TES; top grades fall dramatically at private schools

[Bougiebliss]

Yesterday’s TES

www.tes.com/magazine/news/secondary/levels-2022-top-grades-fall-private-schools?amp

Hmmmm… so what changed in their teaching over the last year?
This feels really distasteful not only for the hard working children in schools that didn’t inflate, but also for those children who got on to courses based on the inflated grades and are presumably struggling.
I can’t help feeling that if this was something local comps had done there would be more outrage.

Oh excuse me while I doff my cap with humble gratefulness. It’s for the tax breaks. My friend and her classmates were graciously allowed to use Marlboroughs swimming pool in the 90s and the Marlborough boys used to spit on them.

The tax break from charitable status is estimated to be worth about £200 per pupil per term.

The provision of education is in itself a charitable aim under English law. Provision of bursaries has been deemed neither necessary nor sufficient in terms of justifying charitable status.

@hop321 State schools pay to use facilities! And it isn't cheap either. Our local Indie is trying to up the prices all the time, despite the fact funding for state schools is so woeful. Please don't for a minute think you are paying money to a charity. You are paying to a business with slick marketing and PR who sell themselves as a 'luxury good' which means they should be paying VAT.

Our local private schools often do events like art / sport stuff but they are basically marketing events to get families to move to their schools.

@Bougiebliss - I think state school teachers are hamstrung by restrictive text choices in the GCSE syllabus for English and there is definitely a tendency to spoon feed masses of information. Lots of conversations amongst teachers about why A level English is less popular and GCSE reforms and changes in teaching style are part of that. Independent schools aren’t tied to that in the same way . Those who are concerned with the future of English as a subject are debating this a lot at the moment. We teach the Cambridge international GCSE which has more diverse texts and they drop off after three years so much more discussion and teaching of reading skills rather than endless context and literary terms. Looks Barbara Bleiman on Twitter if you are interested.

Our GCSE results this year are actually higher than the grades we gave our students last year and higher than the predicted mid point between 2019 and 2020 that the Government has said that exam boards were aiming for. So I reiterate that independent schools aren’t all gaming the system- just trying to manage two really difficult years where the government kept moving the goalposts endlessly. In English particularly we had to come up with two grades for all
our students and create a whole bank of internal assessments.

Not true.

Not only do charities have to meet a specific cause (ie advancement of education/sport/healthcare), they have to prove that their charity would benefit a sufficiently large cross-section of society ie not a tiny percentage, particularly if it is wealthy.

Thats why you wouldn’t have a hope in hell of setting up a ‘charitable’ private hospital to treat millionaires.

they very much need to provide bursaries etc otherwise they would lose that status.

@Cleopatra67 plenty of indie schools do IGcse’s rather than GCSE’s hot because they are bothered by giving the pupils an interesting study experience, but to make sure their results look good. State schools have to do the harder GCSE’s. Another way to market themselves to their customers.

Many started doing IGCSE in the days of continuous harassment assessment, because they preferred terminal exams.

And then they've just stuck with it. I don't think there's any real difference now (one can point and laugh at individual questions, but without mark schemes and familiarity with what that not terribly detailed question is likely to be after and how to display knowledge, then it's not a full comparison).

(And of course, not all do IGCSE anyhow0

My relative works in a private school. During the TAG years, she predicted her students' grades fairly based on what she expected them to get. In fact, she got told by her HOD to randomly reduce the grade of one kid because on the day of a real exam, someone always buggers up. They actually ordered her to reduce the grade by one of a random kid, at random. So don't think all private schools are just inflating grades. Some are actively shitting on pupils like this!

@Bougiebliss - that’s not my experience and they aren’t easier - in my subject- they actually require flexibility of thinking and personal responses. I’ve taught in both state and indie schools. In fact the reason many independent schools switched to them initially was because of the lack of challenge in GCSEs. Since the GCSE reforms things have changed. The issue is that mainstream GCSEs - in English have become narrow in focus and context and content heavy. I’ve had 28 years experience teaching in both sectors so am not just banging a drum for independent schools but I think you are oversimplifying the situation.

The charitable status question is a fair one but they aren’t businesses. They don’t have shareholders and they don’t make a profit. Like all schools their main expense is staff salaries and it’s all ploughed back into the school. Of course it’s not fair or equitable but as we know the situation is complex. Some state schools are more selective than independent schools- like the top flight grammars - and parents pay for tutoring etc. Catchment areas are linked to house prices so in many ways parents can gain advantages for their children. The inequality goes very deep.

@Cleopatra67 they don't make a profit simply because they can't if they are to maintain their charitable status. There are many ways to build value into a business (which they categorically are in all but name) without showing a bottom line profit. It's called accounting. Also, it is a bit of a disingenuous comment that some parents pay for tutoring and your implication that somehow that confers substantial advantage. I am sure as a teacher you know that there is also a whole ancillary tutoring sector around 11plus and common entrance in the private sector. And that is in addition to the hefty prep school fees being forked out and the benefit of small classes. That's quite something in terms of relative advantage when considered next to a family moving house to get a slightly better comp.

Some private schools.....the grades went up massively at my sons private school and were lower at my other son's state school.

Yes that happened in our small city too 🙄. Maybe the private school 2021 cohort were just really really clever 🙄🙄🙄

Depressing how the minute the rules were relaxed the situation is exploited - even by educated professionals.

Please don't for a minute think you are paying money to a charity. You are paying to a business with slick marketing and PR who sell themselves as a 'luxury good' which means they should be paying VAT.

Do you think most private school parents pick the school because of its charitable endeavours? I highly doubt it.

I picked our school because it was academically selective and has great sports facilities. While it's commendable that 10% of pupils are on bursaries, it didn't make any difference to our decision. Not being heartless but it was the case.

I have two friends who are senior management at private schools. One of their schools is barely solvent, particularly after pension liabilities. Not all prIvate schools are swimming with money. I'd also be amazed if the charitable status financial benefit cost the state more than paying for a state education for those pupils. Including the cost of building more schools to accommodate them, plus some teachers would face a drop in salary.

I achieved higher A levels than my privately-educated husband. It was also an advantage being a woman from a state school when it came to getting a job in investment banking as they were desperate to be more diverse.

I can't say I was bothered about private schools, as a concept or their charitable status. If people want to pay because they perceive it's worth the money, whether justifiably or not, that's up to them.

@hop321 it is actually so refreshing to hear a parent say they don’t give a monkeys about a school’s giving aims, that it forms no part of their decision process.
As you are so relaxed about picking a luxury education can we assume you will be as happy to pay VAT? As an investment banker sounds like you can afford it.

@hop321 fair play!

I said it didn't form part of my decision. Not that I don't approve of charitable endeavours. There's a big difference.

I hate virtue-signalling but I give quite a bit of time to a committee at school that raises money for the kids on bursaries to go on sports tours etc, that they would otherwise miss out on.

But, as a state school product myself, I don't have a chip on my shoulder about the charitable status of private schools, or see it as some great injustice.

@hop321 So would you happily pay VAT on the luxury education your DC receive - so that could go towards bettering state schools?

Genuine question, would you be happy for our school to scrap the bursaries for the 10% of pupils that currently have them, to offset the VAT?

Presumably you disagree with bursaries as, to some extent, they perpetuate the perceived inequality?

@hop321 round here bursaries seem to go to middle class parents who a) know about them b) know how to make their finances appear. Rural area so I suspect very different in eg London.
I think VAT on fees for luxury education to be used to improve all state schools would be ‘greater good for greater number’ yes I really do. No doubt you will be along to tell me how wrong I am.

Answering the specific question asked, no, I wouldn't "happily" pay the VAT. Ultimately I would pay it, but I suspect it might be the tipping point for other parents.

We already pay more than half our income in various taxes, plus not taking advantage of a state education (or the NHS to some extent). I think that's enough of a financial contribution.

I genuinely don't believe that removing charitable status would be a net economic gain for the government. Some schools will close, and even for schools that don't close, some parents won't be able to afford the fees and move to state schools.

Unless you believe that building more schools and employing extra teachers for the extra pupils would cost less than the HMRC revenue gained from the extra VAT, I can't see how that's a positive?

I suspect it would be like the additional rate income tax and end up costing the government more than it saved.

@SharpiesForever - you’re not wrong and I’m not challenging the issue of advantage at all. I would challenge the idea of it being a business because I don’t think it really is. Who is actually profiting? My key point is that we worked really hard over the last couple of years, as did all teachers in all schools, to award the grades in the fairest way possible- we absolutely weren’t looking to game the system. My department’s results this year at A level and GCSE suggest that actually we were pretty conservative last year as the grades are higher than both 2020 and 2021- which would not be the case if we’d been falsely boosting them. The huge inequalities that exist in the uk, of which education is one small part are another issue and one that is of course of great concern.

@Cleopatra67 they are businesses and are run in that way (Slick PR, marketing budgets etc.). The only difference is that they follow a specific financial model in line with their charitable status that involves building the value of their assets rather than recording profits and distributing dividends (which they don't have to as they don't involve shareholders. No different than a privately owned business where the owner decides to reinvest their profits into building the value of the asset. They plough money into capex for fancy sports halls, theatres etc. which is offsettable against their actual (but not recorded as) profits due to it coming under the banner of 'delivering service to the wider community'. They then let these out, sometimes at eyewatering costs to the wider community and so the circle continues.