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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

to expect my local cancel to pay for transport to a private school

458 replies

tootyflooty · 13/12/2008 12:23

My dd has been offered a place at a theatre school, it is fee paying but not local and they do not have scholerships. I asked the council if they would provide the cost of a train pass, but were told no, because it is not our local state school.My argument is that by funding my dd education for the next 5 years (not easily affordable for us)I am saving the local education authority vast sums of money as they will not be paying for her place at the local state school, it seems unfair that we are penalised for our decision, She would get a free pass if our local school was over 3 miles away.Sorry to ramble but we have never had handouts from anyone and this seems grossly unfair.

OP posts:
needmorecoffee · 13/12/2008 16:26

private schools don't exist in some sort of tax payer free bubble. Where did the teachers go to school? Probably state and then uni, all paid for by taxpayers. Where do the teachers get their healthcare. oh, the NHS, tax payers again. Who pays for the roads so little Cecil and Amelia can be driven to the school.....taxpayers. etc etc
You choose a school far away, you pay for the transport. We chose a school far away rather than the crappy local so we pay the bus fares. And we're on benefits.

TinselianAstra · 13/12/2008 16:26

Sorry chaufleur, I was trying to say that I was using your quote but that I didn't think that you believed that taxes=entitlement. I was just surprised that anyone could think it worked that way.

chaufleur · 13/12/2008 16:26

Oh and no, I don't think there should be a rebate for going private.

Nor does private education produce a better citizen, although it might just produce better educated ones.

chaufleur · 13/12/2008 16:27

TA

clam · 13/12/2008 16:28

If tooty's DD has a talent for drama and there's a (private) school available that will nurture and develop her talents better than a state school, fine. Of course she would want to take up the place. Who wouldn't?

But to expect financial help for transport is not on. Your choice, sorry. The funds available for such things are limited, and there are many people worse off than the OP ahead of her in the queue.

And I'm sure it's not as simple as there being a big pot of money somewhere, with someone sitting there counting, saying "ooh goody. Tooty's going private so that's another couple of grand going spare." There's a finite sum for schools, which is divided evenly(ish) amongst all those using the system. None of it has our personal names on.

TinselianAstra · 13/12/2008 16:30

Just a thought, if we are bean-counting: the theatre school presumably has a limited number of places, so if the OP's daughter goes there then someone else's daughter has to go to a different school, so there is no spare money.

chaufleur · 13/12/2008 16:35

By the same twist though needmorecoffee, what if the Cecils and Amelias turn out to be highly educated professionals who instead of remaining forever schoolchildren in a private school, go out and use the benefit of their private education to become fantastic state-funded surgeons/specialists/dentists/teachers/lecturers themselves?

The benefit of that education privately paid for, doesn't necessarily remain closed off and inaccessible in a private world.

Jux · 13/12/2008 16:38

Yes it is their money to spend on services for us; it's still their money, and we're lucky to have any sort of say in how it is spent (we get that because we live in a democracy). If you gave, or even lent, money to someone, how much of a say would you have in how they spent it?

chaufleur · 13/12/2008 16:42

TAstra: Hypothetically continuing on from your theory, if the theatre school takes 200 pupils then that's still 200 educations being paid for privately not by the state.

If the school turns away the 201-th applicant on the basis of no places, and that pupil has to go back into state school, then it doesn't alter the fact that 200 pupils are still taken out of the state funded schools.

(I neither agree nor disagree with any politics of this, I am purely addressing it from your mathematical viewpoint).

mm22bys · 13/12/2008 16:45

Why are so many so rude?

She asked a question. Now I know it's AIBU, but there's no reason at all to tell her to f-off.

(YABU btw!)

needmorecoffee · 13/12/2008 16:45

thats makes those of us who home educated the real champions. Cos we not only save money, we leave places at private schools and we aren't after travel expensies
And study after study shows HE kids ahead.
I'll have that medal now.

chaufleur · 13/12/2008 16:47

Good grief Jux, I am that you think we are lucky to have any sort of say in how it is spent?!?! We are not sheep! We are not children!

It's "their" money because we gave it to them as per the social system that has been developed, it is not a voluntary contribution!

We elected them to hold that money in the faith they will spend it in the best and fairest possible way for the benefit of all society.

"Luck" should neither be here nor there!

TinselianAstra · 13/12/2008 16:58

The 'mathematical viewpoint' was because I think the OP said that since her daughter wouldn't be going to state school, the council would have the money that would have been spent on her daughter's education 'spare' and could use some of it to fund her travel. I was thinking that maybe it wouldn't be 'spare' after all because it would be spent on someone else's education instead. Obviously if the theatre school closed completely there would be a lot more children in need of an education.

"And study after study shows HE kids ahead."
Yep, totally to do with the quality of your education, not in any way a sampling bias.

TheFalconInThePearTree · 13/12/2008 17:00

I'm very much in favour of private schools and would like to send any future children to one, but I've never read such bs as what Xenia said about privately educated children giving more to society than state educated children.

QueenTinselShadow · 13/12/2008 17:04

YAB laughably U

I have recently moved to Norway, maybe I shall apply to Richmond council to pay me what I am saving them in the next ten years or so, as my children wont be going to school there after all???

How can se be both bullied and a "nice allround popular kid"?

You show little consistency, flooty.

mumeeee · 13/12/2008 17:07

YABU. You are sending your child to a private theartre school and you expect the council to pay.

chaufleur · 13/12/2008 17:17

QTS, you won't be paying Richmond Council anything in the next ten years or so either, presumably (are you? paying Richmond council whilst you live in Norway, I mean?)

TheFalconInThePearTree · 13/12/2008 17:18

One doesn't pay taxes so that one's children can be educated, taxes are paid so that all children can be educated.

chaufleur · 13/12/2008 17:31

I sensed that last post was a potential thread-killer.....

pagwatch · 13/12/2008 17:35

what a silly notion. If you choose private school you choose the expensive uniforms, the expensive school trips, the clubs etc etc. It goes with the territory.
In fact the ntion of how the hell you get your child to school is a big deal for many of them. Many of DS1's have journeys of an hour plus to get in in the morning - no one is seriously suggesting that be funded?

And if there are any rebates going for saving the caauuunnncccil money then I suggest that the carers , without whom social care in the country would collapse, are a mile or two ahead in the queue.

pagwatch · 13/12/2008 17:36

thread not dead. I'm just slow.

Jux · 13/12/2008 17:37

Well, it was not always thus. We could still be serfs, reliant on having a local Lord who has a social conscience

Seriously, though, there are still plenty of countries in the world where the inhabitants do not have a say in anything. So, yes, we are lucky.

chaufleur · 13/12/2008 18:02

Jux, I respect your point of view, however it's far too conveniently subservient to sit comfortably with me.

Just because other countries don't have a say doesn't make us "lucky" to have one. It makes the other countries in question opressed and dictatorial, rather than us "lucky" and them, by default, "unlucky".

That's like being grateful to the person beating us for stopping, instead being outraged instead that they did were doing it in the first place. Nobody should feel lucky for having a say in something to do with the running of their own country. It should be a right for all.

Jux · 13/12/2008 18:19

I do feel immensely grateful to be living in a country with the freedoms I do have and a welfare system of sorts, a system of justice which is (mainly transparent). It disgusts me what this shower are doing to erode those freedoms and the parsimoniousness of the welfare system.

I am not grateful to the government - that would be subservient. I am grateful to luck or whatever you could call it, that meant I was born here with all that that entails.

I am grateful to my fellow citizens who, in the face of everything, are still fighting for freedom, tolerance, justice, some sense of honour and pride.

I am becoming less grateful as I watch my society eroded by those who think they are entitled to whatever they want, to those who have enough but always want more, to those who complain about others who have almost nothing wanting enough, to those who think their civic duty ends with paying taxes (and complain about it), to those who think that if they trip they can sue someone, in short I am disgusted by this whole acquisitive mess and am, in some ways, heartily glad that we've had our comeuppance.

TheProvincialLady · 13/12/2008 18:25