20% vat on fees

[namechangedforthisone35]

IF Labour get in and IF the 20% does get added to fees, how many private school pupils will be moved to state? I have three kids (one not school aged yet) and in private school. One of many reasons because I didn't want them in a class of 30. I couldn't afford the vat increase so would have to move them but then that class of 30 becomes, what, 40?! In an already strained and unresourced system?!

Wwyd?

Y - I'd have to move kids to state
N - I'll pay the vat

That would be the worst of both worlds were it to happen.

It would result in fierce competition for housing local to the best schools on a scale way beyond what happens now.

The end result would be the wealthiest would attend all the best schools and make it literally impossible for any lower earners to break into the system at the top end.

It would create significant elitism in the state sector which is what many who oppose private schools are looking to abolish.

True for our local school, tiny catchment and high house prices. So a selection by house price in many cases

That is all lovely @SheilaFentiman - in reality, I know a whole lot of people who managed to get into the right school, church school or academy, half way through the year. Do you really think Big Brother or the incompetent LEA is outwitting the quasi private sector academies? Absolutely not in the real world.

You know that Scotland has exactly that policy of going to your local catchment school? I don't recall vast swathes of Scotland being "ghettoes". And no grammar schools either.

Sure, Jan.

It does impact outcomes, it has here. Via catchment and house prices

The boundary may be changeable but people buy to get close to the better schools

Edinburgh has the highest proportion of kids in the private sector. Why is that @SabrinaThwaite ?

Well funnily enough, my DC didn't qualify for getting an in-year admission to the local church school because we didn't meet the religious criteria and the academy accepted DC via the LA in-year admissions procedure.

Because it's a capital city with lots of wealthy parents who prop up the private school system?

Glasgow and its surrounds, on the other hand, has lots of top performing state schools.

Absolutely it already happens. It will only get worse with the introduction of VAT, and the change is already happening. People who would have chosen to go private are already switching to state in anticipation of the VAT. I know several families who’ve done exactly this over the last year or two. They have taken places at selective schools which would ordinarily have gone to other children. A lot of private primaries/preps are seeing increases in students applying to the selective state sector at 11.

“They have taken places at selective schools which would ordinarily have gone to other children.”

Again, countless areas in the country do not have selective state schools.

“Again, countless areas in the country do not have selective state schools.”

You are using “selective” narrowly. Some of us are merely pointing out that “selective” includes selection by catchment/house price/rental price. When all the educational research shows that wealth is the biggest contributing factor to good educational outcome.

And as pointed out you cannot force people to just make their DC go to the nearest school because they will just move to a richer area. Thereby exacerbating the problem.

No amount of taxes/control will outwit the middle class tiger parent, and why would you want to anyway? They are just bringing up the next generation of hamster wheel tax contributor anyway.

I know that school management are worried about VAT and I get it. There is no excuse however to destroy the soul and character of a school over this issue. Over the last year or so St Edwards School Oxford has positioned themselves as a multi million business rather than an institution set up to nurture the well being of its pupils. More speeches over the last 18 months have been made about how the school plans to make money rather than how it plans to help pupils prepare for future careers. The ratio of support/teaching staff has ballooned in recent years, perhaps cut these superfluous roles and recruit more experienced teachers? The commercialisation of the school is evident even to the pupils. Just last week my child was awarded a prize/commendation and then told the cost of the pendant would be added to the bill. My child found this situation very awkward.

The phrase was "They have taken places at selective schools"

Selective schools has a clear meaning: schools that select by ability following a test or tests,

It would really help if you didn't make up meanings for words.

@Araminta1003 makes a valid point though. In my example, I was referring to selection based on academic and musical selection. I know people who have taken advantage of both of these criteria. Added to that though is selection based on church attendance. It’s amazing how many people seem to find religion when their child is young, only to lose interest in church at age 11……. There are also some academically selective schools which take account of “home” address. Even if children pass the academic criteria, places are allocated based on who lives the nearest. Parents with more money can buy/rent to guarantee a place.

“Parents with more money can buy/rent to guarantee a place. “

Yes. I. Know.

But it isn’t what “selective school” means.

”Added to that though is selection based on church attendance. It’s amazing how many people seem to find religion when their child is young, only to lose interest in church at age 11”

It is entirely open to all parents to meet the religious school criteria of christening and attendance for 2 years or whatever, regardless of their wealth or personal beliefs. You cannot lump this point in with the VAT on school fees issue.

Added to that though is selection based on church attendance. It’s amazing how many people seem to find religion when their child is young, only to lose interest in church at age 11

Seems like a perfectly good reason to get rid of tax payer funded faith schools - why should non-religious parents be discriminated against?

Also, this.

You are making quite a persuasive argument for decoupling churches from schools.

People can argue getting rid of various things but we have local area comprehensive and it’s very good due to a type of house price selection

The relevant point earlier was that Labour’s policy will exacerbate parental effort in state to do similar.

As a private school parent I totally agree with this. It was the hypocricy and the gamification, the unfairness, the penalizing kids for having parents that weren't religious and the ghetoization of the schools no middle class parent would touch with a barge pole that drove me to use the independent sector for my kids.

This policy will only make things worse for the kids that don't have motivated and engaged parents.

Exactly this. I was lucky enough to be able to choose private schools for my kids from day 1, because I work exceptionally hard and have done for a long time and because as an athesit and a humanist I wasn't prepared to be a hypocrite to get my kids into the better state schools in the area, which are ALL church schools. I've pretty much swapped an easy retirement for that ideological stance but I don't regret it and I won't apologise for it.

The hypocricy of church school never ceases to astound me. Thats what they should be addressing in trying to normalise education and getting rid of grammar schools perhaps, not penalising people that work hard to opt out of the whole hypocritical mess.

The schools that are owned by churches were built by and run by the church long before the state decided that universal state-funded education was a thing. The churches agreed that their schools could be integrated into the state education system but they retain ownership of the building and those buildings were generally built by charitable donations and founded in order to provide a christian education to the children of the parish. Charity law forbids charities from repurposing donations to something entirely different to what they were given for - they can no more decide to actually provide a secular education to children regardless of faith than they can decide to actually become a donkey sanctuary. It is the same legal issue stopping state-funded church schools as it is stopping charitably-founded private schools from being stripped of charitable status - charities have to operate under the terms of their foundation and if they stop doing that they have to wind up their assets and donate them to another charity pursuing the same goals, so the only way to make a church school into a secular school would be for the State to buy the buildings from the church and for the church to use that money to provide Christian education through other means. The state cannot afford to do that.

The great thing about having a government is they can make laws. They can make any law they like no matter how daft, as we will see tomorrow.

Starmer is not proposing to get rid of selective schools just this gimmicky VAT policy which won’t bring in much if anything, and is just a cover for lack of extra funding.

So you’ll get higher state selection. Parents will spend in other ways to get selection