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

So why didn't you say so instead on banging on about photocopying?

You don't want state 6th forms to take on more kids because it makes more work for the teachers.

That is a perfectly reasonable concern, which gets completely lost when you talk about cleaners and chairs and canteens and textbooks.

I thought you worked in a university now? There is hardly any going on in universities.

It’s stupid not to realise that the pupil funding covers a proportion of non-teaching costs spread across the whole of the school. How do you think they are funded otherwise? I’m trying to get you to realise that.

I don't think you know the first thing about state schools or universities nowadays.

True! I insisted my dc take pads of A4 paper and folders. They laughed and it all came back untouched.

Of course it does.

But a couple extra in each A level class doesn't increase those costs.

It's like, Hotels or something.
The fixed costs of the hotel are covered by say 60% occupancy (made up %). Any occupancy over and above that is sheer profit once the consumables have been deducted for).
Or a theme park, might cover its opening costs when it has 2000 visitors. Anything above that on a day is profit on the day.

An A level class might need 8 (or whatever) on average to cover costs. If the class can be pushed up to 12 that is net extra for the school.

As I told you upthread (you clearly didn’t bother to read) I’m a trustee of several schools and post-19 education charities. 🙄 There’s been very poor reading and financial comprehension on this thread, which makes me pretty sceptical about whether any of you know anything about education. As well as the claims that nobody’s photocopying anything, there are no textbooks, sixth formers don’t do any sports and additional marking for teachers is no problem at all, amongst other things.

I don’t think many of you have much of a clue how schools work. Anyway, it all sounds like you’re especially keen that teachers and staff do more work, so that’s clearly the key message!

Yes, because schools work just like hotels and theme parks. 🙄 Why not pile ‘em in and squeeze the pips?

It’s just uninformed to think that schools work like this. Back to school for you too.

I’m thinking your only experience is being trustee of a few private schools which is minuscule and not enough to pontificate the way you are.
There are textbooks - which parents pay for , there is negligible photocopying thanks to whiteboards,smartphones, laptops,email and iPads you can write on. In FE colleges in our area there is no sport aside from a gym pupils can pay for, there was none timetabled in the 6th form attached to a school one of my kids went….

Given how out of touch you oh are I’m thinking you’ve never ever stepped into a state school of any kind.

Wrong — I’m a trustee across both LEA schools and large MATs. I now work in university admissions and teaching, but spent a lot of my career in widening participation and working in schools, FE and HE funding policy at the DfE. I’ve devoted my career to helping state applicants and schools. Have you?

I see education accounts regularly for HE and schools from primary to FE. I know how school funding works (and I teach, myself). What do you do? Are you a school bursar or a teacher? Or an accountant? Or an education policy specialist?

@neverthelastone So are you claiming that there are no 6th forms with any spare capacity in any subject? And that say all Spanish, Ancient History and Latin classes are full and can't possibly take on extra pupils?

You aren't being very coherent with your logic which is why I am having trouble following it.

If you want to argue that A level teachers shouldn't have to increase class size due to extra work load or decrease in quality of teaching then that makes sense and in certain cases is probably true.

But saying that taking on a few extra A level students means more chairs or cleaners are needed just doesn't sound plausible and thus acts as a detriment to your main argument.

I have no idea what the optimum class size is for A level, though I guess it varies by subject. I bet however that there are some subjects that could take extra pupils if they were there wanting to attend.

Being a trustee of some private schools doesn't actually give you a better knowledge of what does and doesn't happen in state schools or universities than the people who work in them.

How many state schools have you actually walked into?

And which uni are you teaching in that has students heavily reliant on photocopying?My uni age kids recoil at anything printed on hardcopy.

Anyone who thinks schools are paper-free and do no photocopying needs to take a look at that budget line in the average state school’s accounts.

Or it is that you think it’s all done by IT these days? Some kind of magic IT that the school doesn’t pay for, provide, staff support for and so on? Does the magic school budget fairy pay for that too, or maybe the parents provide, staff and run all the software and the school computers?

Basic info - LEA and MATs are all state schools, not private. Have you actually read any of my posts?

I have read your posts and regardless of what you say you do it is clear that you are advocating for private schools. It is also clear that you do not have much on the ground knowledge of today’s state school six forms.

Sixth form do very little photocopying nowadays.

But knowing the size of the cohort tells you the grand sum of f all about the ability of the cohort.
In my trust there are schools where the top performer in their A level cohort would be the bottom of my A level cohort. By a lot.
The cohort size is to an extent irrelevant.
What we do say is how they compare to other students more specifically and realistically. Of course it helps there that I’ve been teaching in the same school for nearly 20 years.

@TeenToTwenties Okay - do you not understand that a proportion of the per capita student funding goes towards overall overheads, including all the costs of upkeep, non-teaching costs, etc., including the accounts?

Schools - including academies - are exempt charities. They don’t make profits. When they get additional “bums on seats” that extra funding is not free “profit” over and above existing costs. A part of that extra funding goes to the overall overheads. The rest goes towards teaching. But it only benefits the school if it allows more teaching to be “bought”. If it gets swallowed up in increased overheads and costs but no extra teaching provision, it doesn’t benefit the students directly, or the teachers.

Crucially, the fee amount is fixed by the DfE — and schools’ costs aren’t all fixed. If energy costs rise, or there’s more wear and tear on the buildings, or more admin staff are needed, or supply staff, or NI goes up, for example, there’s no additional increase in the per capita funding amount for that year. That extra funding gets swallowed up by the other costs. Of course schools want to attract more pupils - to give themselves more income! But that doesn’t mean that amount is then available as a kind of extra profit - it’s more likely to only just keep many schools going.

I’n not sure why people don’t realise this. It isn’t remotely as simple as “more pupils brings more funding”. Well, if you’re a school bursar, yes it does. Hooray, you can now afford to keep paying your energy bills! If you’re a pupil or a teacher, you not only may not notice a difference, but the costs of increased class sizes may impact on you, with more work for the teachers and less teaching attention fir the pupils.

And yes, more pupils does mean more costs. You can’t just add more pupils without increasing some of your costs, any more than the hotel can get in more guests without paying more chefs to make the breakfasts and increasing the amount of wear and tear in the pool (if you like your private market analogies).

But we also get all the data about the ability of the cohort as well 😆 Including, for example the school’s and candidate’s GCSE cohort performances relative to the school, the LEA and the national average. Amongst other things!

Who pays for the IT, then, if you understand that example better? Who pays for and maintains the school IT provision - do the parents do it at home? Do the sixth formers do it themselves?

You don’t seem to get that photocopying or textbooks are just examples of a cost that has to come out of the fixed funding amount. Different subjects use different proportions of those overall overheads. A proportion of the funding goes towards all of them.

What IT provision, photocoping and textbooks do you think there is for six form that would need to be increased with a few extra six formers?

Right, now we’re getting somewhere. Maybe not so much for a couple extra (though a fixed proportion of the funding will still be, per accounting rules, allocated to overheads). But don’t you see that you’re misunderstanding what “spare capacity” means? It means add a couple extra per class and the situation is probably favourable and the teacher’s workload and student experience isn’t too adversely affected. That’s your amount of “spare capacity”.

But once you’ve added a few more, the increased need for teaching provision plus the decline in teaching experience becomes a net negative. At a break-even point you then need to employ more teachers, and the costs start to outweigh the additional funding. That costs you even more in salaries, pensions, NI - more than the increased funding. When does that point get reached? Well, one school may be able to teach 30 maths students in a class with no decline in teaching quality or individual attention (though I doubt it). But in English, Art, drama, music or Chemistry? That tipping point gets reached earlier. Art and English teachers can’t increase their classes from 15 to 30 without reductions in their timetabling elsewhere. And students don’t want to go to sixth forms with 30 in a class. They start to choose elsewhere. So there’s a point at which adding more students creates diminished returns with the need for additional staffing, classroom space, loos, resources, admin, IT provision, etc. And all these pressures, despite what you think, are much more acute in the state sector, because of generally less good buildings, less staffing, more costs for pupil support, etc.

Spare capacity isn’t just merrily adding more bums on seats and assuming the increased funding is “profit”. Schools aren’t able to do that, either in their accounts, or in the effect on pupils. The idea that a private school exodus will be great for state schools just isn’t realistic. At a small margin, maybe. Not at 10-20 percent plus, which is what well may happen. We wait to see.