Private school fees

[studentandparent]

Labour will scrap charitable status on private school fees when next in Government. Anyone got any idea how much this will increase fees?

What I actually think is that private schools have become a symbol of 'anti-wealth' feeling in a way that other luxuries have not - which is particularly curious, given the number of people who will tell you that private education is a complete waste of money. Rather than introduce complex legislation that may backfire and won't raise all that much money anyway, why not for example tighten the rules on charitable status to ensure that all charitable private schools have to make the same substantial contributions to the state sector and wider communities that the best examples already do, while simultaneously raising higher rate income tax so that money is taken from the wealthy generally, regardless of what luxuries they choose to spend their wealth on?

If i didn't pay school fees my children would in many ways be more priviliged. I could not work as much and be on hand the majority of the time.

I could spend a little bit of it on top up private tutoring (many state school parents do this in my affluent area already).

I could take them on many more holidays and pay for them to participate in all the sports and extra curricular they get to do in school.

And most likely i would save the majority for them as a very sizeable house deposit / leave uni with no debt fund.

We would probably move house to make sure that we were in the best carchment (pushing catchments even tighter).

Getting rid of private schools altogether is unlikely. All the government can do is play around the sides with taxes. The most affluent will barely notice (the top schools are full of overseas students anyhow).

In my case it has absolutely nothing to do with 'anti-wealth' feeling. That would be ridiculous. My objection is that in many (admittedly not all) cases people buy private education purely to give their DC advantage over the majority of other DC. To expect that concessions be made to facilitate that process just shows how out of touch some people are.

@diar it is very telling that you just assume I am not affluent because I hold these views and that my views are based on some kind of envy. Kind of flies in the face of your assertion that you can care deeply about things that don't impact you directly, no?

I've been lurking here. I'm a teacher in an independent school, and both of my DC go/went there because of the big tuition discount for staff; we wouldn't otherwise have been able to afford it. My two DC are very different; one is ideally suited to the environment, the other not so much, but it provides the latter with a range of subjects they really enjoyed which aren't available in the state sector locally. We don't do foreign holidays, have one old car, etc.

I find it interesting that about 50% of my colleagues send their own kids to state schools, either for political reasons or because even with a discount, you really need a higher earner in the family to make it work (especially for multiple kids). We'll weather any increase as we're "near the end" but... it does seem a bit like envy.

Cards on table - DS is at a private school. It's a small but popular. A lot of parents would simply have to pull their DCs out if VAT was added. Most likely they'd try to move to best catchment areas and / or divert fees to private tutoring. The best state schools are very like some of the private schools BECAUSE of the concentration of better of families in their catchment areas. Poorer families are squeezed out.

If they want to do it fairly they need to among other things:

a) Give a few years notice so that children already in the system can finish at their schools. Whatever people may think it's not fair to mess up a child's education because of a political ideology.
b) Introduce lottery systems for LEA schools instead of catchment areas because that's the only way you'll stop best schools squeezing out the less well off. It might mean children travelling ridiculous distances but that's the price of fairness.
c) Introduce thousands of new state school places to accommodate those children who'd otherwise have gone into the private sector
d) ban private tutoring

Nearly all parents with children at private school are in the group of top earners. It is your choice whether you prioritise your children's private education over other expenditure. If you buy a massive house you might not be able to afford private education. But the choice is yours. Stop expecting others to subsidise your choices.

Personally I think some of the pretty rubbish minor private schools may close. This will be best for children as there are some out there that are way below par.

@antelopevalley private schools places are not being subsidised. It would cost the taxpayer more if these children were in state schools, so it’s actually the opposite to what you are saying.

Exactly. Why is this repeated. It’s the opposite

@MarshaBradyo because they hope that if they say it enough, people will start to believe it!

I’m just amazed anyone actually believes it ;

Exactly

@MarshaBradyo the Labour party are misinterpreting the benefits of the policy to win votes. They know that people just read the headlines and don’t look into the detail.

It’s a typical Labour policy. It doesn’t make financial sense but don’t let that stop them.

I went to one of the very top girl's schools and I'm now in my forties. New levels of privilege have emerged at every point in my life because of my education. As someone who has enormously benefited, it is a batshit and indefensible system. But I honestly think the government should do more to address those consequences rather than simply strangle the golden goose. eg make it very clear to Oxbridge that their intake needs to start reflecting the actual state/private ratio - because it's really clear from eg the millionth Oxford Pm in a row that it's the Oxbridge clique that really dominates now. Radically improve the state system. Develop a new gold standard for teachers. Have a stern look at how companies recruit.

Surely a lot of the bursaries offered are part of making the education more open. Lots of private schools have been working towards more needs blind provision. My DC are at a private school and there has been massive bursary fund raising efforts. If they are going to be classed as a business rather than a charity, won’t these be withdrawn? Most businesses work on a transactional basis - tescos doesn’t offer food for free/reduced prices if someone has less funds. And we would certainly need to use all our available funds to keep paying for our own DC places rather than contributing to the bursary fund.

I have a state school educated child and am generally a labour voter but don’t agree with this policy. I also thought that the charity status came with other legal obligations like not making profit/having to plough it back into the school. I wonder how that side will be handled or will private schools be able to operate completely as businesses including making profits.

labour should absolutely strip private schools of charity status and abolish private schooling.
Also I’d like to see the abolition of the academy system for state schools. The control of those schools should be returned to local councils to stop ineffective academy chain businesses skimming off massive profits from public money.
The argument that fee paying parents are somehow saving us state school parents from the horrors of over subscription is laughable. As a family we pay a huge amount of tax.
The idea that any part of that tax go towards improving the lot of a private school business for the sake of their profits is obscene. When my own children’s school, though outstanding can’t afford the basics and on top of my huge tax bill I then have to privately contribute towards materials.
The state system is being squeezed from every angle there needs to be dramatic change.
Strip private schools of their charity status and strip them of their private business status bring them into the state system, to avoid the immediate spill over into near by catchments.
No more private school education. Let’s have a level playing field.

The private schools will all become free schools and then get their money directly from government. Some have already done this.

If this even comes into play my kids will have finished so won't affect us.

However if there were no private schools, I would have ploughed that money into buying into the catchment area for the best state school I could afford.

I'm not sure that abolishing private schools will give the level playing field that people think it will.

Labour 'policy' of imposing VAT is an example of how good these head lines are at polarizing the electorate but also how little people understand what they mean in practice. This policy popular because it's spun as the needy subsidizing rich kids getting a better education, which outrages & wins favour.

The outrage neglects to consider where the state would place the children who did move back to the state system. People complain about class sizes, quality of teaching, lack of funding etc then in the same breath they want to add 1000's of kids. Totally ignores that if independent schools become VAT registered entities some will simply offset VAT against operating costs and lean towards filling their schools with more international students (so the big ticket fee schools won't generate the VAT hoped for, so it won't be there to inject into state school funding). Those who can't reduce their VAT bill and have to pass on parents will sadly face closure, pushing many into the already crumbling state system. The net outcome being the government has to find more money to pay for state schools... and you guessed it that will come out of your pocket in tax. Not to mention, good state schools will become even less accessible as house prices become even more a premium in catchments.

Talk about cutting your nose off to spite your face..

how do you do that? Is there any country in the world without private schools? Does this include international schools as well? Ultra orthodox Jewish schools which don't really teach national curriculum and thus don't qualify for state funding (there is a campaign to get them to teach academic subjects but progress is SLOWWW and the elders are fighting tooth and nail against the audacity of the children being taught science). My husband went to such a school, and they paid fees as a result. These are hardly privileged children, more like children failed by their community. If you can't even get such schools to teach national curriculum (my DH is now over 30 and nothing has changed they still don't teach maths and science), how can the British state integrate ALL private schools into the state systems?

It would be nice to see a government move to ensure a level playing field. Make a proper effort to regulate schooling. So that in time catchment struggle just isn’t a thing anymore. It shouldn’t be acceptable to any of us that we have to move into a better catchment. Schools that aren’t performing for whatever reason need to be pulled up to speed and improved. So that each tax paying family has an outstanding school conveniently located near to them. It’s not that much to ask really.

I think this is a bad precedent to set. They wedge the law in, purporting to charge tax on private schools, next thing you know they're using the same laws and justification to charge VAT on university fees and little Johnny Comprehensive gets totally priced out of going to uni, with an extra 20% fees millstone of debt around his neck at age 21, then the privileged lot get to stay privileged again.

It's a perfect example of a stupidly thought-out idea that's going to backfire horribly.

As for those people who are deluded into thinking more grammar schools are coming under a Labour government, do you forget that Labour are also anti-grammar schools because they want everyone to finish the race at the same time, even if that means we all come last?

There will ALWAYS be networks of people who share privilege and power opportunities. Taking away the most obvious of access points for less wealthy people will not accomplish what you think it will. It will push the networking underground until it is totally impenetrable and class mobility will be worse than ever.

@socialmedia23 very good point on international schools - I went to one as a child. If it hadn't existed I would have missed 4 years of school as I didn't speak the language taught in schools in that country..