Request a state school place if you want it or not

[clarkkentsglasses]

This email is doing the rounds aimed at private school parents:

"The idea is to try to flood the Council with requests for urgent school places from September. If they get tens of thousands of emails like this we may see them under pressure."

Basically request a state school place if you want it or not.

Or both could be true ...

My kids all go to private school, I'm acutely conscious that wealth brings its own risks in the teenage years. It would be hugely complacent to expect a private school education to shield them from everything

@WindsurfingDreams

This is true.

Affluent children are far more likely to use class As. Poorer children more likely to hit the bottle harder more regularly because its cheaper.

Affluent children more likely to get away with a possession charge when they do as well.

The cocaine fuelled parties and sex videos thing though, I'm just not sure, that one has being doing the rounds for a long time. The version I heard first was about kids at Fortismere in Muswell Hill ( neither a grammar nor private just a V nice catchment). I think sometimes it can be used as a " cautionary tale" to spell out that kids from nice backgrounds get into risky behaviour too.

lol. So imagine 50% of private school parents in Edinburgh do this, that is 17% more pupils more pupils requiring places in the state system. Equivalent to 15 more primary schools and 4 more secondary schools..

Yes, it is legal.

However, this is not legal. Whatever the council thinks, they must treat all applicants equally and follow their published admission arrangements.

Yeah but most of them won't actually send their children because we know from reading these threads that they seem to think state schools are violent lawless wastelands stuffed to bursting with violent, ignorant and unwashed "plebs" who couldn't tell a violin from a viola

I’ve seen this suggestion (live in an area with lots of private school parents)

It’s a daft idea. Not least because it means anyone who is genuinely leaving private and seeking a state place will be written off as being part of this stunt

So the govt will be able to say that nobody is actually changing to state because of VAT, it’s all just a pressure tactic

Well given Edinburgh city council would have to open 15 new primary schools and 5 new secondary schools to accommodate then, these new schools are likely to be full of other ex-private school pupils.

@Sloejelly

"lol. So imagine 50% of private school parents in Edinburgh do this, that is 17% more pupils more pupils requiring places in the state system. Equivalent to 15 more primary schools and 4 more secondary schools.."

Lol, imagine conflating the number of private school students in Edinburgh with the number of private school students who actually live in Edinburgh. The numbers would be spread over a far wider range than just the city, I used to know children who commuted daily from Berwick!

25% of Edinburgh children attend private school. lol at the idea that they only attend private schools in Edinburgh.

No, 25 % of the children educated in Edinburgh are educated at private school, there is a difference. There are a significant amount of children who travel in from outside the city ( plus boarders).

Being educated in Edinburgh, and being from Edinburgh are not the same.

Yeah, that's not how catchment zones work.

I don't understand this constant effort to fear monger.
I have kids at private school. None of their friends parents are thinking of moving them out of it. Most have a decent financial cushion (and that's an understatement)

@WindsurfingDreams

The best one I've read so far was the bleeding heart story from a parent whose children had been at school with the 90% scholarship kid whose Plumber parents lived in a council house. They were so worried about not being able to afford school fees when this policy came in that they removed him from school, so he started a new school in September 2023, obviously it was a sink school and miles from home.....

It's not a trope - I know parents of people at the school. I mean, crazy stuff goes on in state schools too. I blame porn and TikTok.

If you think the council are suddenly going to build loads of schools it shows how clueless and out of touch you are about the number of children already out of school with no place, there is a massive shortage of special schools nationwide. Legally the la has to offer a place but as many parents of Sen children know that means very little in practise and children can be left with no school place for years. Parents can go through the legal process but that takes time, you can even complain the the ombudsman’s and if you complaint is upheld you’ll prob get compensation of something like £100 a month for each month out of school. The la can provide tutors while child is out of school and you wait which is likely to be a couple of hours a week. I imagine eventually they may build new schools if the number of children actually out of school gets so high and children have been left with no place but for this to happen all the parents will actually have to take their child out of the private schools to prove they have no place. Are all the private school parents in Edinburgh really prepared to give up work and keep their child out of school for months or years just to prove a point. The ones that will suffer most are genuine private school parents who can’t afford and need a state place and other non private school parents needing a mid year place for another reason.

i don’t actually agree with vat being added to education so I’m not a supporter of the policy but comments on this thread just show how out of touch some people are with what has already been happening in education over the last 10 years.

@Onomatofear

Fair enough, I've always said unless you know the actual people involved, or god forbid have been shown/had to view the video for child protection purposes, to take teenage gossip with a pinch of salt.

I do think teenage access to porn is hugely worrying and shapes attitudes.

The most well thumbed book in my school library was Forever by Judy Bloom, that and the stuff thrown in hedges was the closest we ever got.

If you think the council are suddenly going to build loads of schools it shows how clueless and out of touch you are

Ten years ago and for just five months:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-north-east-orkney-shetland-27717321

@Sloejelly

Not sure that article proves the point that you want it to. It wasn't a new school opening to make room for extra children.

You think they are really going to move children settled in other schools? In any case my point was that in certain areas it is not an insignificant number of children as the poster I was responding to was suggesting it was. It would certainly not just be just 1 child for every 3 classes.

”The city council had to reopen mothballed Braeside Primary to accommodate children.”

I mean, that story is hardly a good advert for private schools

to build an actual new school (which would be required in most places) takes years. There's securing the land, getting planning permission, procuring contractors and then getting the place built

Far more likely new classrooms would be built at existing schools (if it even got to that. The disdain for the state sector is clear from many PS parents on here so I can't see a mass exodus happening)

Of course they won't move children, but it takes years to build new schools and as they are building them they redraw the catchment zones.

@Sloejelly

"”The city council had to reopen mothballed Braeside Primary to accommodate children.”"

The school closed because it was failing and the council had to open an old school to cater for them.

Did you only read the first bit of the article following your googlemash?

I don’t know where you get the idea that all private schools are like Eton and Harrow. There are failing private schools. Many mediocre private schools too. And many many more that sit on the edge of insolvency. If more pupils leave then the council does have to pick up the pupils and if necessary build new schools or add portacabins to existing ones. And if a school closes due to insolvency then the council has to suddenly pick up the education of the entire school. In this case it cost the council quarter a million pounds to educate children for just a few months until they were found places in other schools (or parents placed them in different private schools). Curiously, just a few months later another private school in Aberdeen also closed - that time due to financial reasons.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-north-east-orkney-shetland-26842547#:~:text=The%20Waldorf%20School%2C%20in%20Craigton,reviewing%20the%20school's%20financial%20position.

And the local primary school won’t be ‘swamped’ anyway, will it? It’ll offer out any spare places it has and everyone else will be offered places in other schools with places available.
This idea will create a lot of work for a few Council workers but it won’t make any difference to anyone else.