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.

What about if you pay for a house that meets your needs before you have kids
and then the local school becomes great ?

What if you pay extra for a great catchment and by the time your kids go there the place is in special measures

The true solution is to properly resource all state schools
which will make the others an irrelevance

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.

My parents chose private education for my brother because he was allocated to the crappiest, most failing school in our area. Had he been allocated to one of the decent/normal schools, he wouldn't have been sent to private. They couldn't afford it, father was a shop worker, mother a teacher, but she did extra teaching in the evenings at the local college and weekends doing private tuition, to help pay the fees, plus no holidays for 5 years, running a crap old car, etc.

happy I'm a long time lurker, but tbh I wouldn't generally have bothered with threads about boys schools so I don't recall anything, but happy to believe you do know more about it than I.

I do understand what you're saying, it just doesn't sit well with me as a charitable aim. Although I'm in full agreement that for most of us, independent is about more than exam results, and I'm strongly against schools losing charity status on principle. I just believe the charity side needs to improve so all are making the same genuine effort that some already are.

I find the use of the word “choice” in the context of private schools deeply distasteful.

@Bertrand, if your "choice" is between two schools in special measures, and you've taught at both during your PGCE, are you qualified to decide that as you have only one child and no other maintained option, you might want to select a (frankly ordinary) private school that at least delivers the main subjects reasonably coherently? That was the choice we made.

“I still don’t know if most parents who chose 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 spent 12+ years with a child in boarding schools the vast majority of parents didn’t even have state schools on their radar however good they might be. The children started the school in yr2/3 but most had been privately educated from nursery.

”I just believe the charitable side needs to improve so all are making the same genuine effort thar some sleazy are.”
Trainspotting in the ideal work maybe but in reality the vast majority don’t have enough spare cash sloshing around to have a needs blind admission policy.
Of course if you do have a needs blind admissions policy there is no guarantee that the vast majority of pupils will be from deprived backgrounds. I’m assuming needs blind means that those selecting pupils don’t know if the can afford the fees and that places will be offered purely on merit and suitability for the school; the benefits the prospective candidate will get from the school and what they will bring to the school. One would hope that pupils from all backgrounds will be offered places as diversity is I believe important but the fact that the admissions policy is “needs blind” they should keep their charitable status.

As I've said, it's the same effort I expect, not the same actions. And not limited to bursaries. For example, I don't expect the good, but smaller and less affluent private in the vicinity to offer exactly the same university admissions outreach as dcs. But, I don't think it acceptable that what they do offer isn't really open to all. Eg timing means many dc would need to be driven there due to rural/ semi rural public transport. Only the highly sought after, mainly mc church sixth form pupils seem to be made directly aware and so on. But officially it is still viewed in the same light as the genuinely open, actively encouraged and if necessary with further assistance events ran by dc's school.

Again, whether it's a school that might possibly have a realistic chance of going needs blind one day, or one that has a minimal bursary pot, I think both should administer them in the same way, even if their means result in different overall % of dc on bursaries.

OP, if you are still reading and Labour policy makers, if you are reading: our family is exactly in the same position as the OP’s: natural Labour voters (I even was elected for the left, albeit in another country) but with kids in private school due to autism. Not a SEN school, just an academic primary (atm) that offers small classes and good support for bright children who struggle with the social side of school.
The Labour position on schools terrifies us and frankly it means that we won’t vote for them and for LD instead.
We are not using private schools for social advantage or exclusivity or nice uniforms and playing fields. But we do want our kids not to suffer for not being autistic enough (for an EHCP) and yet too autistic to manage in a large class.

The issue I have with all these discussions is the presumption that most independent schools have huge grounds, sports facilities, swimming pools. Some do, many in cities don't.

Just for example, how would a small independent primary, which my DD's went to, with none of these, which actually used to pay to use the next door state schools facilities, fulfill the "public good" critieria suggested by Bertrand. They are nominally catholic, although most children going are not, they are not selective, they offer bursaries to anyone fulfilling the criteria. It is a small, sweet, school, run by dedicated staff, but I struggle to see how it would be able to effectively keep charitable status, or VAT free, other than doing what it is already doing, which is offering education to all.

I wonder how many people who have been forced to send their child to private school because they had significant additional needs and mainstream was not catering adequately for them, will now vote LD but will essentially be allowing their Tory candidate to be re-elected. It depends on your local candidates, obviously.

Only for a Tory government to get in again and continue slashing SEN budgets, making schools more and more unable to cope and having to offer larger and larger class sizes!

Surely charitable status for Private schools is an oxymoron?

“Surely charitable status for Private schools is an oxymoron? ”

Of course it is. However much the supporters wriggle.

Providing a much better education than the state can while saving it billions every year? Would that all charities produced such spectacular public benefits!

It is that sort of flip comment that gives people of the right a bad name.

What, our use of facts? I can see how the left might find those offensive, since they contradict their dogma.

Well, I suppose you could r move education as a charitable aim.

It would bugger things up for a large number of charities, though. Not just schools.

That's why, until there is an actual proposal on how changes would be made, it is difficult to see any way that is workable. I can't come up with one, I've never seen one, and no-one is linking one to this thread (or any of the many predecessor thread)

I would not want to see charities' assets transferred to private hands. Other people have different views on who should own property and under what conditions it can be transferred.

The Charity Commission have said in terms that private schools simply providing education is not enough to fulfil the “public good” requirement. Nor is providing a few bursaries. The schools should either withdraw from charitable status or get their act together about the “public good” thing.

Bertrand have the charities commission said this recently?
I know maybe 10 -12 years ago after looking into independent schools and their charitable status they said that schools don't have to offer bursaries to remain registered charities.

Betrand What is your definition of public good though? What do you reasonably want from these schools, other than their abolition? What would my DD's school be able to offer?

I live in France where there isn't a system of private schools like the one in the UK.

That's not to say that private schools don't exist - they do but there are not expensive and therefore do not carry the prestige that private schools in the UK do. Mostly they are catholic schools. They cost about 100 - 150 EUR per month.

Due to the lack of prestige, there isn't a sense of "buying better" for one's children and everyone knows that there is no real difference in the quality of the education. So a lot of comfortable and well off people don't bother to send their kids to private schools and the equivalent of comprehensive schools are a big mix of kids from different income levels. It's a pretty fair system.

Recently a new secondary school was built near us and we should have been in its catchment. However the local councils decided it would be better for the sake of "mixité" for us to stay in the catchment of our currently very diverse school. This allowed them to open up catchment of the new school to children from a deprived area with a school that wasn't doing well and that they wanted to reduce class sizes in. And local people agreed that this was a good thing.

We are lucky I guess to live in a country where socialism is considered pretty central on the political spectrum. None of Labour's policies would be considered anything other than slightly left of center in France.

“Betrand What is your definition of public good though?”

I don’t know. It’s up to the schools to come up with ideas that the Charity Commission will accept.

Go on Bertrand give it a go. What should independent school do to demonstrate that they are doing enough fulfill the “public good” requirements.

OK. I can only talk about the ones near me because I know what they do and don’t do. I think they could let state school children into lessons the state schools don’t do. They could share their theatre. They could open up their sports coaching in games the state schools don’t play (round here lacrosse and rowing for example) They could invite state school kids to join their Oxbridge preparation classes. They could share their swimming pool. For starters!

And an anecdote that illustrates how state schools are just not on private schools radar. My ds (to my eternal ignominy and shame ) works in one. He turned up for work one day to see a skipful of perfectly good props and costumes. DS asked if he could have them for his old school, and they were delighted. The teacher said “We didn’t think anyone would want them “ So they were willing- but if they had any idea how tight stare school budgets were surely that would have been their first thought?