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.

Yes of course children without sen will be treated much more favourably that stands to reason but I still don’t think a council will be building 5 brand new schools straight away without kids even being out of school for a period of time as the poster I was replying to suggested would be the case in Edinburgh

just realised you are the poster who posted about the 5 new schools but point still stands

I posted a reply to to that post as it’s absolute piece of garbage.

for one it is provision of education that is exempt from vat not private schools. Removing the exemption means vat will be chargeable on all provision of education so may have unintended consequences

secondly education is exempt from vat not 0% zero rated the two are very different.

vat is horrendously complicated tax.

thsts not to say it won’t be brought in relatively quickly as Labour have had alot of years to think about this plan so may have ironed out some of the issues

"Removing the exemption means vat will be chargeable on all provision of education so may have unintended consequences"

This is relatively easy to legislate for, and there will be very few, if any unintended consequences.

I’ve worked in tax for 30 years (not specifically vat) and it’s fairly common that there are unintended consequences in tax changes, that is why our tax and vat law is so horrendously complicated and we end up with loop holes. I’d be amazed if there are no unintended consequences.

The current situation is that education is exempt when provided by an eligible body, which in this case means a charity. Since Labour say they aren't going to remove charitable status from independent schools, the legislation will need to differentiate between colleges, universities and academies (all of which are currently exempt because they are also charities and all of which need to remain VAT exempt), and independent schools. There are also hundreds of other charities that provide education for specific sectors such as disabilities. The law will have to be drafted in such a way as to avoid bringing them into VAT. And, given HMRC's long history of trying to raise money by using laws in ways that were not intended when they were introduced, they will need to draft the law to make it HMRC-proof.

this is the current guidance on vat on education, it’s anything but simple

https://www.gov.uk/guidance/vat-on-education-and-vocational-training-notice-70130

School/parent contracts rarely depend on schools releasing their fee structure. It’s usually 1 term notice. Many schools have published fees though, but obviously not including vat as it’s not the law at the moment.

Why do people keep talking about children with SEN in specialist private schools? That is a different kettle of fish - the council will simply pick up that tab.

To get a place in schools like this, the child has to have an ECHP and funding must be agreed by the child's council or via tribunal. Parents aren't allowed to 'buy' their way into the school - that's not how it works. My oldest daughter with very significant SEN went to two independent, residential SEN schools. And the costs of these schools are very expensive - up to £500k a year.

Some schools do have ts&cs covering the scenario where fee increases are announced after the start of the previous term.

EHCP * clearly. I thought that didn't look right 🫣

Yes, maybe, but the contract is rarely less than 1 terms notice. Show me one where it’s not.

@Onomatofear I think you are comparing apples and pears. I know send schools can be very expensive with few parents paying the fees. Many parents know dc have Sen snd find their local state school doesn’t suit. So they go private. These are not often special schools as you describe. They are mostly private schools with smaller classes and some understanding of SEN. Often they will not want dc with a ECHP. Many schools are havens for dc with sensory needs and SPLD. They often don’t take dc with extensive all round learning difficulties. However many of these parents won’t be rich and are scraping fees together and sometimes paying quite a premium for extra help.

I’ve mentioned Sen a few times two different reasons-

1. schools like the ones your daughter is in, which cost several hundred thousand pounds a year. These schools tend in the main not to be charities but have shareholders and are run as businsses, meaning that out of the Money paid by the council some will be going on staffing, education supplies, cost of the building but a significant proportion is going into the hands of the shareholders of the school, who are often very rich people anyway. So Sen spending is going up and up and up but millions of pounds a year isn’t actually benefiting disabled children in anyway whatsoever. This is a completely different issue than the vat

2. some children with less severe Sen than your daughter are not able to manage in mainstream but it is very difficult to get an ehcp or specialist school from local authorities. Some people choose go to tribunal and fight which can take years. Some rather than fighting may choose to send their child to a small private school. These schools are often small in nature and have smaller classes and more personalised to the child. Typically they tend to be relatively cheap by private school standards although is often still a stretch for some parents. It is this type of school, parent and child that is most likely to suffer. The parents haven’t chosen private school but had no other choice as failed by the state.

They sometimes include a clause along the lines of one clear terms notice unless you receive less than a term’s notice of a fee increase, in which case notice must be given within 28 days of that notice

Example? Never seen this. Mainly because they want to recruit into your vacated place.

I’ve seen it. I’m not saying which school though. Just because you haven’t seen it doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.

No one I know who sends their children to private school is going to have to pull them out if the fees go up, so @clarkkentsglasses I think your 'tens of thousands' figure is way overstated!

There are lots if very rich people out there.

1. You can’t ’request a state school place’ via email.
2. Do any counties in the UK even have ‘tens of thousands’ of children in private schools??

No, more likely they would put portacabins in current schools. But that wasn’t my point about the 5 secondaries - I was responding to a poster who was saying 50% of private school children leaving was an insignificant number for local schools to absorb. I was pointing out in some areas (Edinburgh) it is not.

Yes but we know that percentage won't actually leave. Because most private school parents have plenty of mileage for belt tightening, and most (judging by Mumsnet, not my personal views) seem to believe state schools are crazed horror zones they barely dare walk past

So I am sure the percentage will be far lower in reality

Same, we have three in private and I can't see any of their friends needing to move. Certainly there's no chatter about it. And judging by the homes , holidays, cars and hobbiesof their peers they are no more concerned about it than we are. Yeah it's money it would be nice to have but we'll find it. We made the choice to send the children and we wouldn't have made it if it was going to be precarious

I agree it is unlikely 50% will leave but that wasn’t the point I was responding to.

You can’t ’request a state school place’ via email

In Scotland you can make a placing request by email.

But it just seems barking to worry about things that are quite simply not going to happen

To get a place in schools like this, the child has to have an ECHP and funding must be agreed by the child's council or via tribunal. Parents aren't allowed to 'buy' their way into the school - that's not how it works. My oldest daughter with very significant SEN went to two independent, residential SEN schools. And the costs of these schools are very expensive - up to £500k a year.

A school costing £500k a year would cost the council an extra £100k in VAT and that the money is lost from the council education budget.

The local independent specialist schools I know (all charities) all would absolutely take children whose parents pay privately. They can ‘buy their way in’ if the schools feel they can meet needs. I know one family who did just that whilst they were taking the council to tribunal. However, there are very very few families who can afford the fees of these schools so it is very rare that they are asked.

Surrey has 40,000 children in independent schools (across both primary and secondary), 92,500 children in state primary and 65,500 in state secondary.

https://www.surreyi.gov.uk/dataset/2y3j8/number-of-schools-and-pupils-by-type-of-school

Whilst they don't break down independent school numbers between primary and secondary, we know that dropping birth rates mean that there are fewer primary school children than secondary. So I'm going to estimate that the 40,000 independent students breaks down to at most 10,000 primary and 30,000 secondary - since that would even out the total numbers of students across the 2 sectors between primary and secondary (if anything, more of the private school students are in secondary to reflect the falling birth rates).

Which means that at least one third of secondary students in Surrey are in private schools. 30,000 private school secondary students compared to 60,000 state school secondary students.

So yes, that would definitely cause a huge headache for the council if a significant proportion moved. Or if a significantly higher proportion of year 6 children chose state in Year 7 than have in previous years.

Edinburgh and Bristol are similar. Those are cities not counties though, and some posters have suggested that more private school students commute into those cities than state school students. That obviously doesn't apply for a whole huge county like Surrey.

It goes without saying that parents should only request a state school place if they think they may take it up. Doing it to cause trouble would be a really shitty thing to do. I still haven't seen anything to make me believe that they are: it really does look like rumour and urban myth. Possibly put out there by people (not private school parents) trying to stoke up tensions.