If you’re charged VAT will you remove your child from their private school? I’m v stressed!

[Liikklu]

We won’t be able to pay the increase. Only hope is asking grandparents for the shortfall which we don’t want to do. Anyone else in a similar boat? Do you think it will literally be a 20% increase on fees or will schools absorb some of it? Our school has said they will address the matter ‘if and when’ it applies.

The local state is always ' a nightmare'

Sorry that happened to you. That sounds like a school problem rather than a state v private. My son's dad had a dreadfully damaging experience at a private. I don't mind if people want to go private. I do mind people suggesting state need to be avoided unless very middle class etc (simply not our experience at all) and more than that the idea that cuts can't be made. I find that ridiculous having been a state governor for years and making cuts after cuts after cuts from a way lower starting point.

If they had to send their little darlings to a common all garden state schools then maybe there will be more calls to bring up the standard of said state schools.

Go state?

Which find hard to believe- all these professionals who can afford fees apparently living in the ‘dodgiest’ of catchment areas…

I know, weird that

I personally think private education should be abolished altogether, and all private schools should become under state provision.

Once all parents, no matter what their personal financial/status is are invested in the education system ran by the state, then the more likely we are to see better state provision.

A view from the other side.
Our 3 DC all go to local state primary school/middle school and will go to the local high school at 13yrs into Y9. All of these schools are over-subscribed now, in a 'leafy' area and graded 'Outstanding'. I am concerned that we are going to get even bigger class sizes of parents of children currently in independent schools start looking for state schools. I don't think it will be a huge issue as there are fewer local students attending independent schools that there once were- since one became an academy and one closed due to falling rolls a few years ago and one amalgamated with another. However, it won't take more than a handful wanting to enter each year group for it to cause difficulties in an area where there are no spare places across the whole local authority in Y7.
There will have to be either:
New state schools built or extensions to schools in some areas
Independent schools turned into state schools by academisation- a local one to us has achieved this successfully although it was an embittered process at the start as it was on the point of financial collapse and was handed vast sums and a new sixth form block built - in a deal with Gove.

@I personally think private education should be abolished altogether, and all private schools should become under state provision. Commie comment bingo!

I've posted on another thread on this today that as a single mum who can only work because my teen boards, I will not be able to add a further 10K pa.

I assume Labour don't want me to give up my job and be a stay at home mum. There is nothing where I live that pays similar and I get a better wage because I am willing to travel. I feel I am making sacrifices to give DD everything I can. Despite some posters on the other thread who said it wasn't parenting, I am sure she is thriving there. She is happy to have her friends around her, gets far more choice in food, has clubs coming out of her ears, always gets her prep done (was a huge issue at home before she boarded) and is very rarely on a device. I know I couldn't offer her that if I was home - facilities not there for most of her clubs in our area - and I would not be happy not to work in a job I love. DD is also dyslexic and the grammar in our area has no dyslexics in their ENTIRE YEAR.

This policy is having a real life impact on our family. It won't be on the super rich who can fling 10k at a bracelet.

It is quite disappointing seeing so many posters punching at parents who are just about managing private and it does scream of trying to claw down anyone daring to try to keep their head above water or making a choice they personally don't agree with. I don't agree with having 2 cars and 3 holidays a year (many of the grammar parents do), but we all make choices based on what we feel is important.

exactly! Maybe spent some money on tutors if you’re that worried

Point me to where I have said I have an issue paying the extra? I have said what our school are planning to do. That’s it.

I mean, ok. I’ll take your word for it versus that of DD’s school and my own understanding of her reading as someone who has read to (and the with) her every single day without fail since she was 12 weeks old. I’m not surprised at her reading standard and comprehension, my sister and I were at a similar reading standard at her age, albeit we were educated abroad.

Academics may not be important to all but they are important to me. DD doesn’t actually care about her reading ability or how well she’s doing at school. We’re lucky enough to have found a school that challenges her but also knows how to get the best out of her in a nurturing way.

"[Reigate Grammar] school was converted into an independent fee-paying school in 1976, while [Starmer] was a student. He was exempt from paying fees until the age of 16, and his sixth-form study fees were paid by a bursary he received from the private school's charity."

Wikipedia. That wasn't hard, even for a State grammar school alumna.

essentially private via catchment

What kind of bollocks is this? The funding gap between private and state schools means that even if the kids at the school are well-off, the school itself will still be subject to the year on year budget cuts that all state schools have faced. That difference in funding does matter.

@Bululu what do you mean “commie comment?@

Does that save us enough to pay the 20% to cover the vat to afford private school? Since that’s what the thread is about?
The people who are posting asking how to afford it don’t want to send their kids to state school.

I was a secondary school teacher for 25 years. Some of it in posh areas.

Ive never taught in a school with no dyslexic students. Usually about 3 or 4 at least in a class.

What’s made you so angry?
Did your kids have a bad experience?
Are you an unhappy teacher?
Do you work with deprived kids and thus this stuff is making you upset?
Do you have other bad stuff going on in your life?

The OP was asking what parents in her situation would do. I am not in her situation as my kids are at uni but it’s an interesting read. But you seem to have a real axe to grind and seem very resentful. More than other opponents of private schooling.

What’s really going on for you? Genuine question.

commie /kŏm′ē/nounA Communist. A commercial vehicle. A communist; a person with communist sympathies; a supposed communist infiltrator.

Ours has said they will pass the full amount on. I'm going to suck it up for the 2 years to GCSE and then dd will move to the local 6th form college.

Sorry, I didn't realise you were the OP and all the other fee-paying parents on this thread 😏

Tell that to Starmer who's kid goes to a super selective London Grammar - hardly a bog standard comp. He was also privately educated. No academies for them!

Someone disagrees with you and you call them angry?

😂😂😂