To skint us all by sending DC to private school?

[Stilish]

One DC is at private school. This is because they have SEN and was really struggling at local comp. This was before the VAT issue. That DC is absolutely flourishing.

Next DC has no SEN and started at the local comp last year. Is not having a great time at all, it’s a really poor school in many ways and this DC has gone from happy and high achieving, to unhappy and failing academically in 12 months.

I want to send this DC to the private school too, where I know they will thrive like their sibling. But with the VAT it will be an incredible stretch for our family and I don’t know what to do. I have one happy child in a good school doing well, and one unhappy child in a crap school not doing well.

I hate Kier Starmer and I hate Rachel Reeves. Their spiteful tax hasn’t punished any of the rich families. But I’ve been homeless and my husband and I have grafted since our teenage years, and it’s bloody punishing us.

What on earth do I do?

YANBU - find a way and send them
YABU - keep one child in the local comp and let them keep failing

So £10, 000 by 6 years roughly. Add it to your mortgage?

Do you realise that the state funds some private places in SEN schools? Do you realise the state system is massively failing our SEN DC.

Sometimes treating everyone the same is actually the most unfair thing you can do.

Putting an AUDHD child into a class of 30 in a noisy large school where the bell rings every 40 mins is like mental torture for some of our SEN kids

So get off your socialist high horse because clearly our government have lost their class analysis and decided to punish us and our SEN kids twice, they fail to provide for them and then punish us for trying.

Why isn’t ds2 flourishing in state school? What exactly is he struggling with? What have you done to try and improve his experience at the state school? What if you pay to move him and he still won’t engage or is just lazy? I’d consider all of the above before throwing more money that you can’t
afford at it.

Change state school. You chose to educate ate one differently to another so that’s already going to cause problems.
VAT isn’t the issue. The school fees are the issue - they’ve doubled in the last decade and if you can’t afford them that’s just tough.

This is nonsense. Parents who send their kids to private school have no more hope than anyone else on 'influencing' their local school to 'do better'. It's laughable when people say this .

How far off being able to afford it are you?
You can cope without holidays, takeaways etc. But if you will end up defaulting on mortgage payments, getting into debt, that is another matter.

Errr, did you read my posts? Did you hear that I felt state education should cater for all children. That includes those with SEN. Obviously.

if the gov funded schools properly, we wouldn’t need private school places funded by taxpayers. The state sector would include alternative provision for children with SEN who genuinely need a different kind of educational settings, as they do now but not in sufficient number.

Sure but they don’t. So we are left with private schools to do the state’s job and we are punished for it. In your utopian mind these kids are provided for….except they aren’t. Yet.

If the sons of company directors
And judges' private daughters
Had to go to school in a slum school
Dumped by some joker in a damp back alley
Had to herd into classrooms cramped with worry
With a view onto slag heaps and stagnant pools
Had to file through corridors grey with age
And play in a crackpot concrete cage
Buttons would be pressed
Rules would be broken
Strings would be pulled
And magic words spoken
Invisible fingers would mould
Palaces of gold
If prime ministers and advertising executives
Royal personages and bank managers' wives
Had to live out their lives in dank rooms
Blinded by smoke and the foul air of sewers
Rot on the walls and rats in the cellars
In rows of dumb houses like mouldering tombs
Had to bring up their children and watch them grow
In a wasteland of dead streets where nothing will grow
Buttons would be pressed
Rules would be broken
Strings would be pulled
And magic words spoken
Invisible fingers would mould
Palaces of gold
I'm not suggesting any sort of a plot
Everyone knows there's not
But you unborn millions might like to be warned
That if you don't want to be buried alive
By slag heaps, pitfalls and damp walls
And rat traps and dead streets
Arrange to be democratically born
The son of a company director
Or a judge's fine and private daughter
Buttons will be pressed
Rules will be broken
Strings will be pulled
And magic words spoken
Invisible fingers will mould
Palaces of gold

Id definitely go for moving to a better state school if poss - and looking into ND.

Your post reads abit tone deaf. I don’t have any issue people sending their kids to private school. I probably would if we had the money. But we don’t. Most families who have children struggling in state schools have to suck it up as they can’t afford the alternative. Why are your children any more deserving. You can either afford it or you can’t. By your own admission you can afford £33000 to send them. You are the rich families. That’s fine and nothing to be ashamed of but don’t act like you’re not.

Yeah we are really not the rich family. Really not. We earn around £50k a year each and run a business in our spare time. We don’t have reserves or family money and if we stop, our income stops.

If course it wasn't. It was because left wing voters love to see the "rich" being punished. Except it's not the rich, it's the hardworking, socially mobile, aspirational people that could just about fund prep that got punished, not the rich.

We ultimately sold our home and downsized to keep our kids in prep.

Use the money you are using on private education to move house to a better school catchment. The options aren’t awful school or private school. The vast majority of children go to state schools and do just fine. I find your attitude offensive to all of us who can’t afford private school for any of our children.

Have you tried working harder?

Well since we’ve got from being homeless to £50k each a year and our own business, I think we’ve tried working quite hard yes.

House comes with H job so we can’t move.

You are wealthy if you could afford £35k a year in fees (plus uniform and other costs) it’s more than I earn! Private schools are for the privileged, no matter how much Sen a child has, parents on average incomes cannot afford private school.

You can do it OP. You'll find a way.

I earn below the higher rate tax bracket, and I managed 7 years of paying 50% fees. Thankfully I only paid the spite tax for the last 5 terms. It has been worth every penny. DS is so much happier, more confident and is forecast AstarAB for a'levels.

Meanwhile the comp he was allocated a place at, went into special measures, the trust was wound up, the board of governors were dismissed and now it's one of those places where pupils are locked in reflection rooms staring at blank walls for the wrong coloured shoe laces.

I don't regret a penny of it.

Someone always rolls out this nonsense. If I had to send my kids to state for any reason, I’d plug any gaps with a tutor. I would not be lobbying or pushing for anything. It’s not my job to fix schools.

My parents had this situation with me and my brother. I (older) was sent to nice girls’ private school. When it was time to send brother to equivalent nice boys’ school,(3 years later) they found the bills didn’t add up. They removed me and sent me to sink comprehensive when brother started. I floundered and was out of place and unhappy until I went to university. I had no proper friends at that school. It was a lonely time.

Either both or neither. Otherwise you risk massive future resentment.

The family that could only afford £23,600 would have been in the exact same situation as you pre VAT.

And in that instance you would be the "rich family". And I don't suppose you gave those people a second thought.

If I couldn't afford to send both to the private school then I would move to a place with better state schools. No way you can have one of your children failing at the local state school while you pay for one to thrive at a private school.

Then he will need to find another job - this situation is not sustainable.