Private Schools proposal for up to 10,000 free places each year

[Aussiejazz]

What do you think of this idea to offer up to 10,000 free places to lower income families each year?

www.telegraph.co.uk/education/2016/12/09/government-serious-schools-work-everyone-will-jump-proposal/

enormous
Do you have anything to say about the links I posted about the Private School you suggested had the right idea ?

and FWIW when I was at school LOTS of the families went abroad for the whole summer
and current friends with kids at private school often have boats and Med houses

Many schools cater for the very wealthy, others less so. All will tailor what they offer, and at what price, to their market.

Of course, there will be places where all the royals and others big-shots want to stash their kids away from commoners. But whats the point of those free places then?

I knew about the private schol which is very cheap which I linked to before you posted the links. I read a description in one of the weekend papers' magazines by a lady who was there are a teenager. I was just showing how some private schools have subsidy from donors and the like although not the majority just as state schools have huge subsidy from the state and then might demand a bit of a contribution or voluntary donation to watch the school play or whatever.

I am not sure what the point is here? Most day private schools do not have children who are so very rich in them that they are going to have a problem with children in the class having a lot less money. Some rich boarding schools might have some very rich children in there but a lot of those children simply accept whoever is in their class and when you're playing with your friends whose parents have more money than others is not a huge issue and the issue of income difference are similar in many a posh comp or state grammar school.

Enormous
you are UTTERLY missing the point about that "school"
its not a school
its a madrassa
it provides no proper education in anything that the real world would call a curriculum
please tell me you are not defending the attitudes of its governors in any way shape or form ?

Cheap private schools exist
most of them attempt to educate their pupils
that one does not

I don't want my taxes going to subsidise private schools. Taxpayer support should only go to schools that are open to all kids.

"I don't want my taxes going to subsidise private schools."

It isn't.

"Taxpayer support should only go to schools that are open to all kids."

As no taxes go to most schools this shouldn't be a concern. Do you really think these which do should be closed? AFAIK, the only ones are highly specialist schools and they are not open to all kids, only those with pretty adverse diagnoses. Are you really calling for those schools to be closed?

Lizard - private schools already get taxpayer support by claiming to be charities - they now want the state to pay fees for assisted places. So more taxpayer support.

All state schools get taxpayer support. That's why they're called state schools. So I don't really understand your second point at all.

For a variety of reasons, no state school is open to all kids.

The assisted places scheme was abolished by Labour (a similar scheme to what is now proposed) as in practice it was found it was middle class parents down on their luck or those who were "self employed" with disguised low income who tended to get the places so I doubt it is likely to be resurrected.

The marginal benefit of charitable status to private schools is nothing like the cost saved by the state in not having the cost of educating the 500,000 children in private schools and is not a huge benefit to private schools when the downsides of charitable status are considered.

On my side issue of the cheap Muslim boarding school it is indeed a horrible place (unless your belief is you want girls secluded from boys studying the koran all day). However who are we to say what education should be? There are jewish boys in Stamford Hill in the hassidm community who both as teenagers and as adult men do nothing but study the Torah all day and the women mind 10 babies whilst working when they can. There are lots of different ways to live a life in the UK and that's our choice and a good thing. There will also be home schooled fundamentalist Christian children who mostly study the bible at home and are taught women serve men etc etc. I am not keen on that either but I would not abolish that right to home school any more than I'd abolish specialist music boarding schools, Steiner schools, Eton or the Royal Ballet school.

They do not get taxpayer support in the sense that they are noi funded by the taxpayer - any more than my ISA is funded by the taxpayer (because the interest in it is tax free). You could describe it as taxpayer support, but in common parlance peoplme don't because it is misleading.

It is very much overstating the case to say charitable schools are funded by the taxpayer - just as it would be to say for example that RNLI is taxpayer funded (when it famously receives diddly squat despite being an emergency service, but does use all the tax exemptions which apply).

But I agree, tax law and the various tax statuses available are not always easy to understand. So I hope this clarification has helped. There are also a number of experts posting on the other thread about this who explain this far better than I do, so if it's still not clear why it's wrong to describe it as taxpayer support, it might be worth reading them as well.

(TBW, the 'value' of tax not collected from those schools which are charities is about £200 per term per pupil. I think it's very easy to misunderstand what both what charitable status means and what it is worth in cash terms).

Those independent schools which do receive taxpayer support in the ordinary sense of the term are a very small number of very specialist schools. If you do not want to see taxpayer support to private schools, then those would be the ones that would go.

That's not something as would want to see. But it does seem to be a widely supported position (on MN, at least)