Is anyone else worried about the effect of rising private school fees on state schools?

[BabyIcecream]

Where I live there already aren't enough school places. Three big state secondary's, one is catholic, they are all over subscribed and bursting at the seams using old buildings with not enough funding.

Ive seen reports that at some private schools upto a third of pupils might leave if the fees go up due to VAT.

I'm worried about all these extra pupils needing places, DS already finds his school overcrowded and whilst I don't agree with private education putting extra pupils into the state system is just going to further disadvantage our children.

Unless money raised by increasing private schools costs is going to be used to fund state education? Does anyone know?

7% in real terms. That means above inflation.

Funding going down and only really going up again to try to deal with the massive consequences of covid clearly shows funding is the major issue. It’s a sticking plaster to deal with the tsunami of consequences caused by badly thought out, chaotic cutbacks and changes to public services over an extended period. There is no point pretending sectors of the economy exist in isolation from each other. Tory changes to benefits, cutbacks to funding of Local Authorities, problems with mental health services, social services, etc, don’t happen in a vacuum. Massive change to exam systems cannot be achieved cost-free, so that’s another diversion of money if you are not going to increase funding to enable the massive changes you are inflicting on top of expecting everything else to carry on as usual. Schools have increasingly been expected to take on and thus bear the cost of, responsibilities dumped or conveniently ignored by other services due to lack of funding, ridiculous new policies and expectations imposed from above, and the knock on social consequences to the whole of society cause by the general economic situation. Appallingly bad management and ill thought through change by Government has costs, and these extra costs are not funded by said Government, they just eat into existing budgets that were already over-extended.

that’s not what real terms means. It means if you add inflation in every single year since 2010, they are adding 7% on top of all of that per pupil.
Might not be enough or badly spent or going to wrong schools but it is more money

I popped the actual average school funding from 2010 into the bank of england inflation calculator to get a feel.
in 2010 the actual figure was just over 5k, which had the buying power of 8k now. So i dont think it has kept up. Plus in that time the employer contributions to the TPS and NI have gone up so there is less to actually spend.

Well, you know it is smoke and mirrors if they pretend that all represents more money to spend per pupil on the actual pupils and not just to return straight back to Government in things like increased National Insurance and pension contributions. That’s like pretending adding VAT to the mix doesn’t impact what can be spent directly on students from the money coming in that can actually be spent on the kids, and we all know what private school parents think of that. And no, that does not excuse adding massively to teachers’ workloads and responsibilities while simultaneously suppressing their real terms incomes.

If you increase schools’ responsibilities, you have to increase their real terms budgets.

Yes. Agree.

I don’t really agree with the concept of full bursaries unless the kid has come from the care sector, really poor single parent household etc. It is just one of those trends in private schooling that took off in the last 10 years.

In reality, many bursary kids are lower middle class with engaged parents who do professional jobs, just cannot afford the expensive fees and the private schools go for bursary kids that “fit in” (e.g. musical kids of talented musicians but poorly paid, or kids really good at sport). That type of kid is usually OK in a good state school anyway. That funding is better spent on lots of different properly deprived children in the state sector. If the school can mentor and provide resources that way a huge “bursary” can go much further. We are talking thousands per year.

Some schools are already starting to move away from fee discounts on scholarships (eg 10/20% off fees for a sport/academic/music scholarship) and putting that money into means tested bursaries instead. It’ll be interesting if that starts to be reversed.

Why would a very musical or sporting kid be "okay" in a state school necessarily?

Unlike standard academics, they are far more likely to not be able to excel or access good provision.

Why shouldn't they be allowed to benefit from bursary awards?

There's a parent on mumsnet whose DD was at a comprehensive where they were unable to even run a music GCSE class... now the DD is at a private school with a massive music specialism.

The schools local to where we live had an extremely poor offer on the music front. I planned my strategy on getting her into a state school with superb music provision like a military operation and she does a 3 hour commute every day as a result.

100% agree with this

I planned my strategy on getting her into a state school with superb music provision like a military operation and she does a 3 hour commute every day as a result.

Would it not be easier to just get some private music lessons for your daughter? Especially since the cost of such a long commute is not going to be free. I personally would never look to any state school for music provision for any child who was going to be remotely serious about music.

I think the point is if a school give 1 musical child a 15-24k bursary, it helps 1 musical kid.

If the school instead invests that 15-24k a year in a joint music scheme with the lowest performing, or closest comp. It could help lots of children. They could do shared concerts, joint music insets, instrument loans, mentoring, mini bus loans, borrow the music rooms. My sons comp doesnt have enough people who play an instrument to form a band. But a scheme to transport and join them up with some other schools would solve this somewhat.

Totally agree. She has also has 4 private music teachers outside school, and is on a development programme with both a record label and a university music department.

However her school provide further specialist lessons, a bespoke timetable and huge amounts of support - and is close to all her external teachers. It being a state school means we can afford to pay for the extra tuition that we couldn't have done if we were paying fees at a private school.

Exactly @Spendonsend - it is far better to let 30 talented state school kids come and join the Symphony Orchestra every Thursday evening for 2 hours in the huge posh music hall and play with the private school kids than to just support 1 musical kid with a bursary. Same applies to sports etc.

And in any event, the properly talented kids go via club level, NYO anyway (where bursary funding is available to all).

Lots of private schools are already doing that in addition to bursaries.

DD did a series of workshops last year in a particular music form which were jointly held with 3 local independents and 3 state schools.

I get irritated by the parents that put their kids through private prep so that they then take up most of the grammar school places at 11+ by exploiting their enormous advantage. I feel like that because I don’t think it’s in the spirit of fair play or the intended purpose of grammar schools but appreciate it’s not necessarily a logical view. I’m just being honest about how I feel.

In a way I think that more private school children joining local state schools could help to improve standards for all children, as I’d hazard a guess that parents who send their children to private school are likely to be strong advocates for a decent education. Again, I appreciate that’s a potentially controversial view and also a massive generalisation as there are likely to be some private school parents who aren’t engaged with their children’s education, just like there are many of us with children at state schools who have high expectations and hold our children’s schools to account accordingly.

I do think it will increase pressure on already dangerously overstretched state schools, at least initially. I hope the longer term impact would be a positive one though by levelling opportunity and improving standards for all children.

I get irritated by the parents that put their kids through private prep so that they then take up most of the grammar school places at 11+

Are you equally irritated by parents who get tutors for the 11+ or do past papers at home with them?!

To a degree, yes.

When I went to grammar school you just took the 11+ and either got in or you didn’t. I don’t recall anyone having a tutor or being hot-housed at the local private schools. As a result my school had a broad socio-economic mix and felt like a really positive and inclusive environment.

Back when I was at a grammar, private school fees were a much smaller proportion of income - the local solicitor or GP could afford a couple of kids at boarding school. Not the case today.

In places like Kent where you have grammar or secondary modern, you will definitely find that those parents priced out of private secondary will be investing in either a prep school or serious private tutoring to get the grammar school place for secondary.

Surely the argument should then be that, with obvious demand, more grammar schools should be opened?

Araminta1003 · Today 12:12

Exactly @Spendonsend - it is far better to let 30 talented state school kids come and join the Symphony Orchestra every Thursday evening for 2 hours in the huge posh music hall and play with the private school kids than to just support 1 musical kid with a bursary.

Yes that’s true, but judging from comments on mumsnet such as “ewww I don’t want my children mixing with horrible, entitles poshos”, how many parents would want this?

@OhCrumbsWhereNow as long as your children get in eh?

I don't hear a clamour for more secondary moderns which is the obvious corollary.

There is only 'demand' because parents want the best in the existing system.

In places where there are excellent comprehensives there is no demand.

@PixiePirate it's true that grammars used to be more socially inclusive, but they still selected by stealth. So in my area, families where children passed but couldn't afford the absurdly expensive uniforms, or the bus fares across the city, the children didn't go in the end.

The fault here lies with the curriculum which does not prepare for 11+ so it becomes a competition to get higher and higher scores.

Unfortunately as it stands, most stand almost no chance of grammar entry if they were to sit 11+ from a state school with no preparation at home