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!

Oh we will be using state for 6th form, the best state 6th form in the county.
I am sick of the insults and constant nasty rhetoric around parents and children who use independent schools. It's vile, mean spirited and had real life consequences.

@twistyizzy - if your DD wants to do Classics, English, languages or humanities, a lot of state sixth forms will be desperate to have her as finding it hard to keep those courses going without enough interest. DD has a friend who is getting one to one in a state school in Latin and Greek.
The problem though is how will the independent schools survive this? Will all the swimming pools close/sport pitches or will they just charge clubs more and so many more kids will have to pay up who want to do extracurricular activities?

Well rememberd, yes shes wanting to do Classics at 6th form.

The trend is that schools are now charging for what they used to provide for free for state schools.
They used to provide a 4 week summer activity club 8.30am-4pm free of charge, they have now ended that. So for a rural area that's a huge impact for childcare over summer for parents who work.

One Local Indy - was highly sought after and heavily over subscribed - is now looking to cut primary from 3 classes to 2. That’s a lot of kids moving to state.

Well the State is just going to have to pay up. Even if it is all kids in state schools that is 5 billion extra a year, a pittance compared to want they are spoofing on servicing the sovereign debt and welfare. Would be good though if someone was actually accountable for this madness for a change.
The politicians get away with everything, regardless of consequences to actual children’s lives and tax payers.

Not sure if I've made this point on this thread already, but to all those who are 'gleeful', and to echo @twistyizzy 's point - how do you feel when all the kids who are struggling to meet the costs of private school then opt for the most competitive state/grammar sixth forms?

This is already happening where we are in London. The vast majority of kids at my DC's independent school come out with 10 x 9s and 8s at GCSE. Results at the local state schools are nowhere near that, sadly. Effectively when the catchments become wider for the A-level intake, the children coming out of the private schools are making the whole process more competitive for everyone, and it means that those who would have remained in private for sixth form before the VAT came in, are now taking up more state school places.

How is this something to be pleased about?

And in my area this court was a bulge cohort so already going to be tight for places

Plenty of school places across the board in our city, this year each secondary has dropped admissions by 30-90 places for Year 7, and that's despite movement from private to state... the child population is falling so there's less demand for school places everywhere.

No we are still in bulge years in secondary. Plus the 16K fall happened steadily from Sept 24-July 25. Unless those 16K DC died then what is your reasoning for them up and leaving partway through a school year??

Well we aren't. Perhaps your area is different. As I said last year places were reduced, this years intake even more so and that is planned for the next few years minimum. We've also had several infant and junior schools merge, several primaries shut, and apparently two local independent schools ( overpriced and not that great IMHO, certainly not £20-£30k + a year better than the local state schools) are struggling with low intake numbers.
All the 3 of the best 6th forms are doing exceptionally well, and prioritise state school students over private, including the one that has high Oxbridge offers despite being non-selective ( well, selective in that you need 6 GCSE's of 4/5+ which isn't that high given most of the state students around here take 9/10 GCSEs as standard that's not that selective).
The other 6th forms are also pretty good but offer BTEC, vocational as well as A Levels and also thriving.

Brexshit has meant that lots of families have left our area - many state schools are actually under subscribed…. So lots of places for Tarquin and Ariminta actually.

But that is happening in state schools as well. DS’s outstanding London primary had gone to 1 form entry since he started (he’s in year 5).

I don't believe this article at all. It might not have had a noticeable national impact, but it definitely had regionally.

3 schools have close in my county already, all were "affordable" smallish private schools (mostly middle class and some with high ratio or SEN children).

And with that you show your bigotry. Thanks for sharing.

Why are Tarquin and Araminta less deserving of an adequate and stable place of education than Wayne and Shanice? See what I did there? Casual stereotypes help no-one. Tarquin and Araminta, in increasingly common places, are in private school because they have been failed by a state system and parents, often the much lauded "ordinary working people" are on the bones of their arse to keep them there. The ones who can easily afford it will continue to do so and the rest, which is a higher percentage than people want to admit, will be faced with disrupting and destabilising often v v hard won educational progress. But the kids are called Tarquin and Araminta so it doesn't matter ..they probably deserve it.

How about the children who are only in private schools because state couldn’t meet their needs? Are they called Tarquin and Araminta too?

Yes they are. You should know that.

😄 I’m showing my ignorance aren’t I!

I may have said this on this thread already (or else another one) But I went to a local council meeting when they were talking about abolishing business rates relief for private schools.

Aside from how embarrassing it was to witness a bunch of lumpen, hard of thinking people talk over each other and bitch at each other - which apparently makes up my local council- someone pointed out that our 2 private schools both host an extremely large proportion of looked after children and children in care. Some because of SEN and they can't be accommodated in local schools. Some because their home situations are dangerous and they have to be schooled outside their immediate community. We also additionally in our school at least have a fairly substantial portion of Ukrainian refugees in the boarding school.

In my school alone we had close to 30% SEN last academic year and it is projected to rise to nearly 50% next academic year.

But... all Tarquins and Arabellas each and every one.

The people with more money than you (the middle class that you call the rich) are now having to put their kids into state school whereby the taxpayer will be taxed more to accommodate them, with little to no provisioning for SEND. The money is just coming from elsewhere, usually from those already struggling with higher bills.

Most of the people sending their kids to private schools are hardworking middle class families and those schools were small independent schools which have now had to close. The private schools such as Eton can not only absorb the additional costs, they are also claiming VAT back for investment and infrastructure projects, so they are effectively making more money and can stay open.

You're saying it's excellent news that families making a bit more than you now cannot afford to give their kids a decent tailored education. You're saying it's excellent news that the Eton-educated elites are now making more money through VAT expenses.

Envy causes a lot of damage regardless of the form it comes in. All you can hope for now is that the kids of families who've had their education taken away from them and are now in state education don't have it in for you too much at the next election.

Well, under EU law you're not allowed to tax education. So it's only because of leaving the EU that we're able to have this tax on private schools in the first place.

Imagine being gleeful about children's education being disrupted, poor but clever kids not being able to get bursaries to maximise their potential, SEN kids having to struggle in schools with no funding for them. Incredible. I'm horrified there are people out there like this.

But there are, many of them on MN who are parents themselves. Utterly delighted!

Thankfully Labour doesn't stand a chance of a 2nd term and most other parties have committed to reversing it.

There’s no way anyone’s reversing it. It £££ after all.

They are and it isn't £££. Even at full cost (which it will now never reach it was less than 1% of the education budget).
It's heading towards being a net cost to taxpayer based on the numbers which have left in first year ie 8 x the projected number.

Tories and Reform have both committed to reversing it and Lib Dems are in discussion