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.

The vast majority of 2024 start places have been allocated but people can still apply AND their application must be considered now.

Those who may apply for starting school in 2025 are not private school parents so could not have been told to put in vexatious applications. They are just parents who do not yet know which school their child will attend - private or not.

I'd have assumed that anyone applying for state school places would be doing so for 2025 entry

Why would you assume that if the point of these applications is to be spiteful and cause disruption?

But there's also a legitimate concern that a VAT change might be implemented during (or before) the 2024-25 school year and some parents may try to hedge their bets by applying preemptively.

Out of curiosity, if a parent applies for an in-year place, gets one, and then declines it, are they allowed to apply again immediately or is there some waiting period that they must observe?

@user149799568

"Why would you assume that if the point of these applications is to be spiteful and cause disruption?"

I hadn't actually considered that people would be that spiteful. If all PE parents sent in applications for state school for 2025, it would create a significant amount of extra work and mean that some might get places whilst others were given other schools, but I'd not considered this level of malice aforethought.

"But there's also a legitimate concern that a VAT change might be implemented during (or before) the 2024-25 school year and some parents may try to hedge their bets by applying preemptively."

Given that Parliament will break very soon after the GE for the summer, and tax legislation will only realistically be changed for the following tax year, this is mostly unfounded.

"Out of curiosity, if a parent applies for an in-year place, gets one, and then declines it, are they allowed to apply again immediately or is there some waiting period that they must observe?"

I don't know, I'd imagine thought they'd just be offered the same place, repeatedly.

I hadn't actually considered that people would be that spiteful.

Isn't that kind of the point of this thread?

@user149799568

Seriously, I'd taken it as they'd send in applications for starting 2025. As any VAT policy would have to take time to be drafted etc, passed through parliament, it is unlikely that they would manage it to be imposed in the middle of a tax year etc.

From the 'How soon might a Labour Government put 20% VAT tax on private school fees?' thread this morning:

"Any government could quite quickly remove the 0% vat rating for private schools, no new legislation would be required just a statutory instrument amending what can be given a 0% tax rating. I this [sic] this could be achieved in 12-16 weeks if desired."

This is only the most recent post making this assertion. What's your response to this? Genuine question on my part, I have no knowledge in this area.

"Any government could quite quickly remove the 0% vat rating for private schools, no new legislation would be required just a statutory instrument amending what can be given a 0% tax rating. I this [sic] this could be achieved in 12-16 weeks if desired."

Genuinely? I don't know.

But as there would be careful wording needed in order to make sure there were no unintended consequences, I would hope it wouldn't happen within such a short time.

I think we'd probably see it implemented for the 25-26 academic year.

Not sure what this proves. They didn’t build a new school they reopened a mothballed school it says in the article and thst is totally different to building 5 new schools. Also the children were without places as their private school had closed, as I said in my original post private school parents will have to withdraw their children from school and have them at home without places for maybe months or years without places then the council will maybe start thinking about building new schools

This proposal was made a couple of weeks ago in a group of 400 parents bitching about fees and VAT at one of my local senior schools, so it's real, and doing the rounds.
I think it's irresponsible and spiteful. It'll mean that the local authority can't process the applications from those who genuinely need to move school. As if the poor buggers in overstretched local authority teams that have been hollowed out by austerity didn't have enough to do.
I also think the original policy of putting tax on education was irresponsible and spiteful. But an eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.

If you think councils act lawfully as regards education then it shows how massively out of touch you are with the reality of the last 10 years. Ask any parent of an sen child about legal practises of their local authority

Lebr · Today 13:44
This proposal was made a couple of weeks ago in a group of 400 parents bitching about fees and VAT at one of my local senior schools, so it's real, and doing the rounds.

That’s interesting. Do you have a copy of the letter that you could screenshot and post on here?

If they have declined a place then the council have fulfilled their duty by naming a school, they can try reapplying but the council is under no obligation to find another place

There are nearly always schools with spare places. Not a huge number and dc wouldn’t necessarily be in the same school. So a LA must consider applications for y2 and y4 if they receive them now, for example. I’m assuming parents would have severed their contracts with private schools and not sought spaces earlier. If you really couldn’t afford a school you would normally get your ducks in a row before now.

Parents can apply for state schools at any time. In year, late or on time. Applying now for secondary places means they must be considered but won’t necessarily get a place at their preferred school. They are late applications for y7 or in year applications.

SEN is entirely different and those applications aren’t following the same process.

theres not a 0% vat rating on private schools though. Education is exempt from vat which means that private schools don’t charge vat on their fees as the service they provide is education. Make education standard rated instead of exempt and other providers of education will also need to charge vat if over registration limit which can have all sorts of unintended consequences.

Also education is exempt from vat not 0% zero rated they are two very different things with diff implications. Vat is horrendously complicated nothing is simple in vat!!

realise I’ve replied to a reply instead of original sorry!!

I don't think people should apply for places out of spite, that's a waste of everyone's time.

I do think people should apply if they're not absolutely certain they can absorb the added fees as they can't be sure how much of the added cost that schools will pass on to parents.

I also think it would very useful and give the (new?) government an idea of the potential new demand for schools

The proposal was made and discussed by two people in a whatsapp group set up by parents concerned about fees (I'm not in the group but DP is, and showed me it). So I haven't seen an email/letter, but I've seen the same idea expressed in writing 3 weeks ago, in group with a membership of several hundred.

I've only seen it on MN but it is shocking even at this anonymous forum level. I've seen it proposed on two threads by different posters. The fact that these individuals can be so spiteful to suggest it is awful, but that is just a couple of randoms. The bigger issue is that not one of the PS parents called them out on it but rather debated how it would work, which is much more shocking. It makes it evident that to them the only children that matter in this is the private school ones and they don't care about the impact on children in state schools, although they are quick to use the pressure on state schools as one of the arguments for their great cause. As a group on this platform, they are not looking very good at all.

Yes, I don’t think many people understand the big difference between exempt and zero rated. There is an advantage to being zero rated rather than exempt.

I haven't seen this yet (kids at private school) but I really hope those of you who have are calling out th people suggesting it.

That would cause huge harm to the few children who really do have to move. It's an utterly nasty thing to even think of doing. If I see it I shall be calling it out!

private school parents will have to withdraw their children from school and have them at home without places for maybe months or years without places then the council will maybe start thinking about building new schools

There is a significant difference in resources available to parents who are no longer paying private school fees and your average parent of a SEN child. Plus a significant difference in resources necessary to make appropriate spaces available to a mainstream child without SEN vs an SEN child with specific needs. You are living in another world if you don’t think these two factor means ex-private school children will be treated differently to SEN children.

The proposal was made and discussed by two people in a whatsapp group set up by parents concerned about fees (I'm not in the group but DP is, and showed me it). So I haven't seen an email/letter, but I've seen the same idea expressed in writing 3 weeks ago, in group with a membership of several hundred.

@Lebr okay - and do you know how many parents have carried out this suggestion?

These parents won’t have given a term’s notice though so they are testing the system. Rather a waste of everyone’s time. Hopefully parents who cannot afford private have given in their notice at the end of the spring term and have applied for a state place by now. Others of course might be waiting for end of ks1 or ks2.

Some schools still haven’t given details of fee increases for 24/25 so not all parents will have had to have given notice already, depending on their ts&cs.

I saw it proposed several times in the comments section of the National Newspapers. It just feels like kicking down.

no - I don't have any information beyond what I've already given. I thought it was worth stating I'd seen the idea seriously proposed by people to large groups of private school parents weeks ago, as some earlier posts on this thread accused the OP of making it up, or spreading a rumour / urban myth.