We also have this data and average class sizes from UCAS/DfE. It is easy to work out what kinds of sizes each kind of school likely has for A-level cohorts. We know how schools work - many of us, like me, are trustees or governors, ex-teachers, or do a lot of in-school outreach and get to know different types of schools very well. You forget that as well as asking applicants for the numbers on their classes, we also have their websites and Osfted data with staffing numbers to look at — all public data!

A big sixth form college with 1500 in year 12 is going to have a different kind of number in A-level classes to a small school sixth form with 80 students per year. It isn’t rocket science to work out how many students are likely in an A-level class from the data we get even if we didn’t have the number. Are there going to be 30 music A-level students in a class? No. And many schools provide textbooks and have decent library and sports and catering resources, and don’t contract out everything.

Of course students moving back into state will affect sixth form provision in oversubscribed area of the country. Of course some schools are desperate for more “bums on seats”, but those ones are not likely to attract lots of ex-private school pupils. That doesn’t mean there will be no impact across the country more broadly.

It’s as if everyone in this thread loves substandard contracted-out education and is competing to say their school will just love to do more of it by cramming some more kids in to their A-level provision. Good for you! That doesn’t mean that a) that’s what will happen everywhere; or b) that that’s de facto good for the pupil, the education system or the taxpayer. I’d prefer schools were properly funded, not that a counterproductive VAT policy just shifts financial stress around the system overall.

Of course this changes, because the work per student head increases. The admin staff have to process more work. The teachers have to do more marking. The school spends more money on many of its resources. It needs more classroom space, more chairs, more loo paper, more practical time, more teaching assistants, more time for pastoral matters, more supply teachers, more stationery (yes many schools do still provide this, and textbooks).

Your post seems to just assume you can increase teachers’ workload because they have “spare capacity” 😆 Ask a teacher - well, anyone really - do they want to do more work for the same pay? More marking, prep, etc. for the same timetabled lessons? And ask them if adding a bunch more kids per class will have no effect on the quality of their work? What answer do you expect to get? Do pupils and their parents favour schools who offer larger class sizes at A-level or smaller ones? Why? Are there lots of kids clamouring to be taught in A-level classes of 30? Why not?

@noblegiraffe you still haven’t said how many extra pupils per class you’d be happy to take in with no timetabling offset for marking time. Are you happy to mark five or ten more students’ work in the same time you already allocate for existing marking? Will adding more students to a class increase or decrease the quality of your teaching? Will you be giving each student the same amount of individual time? (A-level maths is hard, and many students struggle. Do they just get less time and attention each if there’s more in the class? Is that what you and they want?)

Would your colleagues in English, Psychology or Biology be keen to add more marking to their workload with no offset or extra staff?

Actually at my daughter's school you could very well have had 20 in an A level Theatre studies class (they didn't offer A level music, only Btec) but only 5 in a chemistry class.

And my son had very large music classes at college.

I honestly do not know any school or college (and my kids attended a mix from private selective, private non selective/boarding, state comp and state FE college) that provides stationery for 6th formers.

Increasing an A level class from 10 to 15 doesn't need more chairs or classroom space as classrooms are fitted out for 25-30 anyway.

Teachers may have more marking to do, as may admin staff, but they probably won't be paid any more for doing it.

Supply teachers, again, only if you are adding classes as opposed to increasing class size, (plus aren't A level classes often just left to get on with it if the teacher is absent?)

I don't think you get many TAs with A level students, do you?

Lab assistants for science subjects but that's all unless a specific student had funding for 1:1

Teachers don’t use any stationery or do any photocopying, then?

Photocopying? Are you living in the last century?

With a very vague answer. I see you have provided further detail below but it is clear that your knowledge on a lot of things is theoretical and/or quite out of date.

Minimal I’d have thought,going by my kids;how much is done on line or from text books parents buy.

Even assignments are submitted online now although A level students do have to do essays etc by hand to replicate exam conditions.

Yes, even before that comment I was wondering when neverthelaststone last stepped into a school or university.

Right, so in this post is FINALLY the key thing I have been trying to get you all to acknowledge:

Teachers may have more marking to do, as may admin staff, but they probably won't be paid any more for doing it

What this whole thread is saying is: even if there is additional pressure on sixth forms from the VAT policy, you are expecting teachers and staff to suck it up and do more work to compensate.

That’s the key issue. Whatever the fine grain of funding and accounting, those on this thread who argue it won’t have an impact assume that teachers and staff will just bear the extra impact. How very left wing of you all. How redistributive. If private school kids move into state then the teachers (and the other state kids) will just pick up the stress in bigger classes and more work for them.

Did you all realise that’s what you’re arguing for? Sounds pretty Tory to me to be honest - very “do more with less”, etc. So much better than us all just paying more tax overall so that all sixth form kids can have A-level teaching in small, well-funded schools and providers. No?

And FWIW, there’s still plenty of photocopying going on in schools 😆

I mean to be fair a school like my daughter went to was very backwards in it's use of technology. They did used to waste a ton on photocopying and had very few computers (it was a very small private school between 20-30 kids per year) . But it was/is an outlier.

It’s hilarious that you imagine schools are living in some kind of paper-free world. I don’t think you know the first thing about it!

Schools are trying to minimise it. By 6th form I’d have thought it would be very common for there to be very little.