Corbyn, vat, private schools

[NoisingUpNissan]

So... Just worried about corbyn and private schools.

I'm naturally labour but couldn't vote for him with this.

We have two kids in prep, couldn't really afford any extra cash. As it stands we have a leaking bathroom (no bath for a year) and old unreliable shitty car, certainly not entitled or priveledged people. Not that it should matter.

Very annoyed as they are only there because ASD and they had 33 kids in their classes!

So, just wondering... Does anybody think this is a real risk?

I don't care if I come across as being all out for myself, I'm all out for my kids. My son is just too autistic to deal with a big class size and needs the extra work as he's v bright.

I don't think the charity aspect should go. It should just be made far more stringent and schools held more accountable for abiding by the new rules. Possibly with some form of reclaiming tax if they are found not to be adhering to guidelines. Similar to anyone that pays no/ insufficient tax, if you are caught out you get saddled with the entire bill. Plus I can't imagine even Eton retaining its current status if it became public knowledge it was struggling to pay its bills.

I would actually agree with you bertrand if you're also including selection by house price & location. If every single state school in the country offered equality of opportunity to every single dc, rather than the current mess, then I could see an argument for private going too so it was a genuinely fair playing field.

The charity aspect should remain, but IMO it should be restricted to children whose parents did not attend fee-paying schools.

If you live in a rural/coastal area and have no idea what investment banks do to make money, because there isn't one locally, and you've never spoken to an investment banker, then it's unlikely that your son is going to apply for Eton, Winchester or any other famous academic school.

The top public schools are filled from the ranks of prominent people, in the arts, sciences, business, law as well as entrepreneurs and successful entertainment figures. Some will have family connections and funding but everyone, except the outstandingly talented and ambitious who get the big scholarships, will earn enough to stump up £40K per year per child of taxed income.

Those children meet their parents' friends and acquaintances; they see high status jobs as what everyone "normal" does to make a living, ask for opportunities and get them. They do not meet post delivery service people or shop assistants socially. Nor do they live outside international capital cities, except on holiday.

"The charity aspect should remain, but IMO it should be restricted to children whose parents did not attend fee-paying schools."

How would that work? The VAT break is on the costs of running the school as a business. I don't see how you divvie that up

I think I meant full charitable scholarships and bursaries @Newt.

I agree with the theory xing but don't see it working fairly. You could have child A excluded because their parents attended a cheaper private back when fees and housing were more affordable, but child b entitled despite their parents attending a state school that was better than the former cheap private. Plus there will be plenty of parents that attended on the assisted places scheme that would be excluded despite not being from privileged backgrounds.

Rather I'd prefer a presumption that bursaries were intended to be large, and any given under 50% needed to have genuine and justifiable reasons. Or even a majority of 50% bursaries inviting investigation. So some schools don't use their bursary funds as a means of getting already privileged pupils to fill spaces. And ban scholarships offering any fee discount.

However I would want the charity to be wider than just bursaries.

Currently, it is wider than the provision of bursaries.

Which are means-tested, not based on educational or social history of the family. And I think that's right.

Scholarships (an increasing number of which are purely honourary, or token many, as the actual cash goes into bursaries) could be awarded in a way that encourages access. But I think that's likely to be pretty marginal, compared to bursaries, because if you can afford it, why would the prospect of a (token value) scholarship make the difference on whether you apply or not?

Bursaries alone are not sufficient to justify charitable status. Schools have to demonstrate “public good”

newt yes, but some only pay lip service. I meant the whole lot, not just bursaries need more stringent controls.

Scholarships- the prestige or the reason to choose one school over another. Both of which are perfectly good reasons, I just think even a small number of token reductions could be better spent elsewhere.

Nor do they live outside international capital cities, except on holiday.
Eh?
Children who attend top public schools live all over the place. They certainly don’t all live in capital cities. Where did you get that idea from?

"Nor do they live outside international capital cities, except on holiday"
IME; I've worked in 3-4 top public schools and also had a DS at one, more parents live in "international capital cities" than in small towns and villages as that's where people with money tend to live, but it would be incorrect to say they all do. My gut feeling is a 65:35 split with "international capital cities" forming the larger group.
"Rather I'd prefer a presumption that bursaries were intended to be large, and any given under 50%"
At DS2 school (which is trying to move to needs blinds admissions policy and I think now nearly 20% receive a bursary) the average bursary was a 65% reduction in fees but the fees without extras are currently just over £41K pa so parents still have to find the best part of £15k a year so still outside of the financial reach of many. I'm not criticising the school for this, I assuming they take the view that it's better to offer more children a 65% reduction than less children a 100% reduction. But others might disagree.
Im also assuming that if they achieve their ambition and become needs blind at the point off admission then up to 100% bursaries will be available for all who need them.
DS2's school is not the only one which aspires to this, I know SPS and Eton are also trying for the same thing and I'm sure there are others. What about Christs Hospital? That has a very large bursary scheme.
I accept for many indpendent schools bursaries are only nominal a 20 - 30 % reduction and/or are scholarships disguised as bursaries because they are only offered to a handful of the very brightest of that years intake and often the amount offered reflects a child's performance in entrance tests (and I suspect of those who are successful most will have been heavily tutored/prepared by their preps which requires parents to be min position to be able to afford either). But I know that DS2 school offers bursaries on being offered conditional place i.e. before sitting the entrance exam not the those who achieve the most in their entrance exams (as I believe do Eton) and scholarships carry no finical reward.
To offer substantial bursaries up to 100% a school requires assets and money. It is no coincidence that this who are trying to become needs blind at the point of admission are those with considerable assets money and wealthy alumni and current parents. Small independent schools usually don't have any of these in sufficient abundance.
It would be ironic if it was decided that schools like Eton Winchester and SPS et al with their vision of bursaries for all who need them were charities but small independent schools that can't fund big bursaries and who lets face it aren't generally aren't "elite" or educating societies elite in droves lost theirs!

happy agree with all you say, it's the practice of mainly using the bursary pot for lots of tiny reductions that needs to end.

I think TrainspotingWelsh a bit of realism needs to be applied to this problem (I’m not criticising you) the vast majority of independent schools aren’t wealthy, they exist by charging fees, they need the vast majority of their pupils to be paying full fees to enable them to balance the books. We used to be sent the accounts for DS2’s school despite having one of the highest fees in the UK and having no pupil vacancies they weren't exactly coining it in. Having collected those fees and money from other sources and then paid their bills etc of which of course the largest was staff wages there wasn’t millions left over I might be wrong but I don’t think there was even a million left over. I also once saw the accounts for another well known boarding school with similar fees but 10% vacancies their outgoing were slightly larger than their income therefore no extra money sloshing around for bursaries.
We are on the mailing list for SPS who are as I said above are trying to move towards a needs blind admission policy they are trying to raise a mere £20+ million to do this but they appear not to be trying to raise the money through existing school fees or even through flogging off assets (Winchester are or were hoping to do this) but from donations. That’s a hell of s lot of money in donations!
If SPS who are oversubscribed and located in an international capital city and who are are struggling to fund bursaries for all then smaller and small independent schools with vacancies and limited assets haven’t a hope they will only ever be able to offer “tiny bursaries” to a select few.

happy I'm aware many would like to move to needs blind, and that some smaller, less affluent schools might have very small pots.

However nobody would think it acceptable if one of the many good schools that have 1/5 on bursaries, including many larger level or full reductions decided to use that pot for 3/4 on bursaries, by spreading the funding very thinly and pretend that was satisfying their charitable aims more than the previous practice of 1/5 . So I don't see why it's acceptable for some less wealthy schools to pretend they also offer eg 1/5 to satisfy charitable aims, when in reality if it wasn't so spread out it would really be 1/10. And even if 1/50 is all they have in the pot that's fine, but I don't agree it's then acceptable to pretend the bursary system is one of the justifiable reasons to claim charitable status.

I'm not criticising how much a school has in its bursary pot for the same reasons you've mentioned. Simply what they do with it. Not to mention that the majority of schools with bursary pots shouldn't be struggling to fill places, and even if they were then bursaries should still need to satisfy the primary aim of offering a place to those that otherwise couldn't afford it. Not a way to fill spaces with many tiny reductions.

I also personally believe that offering one large bursary to one unprivileged child is far more in keeping with charity than offering 5 small bursaries to dc that are already privileged.

I'm not suggesting all schools should conform to a prescriptive list of charitable aims, whether that's a fixed number of bursaries at a certain %, or a mandatory list of community commitments. Simply that all should have to satisfy stringent aims, within their various means, in the same way that some schools are already doing. It's simply not enough to just state the aims and do the bare minimum to satisfy the current rules.

You make some interesting points Trainspotting and if I gave the impression that I was defending those schools who give small bursaries to more children instead of a large bursary to one child I apologise. I’m not defending or criticising either. I’m just stating the facts as I see them.
But I think the question has to be asked is it better to give one child a free place or 10 children a small reduction and a place? Which is better? Some will say the former and it does feels more charitable, you are hopefully giving a significant leg up and providing opportunities to a child who (we are assuming) comes from a financially deprived background and has many disadvantages in life and that this opportunity will with a bit of luck be transformative, it will have a significant and positive impact on his future outcomes.

On the other hand it could be argued that if you give smaller bursaries to 10 children who may not be from deprived backgrounds but who are not well off enough to afford all the fees you may also be giving them a leg up and providing opportunities to 10 children and for them too this may be transformative and have a positive impact on their future outcomes.
I don’t know the answer to this. It’s easy to go with the idea of one large bursary for one deprived child it makes us feel good. But is it because we are making incorrect assumption, Are we assuming that the deprived child has poor state school options and that the children from wealthier
homes are sitting in the catchment areas of “leafy comps” with vacancies? Are we assuming that the deprived child has poor social circumstances and the wealthier ones have involved motivated healthy nice MC parents? And maybe they do otherwise they wouldn’t be applying for bursaries in the first place! It’s a conundrum. Is it better to benefit 1 or 10?
Or maybe it”s better to offer 4 children a 65% reduction than 1 child a 100% or 10 children a 20% reduction which one makes you more charitable and more likely to keep your charitable status?
As I said I suspect that if and it’s s big if this issue is looked into more carefully the big names who want to becomes needs blind are more likely to meet the criteria to keep their charitable status that little St Elsewhere with one child on a 100% bursary or 10 receiving a 10% reduction. Im no fan of Eton (not because it’s an elite school or because it educated Boris Johnson and Rees Mogg I can’t abide either) but I just don’t like it’s ethos it just doesn’t match mine but I hope despite the dreams of the current Labour Party it retains its charitable status’s continues to survive and pursue it’s admirable vision of becoming totally needs blind at the pint of admission. If we remove it charitable status abolish it seize and redistribute its assets to the state sector who would actually benefit from this? Those being educated in the state sector I doubt it very much.

I think it depends on the school/ situation. If the contribution to fees is still close to 5 figures, that to me implies a level of privilege that doesn't need charitable funding, unless there are some other mitigating factors.

Ignoring assets, and going on salary alone, if the dc had boarded at one of the more expensive schools, then we would in theory be entitled to some level of bursary when the younger started. I'm aware that the assets give us a more privileged lifestyle than most on our salaries, but even so it feels morally wrong that helping 10 families like ours could be classed as charitable. A family that can comfortably afford two lots of fees at a prestigious day school from nursery age don't either need, or deserve a leg up to attend a public school. When instead the same money would change a single child's life.

Ditto for average day fees. If you can scrape together £12k or so year to top up the bursary, then I'd argue that the child has a range of other options.

In the hypothetical situation of st. elsewhere charging £7k or so a year I could justify a few small bursaries to make it affordable to families with two average salaries. No doubt in a less affluent area, with facilities more akin to the average state school, and only in existence due to an abundance of undesirable state schools. But st elsewheres aren't the bulk of the schools that are registered charities.

Essentially I'd like them administered in the same manner as needs blind, even if right now they will run out of 'pot' before they reach far down the list.

Forgetting the other charity all should be doing, I think there's a case for Eton being accountable in a greater way. My knowledge of it is very vague, but as there's no denying the old boys domination of politics, or any way of breaking that hold, I do believe a condition should be that the pupils have to have broader life experiences. I'm guessing they probably do volunteer work as do many, but something that genuinely provides awareness. Or perhaps we just need anyone entering politics to have lived for at least a year on minimum wage without recourse to previous belongings or back up.

And no, it didn't come across as criticism, just interesting discussion/debate.

Trainspotting as you may or may not know I have in the past been quite a vociferous critic of Eton I make no apologies for the fact that I personally wouldn’t send my dog there. But I do think the almost obsessive focus by some on the “Old Etonians dominance of politics” Is clouding peoples judgements of the proposal by the Labour Party of abolishing independent schools. Those Old Etonians dominating politics went to Eton many years ago when I understand it had a different admissions policy; one based solely on who your family are or were, what connections your family had and could you afford the fees. I think your name was put down at birth and there was little academic selection. Now as I’m sure you know Eton is a super selective, you do not need to put your child’s name down at birth, it doesn’t matter who your parents are although I accept until they become fully needs blind having the ability to pay some or all of the fees remains essential. It is so easy to shout look at Boris Johnson , Mogg, or Cameron (who was so out of touch with the man on the street), these are the typical products of an Eton education but what about Tam Dalyell even if you don’t agree with his politics he was generally considered an MP of principle and honour. Is it not the politics being so loudly and often arrogantly espoused by Old Etonians like Johnson and Rees Mogg that many are objecting too. Or maybe it’s their attitudes but having watched the hideous Jeffrey Cox on Wednesday it appears Eton doesn’t have a monopoly on turning out bombastic arrogant wind bags. The reality is that in the grand scheme of things only a tiny number of Old Etonians dominate politics most lead relatively normal lives like the rest of us.
Secondly IME of working in the independent schools now they are keen to turn out well rounded pupils who have had a broader experience of life. I’m sure 30-40 years ago when Johnson et al were there this wasn’t the case but Eton and those of similar ilk have moved with the times. I have two DS’s one went to Winchester, one went to a high achieving outstanding comp, we live in an affluent rural area, the vast majority of the pupils at the comp were traditional white MC. Both on leaving school got jobs as labourers both fitted in well but I would actually say the one who has been educated in boarding schools (including Winchester) nearly all his school life was more aware than the one who spent the last five years of his education in state ed. This is really down to their personalities than their education.
Finally why shouldn’t the children of MC families who can’t afford £40k a year receive bursaries to schools like Eton and Winchester? Are their children less deserving than a child whose parents can’t afford any fees? I agree that if you can afford say 50% of the fees that you already have a range of options that poorer parents don’t , although your location may mean that you don’t have a suitable independent day, school option, but why shouldn’t the type of education on offer at the likes of Eton be of significant benefit to an MC child thus justifying its charitable status. I looked up the meaning of the word charity needless to say there are lots of definition but one said an organisation giving help to an individual or group of individuals. By enabling a MC child to attend an elite boarding school are we giving him/help? We are (hopefully) exposing him to an education and I’m using the word “education” in the broadest sense of the word, I’m definitely not just talking about exam results and admission into top universities, that he wouldn’t receive in the state sector, I would hope that this will “help” him to grow into well rounded adult. I firmly believe in the concept of and the importance of the Renaissance man (or women), I also believe that the way state education is currently organised that this is very far from their objective for their pupils. I would be the first to admit that many independent schools are exam factories but some are not and are helping their pupils to become Renaissance men/women, some maybe MC children on reasonable sized bursaries, a lucky few may be children from deprived homes on 100% bursaries but all are being offered a unique and I believe life enhancing opportunity which if they make the best of it (and some won’t) will stay with them long after anyone cares what exam results you’ve got or university you too.

I know I am going to be flamed here and I'm not defending private schools. I didn't go to private. I don't have any stats other than employment stats. But if we abolish private schools would we be abolishing or tempering some of the best talent we have in this country who would compete with the best in whatever X industry on a global stage? How much in terms of taxes does the top 7% private school graduates bring in as a proportion compared to state? I'd be alarmed if we abolished the very best education our country has to offer. I am not sure it would raise the standards of our already broken and crippled state education enough. Those can afford it will go elsewhere.

Look I went to state. But in my team of sales men, out of 10 in my team, 5 were privately educated. I'd say between those 5, they pay £250,000+ in UK taxes annually. Employers won't give jobs to state educated people. They give jobs to the best candidates.

Cookie I believe at its best the independent sector provides an education far superior to anything the state can offer (although it may not suit an individual child). I too am uncomfortable with abolishing excellence just because you don’t like a few braying MPs. And I agree the parents who this plan is intending to target will go elsewhere most likely abroad.
But I don’t agree that the independent sector has a monopoly on some of the best talent in this country (I suggest you don s hard hat as I think you’ll bring fine the wrath of quite if few into your head with that comment). Many on these boards like to imply that those in independent schools are talentless thickos who only get into top universities because they are spoon fed to pass exams and if educated in the state sector would have at best been middle of the road I don’t accept that there are some very able pupils in the independent sector but as are there in the state sector.

I wonder if we could end up in a situation where private schools are abolished for U.K. pupils, but the big boarding schools continue to operate for international students only. The thought occurred to me when thinking about free university fees. In Scotland, free university fees mean a cap on places for Scottish students and the universities are very keen to attract other U.K./non-Eu students for the fees that they pay. You could have all those now international boarding schools then shoring up the finances of the universities when free fees come into play.

I suppose it’s reassuring for us Lefties that a)there aren’t actually that many private school parents and b) most of them are probably not natural labour voters anyway!

I suppose it’s reassuring for us Lefties that a)there aren’t actually that many private school parents and b) most of them are probably not natural labour voters anyway!

So it’s legitimate for political leaders to target minorities who don’t vote for them? Somehow that doesn’t seem like the most liberal or progressive philosophy!

most of them are probably not natural labour voters anyway!

Given the number of Labour MPs who were privately educated, I don't think your argument holds water.

I still don't know if most parents who choose private schools for their kids are doing so because the current state education is not suitable or would they never even consider state schools? I suspect the former.

I’m state educated and if our catchment school had been of a similar standard, we wouldn’t have gone private. We did briefly contemplate moving the 10 miles down the road, paying the £150k premium for a similar house, but I’m not sure that morally that would have been any better

If you pay extra for a house in a good catchment area, you’re paying for education.