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Education

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Corbyn, vat, private schools

393 replies

NoisingUpNissan · 20/09/2019 19:28

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.

OP posts:
CassianAndor · 23/09/2019 16:08

dunno why you've put 'them' in italics like that.

TatianaLarina · 23/09/2019 16:10

I have no particular liking for Diane, but she sent her son to private school to get him away from gang culture. If you don’t have a black son in an inner city environment you have no right to judge.

Camden had 3 gang related murders in 5 days this month.

Of course, she should not be backing this new policy as a result.

CendrillonSings · 23/09/2019 16:11

Why would you be outraged if the quality of the school makes no difference?

BertrandRussell · 23/09/2019 16:11

But the Diane Abbott thing does get a bit tedious. I’m sure somebody in the Labour Shadow government must have been hypocritical more recently than 2003!

YobaOljazUwaque · 23/09/2019 16:13

@BertrandRussell OK let's take it away from schools to see if I can understand your position any better in another context.

Annie, Betty and Carol are all having a medium-severe mental health crisis and need outpatient treatment by a psychotherapist as soon as possible. For simplicity let's say that each of them could be adequately helped and set on the road to recovery with 18 sessions of therapy with a real terms value of £100 per session. Annie and Betty have no savings and no hope of paying their own way, Carol has been a high earner and has sufficient funds available to pay for as many sessions as she needs.

Dr Xavier works for a private practice. The practice will charge £125 per session and have costs of £100 to deliver it, making £25 profit. They will be delighted to treat Carol and don't care about Annie or Betty.

Dr Yellowstone works for a non-NHS mental health charity. The charity will still charge £125 per session because that is the market rate, and because the charity has a different tax basis than the profit-making business above, their actual costs are only £95 per session, so there's £30 per session made available for a charitable wing of the clinic which means that from time to time they are able to offer a free or reduced-price service to Annie or Betty - though the availability of this will be much lower than the demand for it.

Dr Zebra works for the NHS. Due to limited budgets and the low priority placed on mental health by the local trust, and the massive demand, the clinic can only offer a maximum of 6 sessions per patient and there is a 6 month waiting list. When a patient is treated the clinic only gets £85 per session from the Trust anyway, so they have to make ends meet by underpaying the staff and cutting corners wherever possible.

You can't force Dr Xavier and Dr Yellowstone to work for the NHS - there is no additional money and anyway they do not want to. Obviously it would be lovely for all three patients above to get the service that Dr X and Dr Y offer, but that isn't possible. The money is not there. You could shut down Dr X and Dr Y's clinics but that wouldn't help the clinic that Dr Z works in. Dr X and Dr Y would either take early retirement or go and work abroad.

Do you think that it is wrong for the clinics that Dr X and Dr Y work for have a different tax basis from one another due to the fact that Dr Y's clinic makes no profit? Do you object to "the taxpayer" contributing in this small way? Should the for-profit and non-profit clinic be treated exactly the same as one another in tax law?

Is it morally wrong for Carol to use her available funds to go to Dr X or Dr Y, given that she has the money? And is there no moral difference between her choice as to whether to book herself in with Dr X or Dr Y?

My own position would be that it is fine for Dr Y's clinic to have the tax advantages of a charity, and that it is not wrong for Carol to use Dr Y's services. And I can't see any moral difference between this and the equivalent situation in the education sector. I would like to establish whether your take in the case of mental health is radically different, and if it isn't then I would like to understand why you think the same morals don't apply in the education sector.

Ali86 · 23/09/2019 16:18

If people want to move abroad, then fine, but I think we should take their British citizenship off them when they do. Pardon verticality did you really mean that? Someone goes to work abroad and we strip them of citizenship? Are there not a few problems of international law and human rights around that, or will they not matter in the new socialist utopia?

BertrandRussell · 23/09/2019 16:18

Yoba- if you’ll forgive me-i’ll respond to that later- I don’t think I can do it while baking a million cupcakes! I won’t forget, though.

CassianAndor · 23/09/2019 16:27

Tatiana quite. Our nearest secondary, whilst 'good' on paper is such that no-one in our borough, black, white, rich, poor or anyone in between, wants their DC to go there. I believe 43 children had it as their first choice in the entire borough. That's pretty damning.

So - I can move (lots of people are, I'd be surprised if half if DD's year group of 60 will be in the same houses they started primary in when they apply for secondary). I can rent and lie (I know of at least 2 families who've done this, not a route I'll be going down). Or I can stay on the street I've lived on for over 15 years, where I've put down roots, and send DD private.

But what I won't do is send her to that school. And I reckon most families round here, across all demographics, would think you'd be an idiot to do so, merely to make a political point. The bleeding heart liberals will move into the catchment of the outstanding secondary, thus ramming house prices even higher, and congratulate themselves on not going private.

YobaOljazUwaque · 23/09/2019 16:27

@BertrandRussell happy to await your convenience.

CendrillonSings · 23/09/2019 16:34

Someone goes to work abroad and we strip them of citizenship? Are there not a few problems of international law and human rights around that, or will they not matter in the new socialist utopia?

Who needs basic human rights when you’ve got Corbyn and McDonnell? Report to Re-education Centre 431 for reprogramming after your shift in the tractor factory!

Frazzled2207 · 23/09/2019 16:49

Whilst I also agree it is worrying I also can't see it happening.

If it did become policy I would not vote Labour again and nor would many others. A ridiculous policy which would hit middle classes most.

I do agree with the bit about private schools being charities though- they definitely should not be.

Frazzled2207 · 23/09/2019 16:50

Ps clearly the best thing to do would be to have all state schools offering a first class education to all- that would send private schools out of business. But that isn't going to happen is it.

ListeningQuietly · 23/09/2019 17:21

This was basically Labour's policy in 1983

It did not happen then
it will not happen now

I really do not see why people are expending energy analysing it

Geronimo8 · 23/09/2019 17:21

If people want to move abroad, then fine, but I think we should take their British citizenship off them when they do. If they're not prepared to pay in, they shouldn't get the benefits.

Well that would put us in the company of the wonder-states such as North Korea.....

Dapplegrey · 23/09/2019 17:24

Why is it cruel? He got the same grades he would have for in any other school.
Bertrand -
If children can get the same grades at state school as they would at private school ,.....well why bother abolishing private schools since according to you they aren’t offering an advantage in exam results.

BertrandRussell · 23/09/2019 17:26

It’s not exam results people send their children to private school for. Not if they have any sense, that is.

CendrillonSings · 23/09/2019 17:31

It’s not exam results people send their children to private school for. Not if they have any sense, that is.

Someone deliberately sends a kid to a school they themselves describe as failing, then lectures the rest of us on “sense”... Hmm

In the real world, better education and therefore better results are exactly what most private school parents are paying for!

Dapplegrey · 23/09/2019 17:34

If people want to move abroad, then fine, but I think we should take their British citizenship off them when they do. If they're not prepared to pay in, they shouldn't get the benefits.

What about if they stay in UK but send their children to school abroad?
What about home education of a sort where several families have their children educated together?

CassianAndor · 23/09/2019 17:36

No, exam results aren't much of a factor for us. In no particular order:

Local school
Slightly smaller class sizes
single sex
Facilities
Sport (this is a big one for us - out of London might not be such an issue, though only 1 PE session a week in years 7 and 8 is pathetic)
Being able to take the subjects you want to at GCSE without worrying about timetable clash - that's a big one for me. I was shocked when my nephew told me he was unable to do history and geography. WTF?
Not subject to endless tweaking and fiddling by different ministers

The reality is that if I lived in the catchment of a good girls state school we would be there like a shot and we'd suck up the other stuff. But we don't.

BertrandRussell · 23/09/2019 17:40

The sort of children who go to private school are in the main, the bright and/or well supported types who will do well anywhere academically. A good private school provides loads of other “stuff” on site.Extra curriculars and so on. And reinforces existing privilege.

zafferana · 23/09/2019 17:42

I have no particular liking for Diane, but she sent her son to private school to get him away from gang culture. If you don’t have a black son in an inner city environment you have no right to judge.

No one is judging her for that decision @TatianaLarina - it's entirely understandable. What we ARE judging her for is her hypocrisy in supporting a policy that will, in effect, pull up the drawbridge behind her. She was free to make that decision for the good of her DS, yet she's prepared to prevent new generations of parents from making that decision that she made. That makes her a hypocrite not fit to represent Londoners or this country. I'd have respect for her if she came out and said 'You know what? I can't support this policy, because back when my DS was growing up in an area of London that I considered to be unsafe for him as a black boy, I made the decision to send him to a private school. I did it to try and get him away from the local gang culture and I can't, in good conscience, remove that option for other parents making similar choices for their DC'. That would make her a fine, upstanding public servant, not the shit she trotted out yesterday.

BertrandRussell · 23/09/2019 17:43

Incidentally, I didn’t say my ds’s school was ”failing”. I said it was the sort of school many mumsnetters would dismiss as failing because of its headline exam results.

CendrillonSings · 23/09/2019 17:44

The sort of children who go to private school are in the main, the bright and/or well supported types who will do well anywhere academically.

And if you would like your kids to excel, and not just “do well” (whatever that might mean), then the option of going private is very important.

CassianAndor · 23/09/2019 17:48

I don't know that DD would do well just anywhere, actually. One thing that concerns me is that she looks like she could be very easily led - very much like me, in fact. And there are certain garden paths I don't want her venturing down.

I can think of at least 3 children off the top of my head who were subject to their parents' political beliefs about schooling - all moved schools within a year and their parents are kicking themselves for it.

CendrillonSings · 23/09/2019 17:48

Incidentally, I didn’t say my ds’s school was ”failing”. I said it was the sort of school many mumsnetters would dismiss as failing because of its headline exam results.

That makes a big difference, I’m sure.

Ok - on ideological grounds, you deliberately sent your child to a school that many mumsnetters would dismiss as failing because of its headline exam results, despite being able to afford to provide a much better education elsewhere.

It’s wordier, but no less unkind.

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