How many kids have left the school? (VAT)

[limeandwater]

It's been long enough now that I think we can make a reasonable conclusion on how bad it has hurt school.

To be honest at our school I only know 3 pupils that have left because of the VAT so not as bad as many feared.

Still heartbreaking for the kids though.

I’m not anti state school at all - I would prefer my daughter to be at the local (lovely) state school. The only reason she is at a private school is that it’s one school that has time to accommodate her. There are other private schools where we were told in no uncertain terms that they would not be willing to. Frequently, she’ll arrive at school and get ‘stuck’, she doesnt want to let go of me and a teacher will have to sit with her and help her feel happy to go to her classroom. She’s a bright little girl who is doing well academically but I’m certain she would be failing in a class of 30 with teachers who have enough on their plates, perhaps with other kids with SEN who aren’t correctly in MS.

Despite all of this, I still understand the VAT policy. It’s one of the fairer ways to tax a group of people who are very much in the minority of being able to afford school fees. And most of them are well off enough to absorb the cost.

I agreed with all of that until the last sentence. Could you 'easily afford it' if one of your big biggest bills suddenly went up 20%? In the same year that your mortgage almost doubled, council tax and energy and fuel and food went up? For many of us, fees are not a luxury or a choice, they're the only way to obtain a school experience our children can access. Without it both of mine would be at home, in theory being home educated but more likely not as I need to work ft as a single parent....ironically a teacher.

„But I think the extent of the fervour that a relatively limited measure of VAT on school fees has driven shows the outsized impact that private schools have on our national debate.
“The vast majority of kids go to the local state school. I make no apology for focusing on delivering improvements there and using the money raised through private schools to make that happen.”

So how much money has been raised and spent directly on state schools? Surely they should be able to clarify that given this answer?

„But I think the extent of the fervour that a relatively limited measure of VAT on school fees has driven shows the outsized impact that private schools have on our national debate.
“The vast majority of kids go to the local state school. I make no apology for focusing on delivering improvements there and using the money raised through private schools to make that happen.” (BP in the Observer article)

So how much money has been raised and spent directly on state schools? Surely they should be able to clarify that given this answer?

Why would it be ok for them to take money from @RhaenysRocks family and give it to my children? I just don’t get it at all.
If it was very clearly earmarked and spent directly on upping the life chances of really poor children in state schools then people might actually understand. But it isn’t is it?

I wonder how many families sending their kids to private school are crap parents not getting their kids school ready, reading with them, exercising them etc?
Even if you are rich, you are still making a substantial contribution towards your own kid instead of buying a nicer house, more holidays, cars.
So yes, I think it’s a punishment for parents trying their best on the whole for daring to socially segregate their children from the rest and get some extracurricular in during the school day.

As a good state school parent who spends a lot of getting my state school kids a balanced education, I really want to know how Bridget Phillipson intends to provide my children with sport, music and drama in school with zero money for it. Because where I am sitting it’s now 180 pounds a term just for swimming lessons, 240 for instrumental lessons in 1 instrument, 175 for gymnastics etc etc
Providing the „balance“ costs hundreds of pounds a term, per child. Poorer families stand zero chance of doing that now.

@Araminta1003 thank you..I've said similar upthread that if this policy had actually, or would actually see state sector provision change to the extent that kids like mine could be provided for within it and I could save myself huge debt, of course I'd get behind it. But it hasn't and wont. The money needed for state schools to become half the size, double the staff and able to offer the kind of flexible individual approach I get in private is way way more than could ever be raised by a measure such as this.

And its not needed across the board...many kids are thriving in busy 1000+ comps, but within each town there ought to be a variety of provision. My kids don't need a specialist school. Mainstream is broadly fine, maybe with a bit more flexibility on options for KS4 and more access to things like Functional Skills, but a smaller, quieter environment where teachers have a tutor group of 12, not 32. Kids are 'seen' and responded to as needed. That would be inclusion, not a 'hub' that separates some from the rest. We need 'the rest' to be such that it doesn't need escaping from.

There’s no need full stop to nudge people away from paying for their own children’s education to the tax payer funded option. It doesn’t make any sense. As for not understanding the ‘fervour’ around it, it’s introducing the first children’s education tax ..in a history of 1000 years!.

Not just on this policy, but in general Labour have really misjudged the general character of the electorate. We’re just not a nation of spiteful envious people who are concerned with pulling others down especially children, Labour will get such a hiding in the May elections.

I fit into the same category as you but my point is that most parents choosing private school are on average much richer than the average private school parent was 30 years ago. So yeah, it does suck for people like us . I think money is all relative. Objectively, my daughter’s dad earns a lot of money. We’re lucky that he does. If we had two children we couldn’t afford it though.