To be gleeful that most of us were right

[Wranglestar]

https://www.thelondoneconomic.com/news/adding-vat-to-private-school-fees-has-had-no-obvious-impact-on-state-sector-applications-390546/?fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAR2ATdaVlNkJsbtC-KizuW4Fw41obnpvezxnFv4IAFwzJPHXmU90Awr5eqAaem9tMIsn9I0vHSC4jrdYONIA#0rd9makyd4264nstc4us9j77yk5kaoswtLondon Economic

And that private schools has had no impact on state school places. The rich have simply - paid more. Excellent news!

The reality is that private schools, like state schools, are many different things at the same time and different people see different aspects of them because, we all tend to see the thungs that are relevant to us.

And literally no-one is pleased to see SEN kids struggling. You know this. People who don't see your struggle aren't necessarily bad people; they're just people who don't see your struggle

QED

The sad thing is that a significant percentage don't seem to want to broaden their minds by learning the actual facts about schools.

That 58% of private schools are special schools.

That over 20% of pupils in private schools are SEN.

That significant numbers of pupils are on bursaries.

That not all private school parents are filthy rich - and a very large percentage of them would dearly love to have an Outstanding state school that caters for all - from the severely SEN to the all A star candidate (not necessarily different children), from the child that excels at creative subjects to the future biochemist.

That not every private school is made up of straw-boater wearing Henry and Henriettas dashing off to feed their pony before learning the correct way to address an Earl.

And parents don't pick a private school because they don't want to mix with the "lower classes". What they do want - state and private - is a chance for their children to be educated in an environment that is safe, conducive to learning and not dominated by behaviour issues, huge classes and disruption. You can't guarantee that in state unless you're signing up for Michaela... you can semi-guarantee that in private.

What exactly do you think is being Demonstrated by my post?
You may have missed the irony

There is a difference though between not having a personal experience of a particular challenge someone may be going through, and not being prepared to try to show empathy and to try to understand alternative perspectives without resorting to name calling.

Because I stated my daughter struggled with the excessive noise and violence in her state school classroom, I was told on this thread that she was 'mediocre' 'lacked resilience' and that I 'clearly didn't spend much one to one time with her and was a poor parent', along with several other insults.

I get why some people are opposed to private schools, there is an inherent level of unfairness that a child gets a better level of education based on a parents ability to pay. The same for healthcare, and that's why, as a paediatric specialist, I have remained in the nhs despite being able to earn more than double in private sector - adults can chose whether to pay private, children can't, so treatment should be equal. I am prepared to see the other side of the argument.

But when it comes down to my children's happiness and future, I reserve the right, as a parent, to do what I feel is right for them. If that's private, because the state options do not meet need, then my morals go out the window, my children's wellbeing should not be sacrificed for my morals, these are mine, not theirs, and my job is to do the best I can for them.

I don’t think “gleeful” is the word I would use to describe my feelings about destabilising many children and families.

Re "equity": I think you're overcomplicating. By "equity" I mean "(the quality of) being equal or fair." -- There seems an obvious connection with morality.

I agree suitable state school places should be available for each child, of course. It seems inequitable (i.e. unfair) to restrict appropriate placing for any child to those with parents who can afford to pay for such places, the more so if, like your mother, a parent has to work nights or something similar to scrape the fees together.

What we conclude from this might, indeed, differ. I think we should pay sufficient tax to allow equitable (fair) distribution of public goods including education, and that those who can afford to pay extra (for whatever reason) should not be further advantaged by favourable taxation rules.

In the end, I'd like to get to a point in which there is no private education; it's done such harm over the years. Meanwhile, small steps ...

Can you explain exactly how 'it has done such harm over the years'.

They've had plenty of threads and posts to see it. Absolutely loads. They choose to ignore it and post such enlightened and informed comments as 'theres a free alternative for everyone'. Anyone who still thinks this policy was a sound, fiscally worthwhile and effective choice is being actively and wilfully ignorant.

Does this just level everyone down and the U.K. lose one sector that it does well?

Completely agree. Two of the most spiteful comments I’ve had directed at me were in response to me sharing my son’s experience and pointing out that actually not all children’s needs can be met in mainstream state provision. Both of the posters who really laid into me claimed to be parents of children with SEN.

@OhCrumbsWhereNow

58% of private schools may be special schools but they are not part of the debate because an ECHP is a requirement for entry and not part of the policy for VAT.

20% of private school pupils might be SEN but how many of them have or would qualify for an ECHP. Dfe figures suggest only 1.2%.

There are about 18% with SEN in state schools. 4.8% have an EHCP. So many more pupils with significant needs.

And similar percentages with SEN below EHCP in both state and private.

I don’t think that private schools should get special dispensation for having a similar percentage of SEN pupils to state schools who also have to cater for the more severely affected.

A child on the SEN register and receiving support in private school would be on the register and probably receiving the same packages of support in a state school.

Parents are just paying for smaller classes and distance from the most severely affected and not for a specialist SEN school.

My DC are now adult but complex ASD with severe anxiety (special school with EHCP funded by LA) and ASD/ADHD (internet school with ECHP funded by LA). They did not do well at state school by any measure! You have to fight for their rights but the LA do fund alternative to mainstream local school where absolutely necessary.

If you can afford to opt out, your DC have less severe needs and you know the LA will never pay, you have to be prepared to pay the going rate as dictated by needs of providers or government legislation for not absolutely necessary alternative education. That’s just the way it is.

I’m sorry if this sounds harsh. But most of us can’t afford to opt out and have to fight, or try to compensate or just suck it up and have no reason to sympathise with those more privileged complaining of fee increase for whatever reason. It’s not because we fail to understand or are not nice people.

Image below explains equity vs equality.
Equity isn't giving everyone the same, it's giving them what they need to achieve the equivilant outcome.

Yep, I would love to get to the point where private schools weren't needed either.

If your children are adults then you have NO CLUE what it is currently like for SEN children.

I have a Y11. Transition to secondary disrupted by Covid, no chance of getting any help let alone applying for EHCPs etc. And since then it has exploded in terms of numbers needing support.

Have you any idea how hard it is and how long it takes to get an EHCP these days?

Not all children at special schools are there on EHCPs either, some are privately funded.

And VAT on school fees is going to make ZERO difference to anything in state education other than increase the number of SEN children competing for the resources that are available.

Meanwhile it's a nice distraction for the government who have nothing more on the table so far other than to consider banning appeals and more inclusion.

I can assure you applying for an ECHP has never been easy! I had to make parental application, pay for private OT, SALT and EP reports, whilst dealing with EOTAS because my son was out of education, and then go to tribunal. It took years. I had to become a full time carer. How is it worse now?

I just got on and did it, not because I’m morally superior but because I had no choice.

With hindsight, if I had the choice to avoid those years of unbelievable stress and could afford to pay school fees (if I thought reduced class size would be sufficient) I would.

I don’t know whether you tried the ‘conventional’ approach and burned out or whether you just thought fuck that and paid for private school to avoid it. Why don’t you share your experience of trying to get school support, applying for an EHCP etc instead of just saying it’s hard. I know, I’ve been there and done that.

Some DC at specialist school are privately funded although the majority are LA funded (fees are huge though) but all DC at special school need an ECHP.

I don't have a child in a private school.

I have a child in the state sector. And I am still fighting to get help for her. And have spent thousands on reports and medication and interventions and tutors. Because state system is broken.

You are constantly dangled the idea that something might be possible, dissuaded from applying for EHCP because almost all of them end up at appeal. Then told it will take 2 years so bit pointless now as they'll have left school by the time it comes through.

Apologies. I must have mixed you up with previous posters.

You should visit the SEN board for specific advice and crucial support.

So sorry this is happening to you and your daughter. If you haven’t already visit the IPSEA site and set the clock by applying for assessment. It may well be refused but then you appeal. My LA initially refused to assess but then conceded when I lodged appeal. Then issued crap EHCP which I appealed.

It’s hard to separate emotion when your child’s well-being is in the balance but it’s a legal process once you are in the system that will take its course. The dissuasion is a tactic to prevent you from entering the system where the courts control the timeframe and the outcome. It’s not too late to act. Just apply for assessment and take it from there.

I have several close friends who hate Labour because their education was disrupted when grammar schools were abolished in their area many years ago. They could be called as expert witnesses.
So no, I am not gleeful.
There are plenty of people with living memories of what this kind of ideological state interference does to children’s psyche.

In addition, I have never voted Tory in my life, but will be voting for them in the next election. So there is that minor fact. I would rather have the bumbling incompetents back VS these malicious nasty control freaks who have it in for the disabled from children to the very old.

But there is no system of education that means all children will come out with an equivalent outcome. I mean, what does that even mean educationally speaking?

That still doesn't justify making it harder for those parents though for a misguided and ineffective policy that will not achieve a positive gain for anyone. Even IF it resulted in 6500 teachers that less than 1 person school and is entirely wiped out by the counter effects outlined many times. If, by doing this, the state sector was going to be transformed for everyone so that actually the "lower end" of SEN needs could be met without paying for the small, calm atmosphere you get in most privates, I would understand it. But that isn't going to happen. This isn't a step in the right direction, or a start, or better than nothing. It's none of those and directly harms some children.

What have applications got to do with it? Everyone I know who sends their kid to a private school also applied for a state school place- just turned it down.

Quite. Nor does number of first choice offers in areas that have depopulated like London.

Thank you.

Unfortunately DD sits GCSEs in 7 weeks time. She won't achieve in line with her ability, she does have good options on the table but only because I have done everything in my power to achieve that.

I don't have issues with her teachers - they are almost all great - and she is leaving school having had a broadly happy time.

What depresses me is that there is so little available even in really good state schools for those who just need a bit of help, or educational help.

The system is so swamped that unless you are dramatically obvious and disruptive - or have a parent who understands how to work the system at the right time - there is no help.

Children who need support with what I call Educational Needs - spelling, reading, basic maths, working memory problems... the most you might get is a sheet directing you to Nessy. All the attention is on emotional and social needs these days.

Ed Psych report says they should be at the front of the class, should have everything chunked, scaffolded, pre-taught, over-taught. Forget it. 15/30 in the class are supposed to be sat at the front of the class. Quiet girls are used as spacers for the SEN boys - sod the effect on their education.

I don't know how most teachers do it.

And when it's best part of 2 years to get to the point of having an EHCP issued (then getting stuff implemented is another fight...) then you need to be on the mark in Y7 latest for any effect. Kids who were stuck in lockdown till Y9 are all too late. If your child is clever but SEN, so getting 5s and 6s instead of 8s and 9s, the only person that really cares is you... and the child who wonders why they can't get the grades no matter how hard they try (our exam system is designed to help them fail).

As you probably know, you also grab at straws... maybe medicating them is going to be the answer... so you waste 18 months fixing that to find that yes, it helps a bit, but actually it just means they'd be able to work better with help if it was on offer.

I am mainly frustrated knowing that there are all these current problems, that a huge number of private school parents have children with similar issues to mine, or things like ASD where they just cope better in a quieter, calmer environment, and there is no actual plan to deliver on SEN in state beyond reducing access to EHCPs and pushing more into mainstream under the guise of inclusion.

I cannot fathom how this is going to help teacher retention, or help the next generation become successful, happy and fulfilled citizens.

Yet the government's big flagship policy is to spend hundreds of thousands on lawyers defending their decision to force more kids to depend on the public purse that is already unable to deliver for the kids they have today.

We won't get equality for the UK, we will just have more children failing, while ever more top university places and top jobs go to international applicants... I mean, we can't even offer jobs to our homegrown medics.

I'll try. In answer, some personal experiences and a few references. Apologies for length of post.

I had thought mildly about private schools over the years, but some things really came home to me in particular when one of my sons-in-law had some difficulties ascribable largely to his schooldays privately educated.

This wasn't unusual, in my experience. Over many years, at university, socially, in working life, I have come across - in many cases got to know quite well - a largeish number of privately-educated (mostly) men and boys.

Recall the time when the Prime Minister, the Mayor of London and the Archbishop of Canterbury (head of the Established Church) were all alumni of one school? (Eton, of course.) I've known lots of Etonians, been friends with some, even. Often good people to have at a party, good fun ... but not a one who could be trusted further than you could spit. That particular characteristic untrustworthiness is, in my experience, too ubiquitous to be ascribable to anything other than what Etonians share: Eton.

(We know - I don't need to detail here - the depredations wrought on the public weal by those three individuals I mentioned above.)

Harrovians are somewhat different to Etonians, it's true; Wyckehamists different again; and so on. (I find it really weird that I can often tell the difference, btw.) What they all share, in my experience, however, is a kind of emotional immaturity allied to a capacity for bluff. They are not - again in my relatively extensive but still obviously limited experience - anything like the fully-rounded human beings we would like our own children to become. (Do I want my son to grow up like Boris Johnson? -No!)

These disabilities are associated with English private school alumni. It seems not unlikely to have been engendered by those schools, particularly if you look, as I have done in some detail, at what goes on in the schools themselves.

It appears, that is, that the education provided by these schools, despite their reputation, is actually pretty bad. And their alumni, damaged human beings as they are, take (grab?) much more than their fair share of places running things in our society. The results of this canot be other than deleterious.

That's all from my own experience. Some external readings ...

1 Sad Little Men: Private Schools and the Ruin of England, by Richard Beard.
(Beard was interviewed by the Independent newspaper: “My book is a witness statement from the scene of a crime,” he says, smiling ruefully. “Having gone to a private school at exactly the same time as Cameron and Johnson did, I saw what they saw, and learnt what they learnt. I hope my book goes some way to explaining such a mindset, and why what’s happening in the country right now is happening.”)

2 Posh Boys: How English Public Schools Ruin England, by Robert Verkaik.
(Verkaik takes an in-depth look at the system: how it operates, and how it serves to keep the country in its state of imbalance.)

3 Engines of Privilege: Britain's Private School Problem, by David Kynaston and Francis Green.
(Kynaston's part of this is possibly better written than Green's. But anyway this gives the sort of detailed coverage you might expect if you've read any of Kynaston's other (rightly respected, imo) books.)

One more thing. I know most people posting here in favour of private education do so not with regard to Eton, Harrow, Westminster etc., but rather with local SEN provision and so on in mind. Yes, you have a point about such provision; it is lacking and seriously needed. For what it's worth, I back you on your demands for such provision. Do be careful, though, of being used by those who care not at all for your and your children's needs, but who might use your justified concerns to back up their own agenda of saving rich people's hold on the governance of our land (in part) by keeping this particular subsidised private education available in the light of all the evidence of its bad effects on our society.