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.

Oh, interesting. The schools I came across said in their info that the funding must be via the LA but I'm happy to stand corrected - maybe some do take children another way.

But adding vat technically isn’t increasing the fee, the actual fee being charged by the school would still be the same, it would just have vat added on top.

I agree. My original comment was in response to someone saying that anyone at private school is now liable for next term’s fees if they haven’t already given notice. That isn’t necessarily the case where a school hasn’t yet given notice of a fee increase for next year yet (entirely separate from VAT).

My ds was at an independent specialist school , we took the decision to pay ourselves after our local school told us he would be a burden to them, our LEA is one of the worst in the country for SEN support and we were tired of trying to force people to educate him. Who wants their child to be somewhere he isn’t wanted.

I would say roughly half the children were self funding and half being paid for by their LEA. Some parents were making huge sacrifices to pay the fees and the school tried really hard to keep any extra costs such as uniform to a minimum. It really demonstrates how special education is a post code lottery . The difference in what people in some got compared to others was night and day .

VAT will cripple these schools , I can’t think of any parents who were comfortably affording the fees and the school had no big capital projects on which they could reclaim VAT the majority of the costs were salaries for teachers and support costs . I would be very surprised to see them survive this which is such a shame because the child who was apparently a burden and would not get any qualifucations is now working , paying tax, living independently and is a net contributor to the economy . He also volunteers regularly .

The LA should be paying for children who have SEN though - it's terrible that parents are now having to fund this. And the situation would be easier to manage if councils have more money instead of the 50% cuts they've had to cope with.

I completely agree but my ds was born in 1998 and most of our battles were during the early 2000s when there was a Labour government . It was almost impossible then to get what was called at the time ‘a statement ‘ our LEA would use any ploy possible to avoid and if you did get one the named school would fight not to take their child or as happened to a number of people I know make life impossible for the child and parents once they were in the school so that they eventually left. It has only got worse .

For those not in the know - in 2022/23 academic year over 13,000 families in England had to take their council to tribunal over SEN provision, with nearly 8,000 going to the full hearing, at a cost of over £100million to the public purse. Of those going to the full hearing the parents won 98.3% of cases. But it also costs families considerable resources (both financial and emotional) to go to tribunal so many people don’t feel able to even though they would likely win. https://www.specialneedsjungle.com/send-tribunal-2023-councils-stop-wasting-public-funds-send-appeals-fail-almost-all-time/

in Scotland there are far fewer parents in a position to appeal to tribunal as CSPs have much more restrictive criteria which require input from other services who themselves are so poor that it can be like getting blood from a stone to get support.

@strawberrybubblegum

One of the problems with the Surrey figures is, that it assumes all the students in private education are from Surrey. There are a good number of boarding schools and of course some children may commute for day school from other counties.

My situation was the same - my dd got her statement in 2005. But the difference then is that there was the money and you just had to fight for it. Which is still a far from ideal situation! But better than what exists now.

@Onomatofear

As someone who worked in this field a long time ago - we have always had many parents who want a boarding school for their dyslexic child, for example. They don’t want a local school where other similar dc go.

There is a clear hierarchy of sen need and one huge issue is the very clued up intelligent parents get far more for their dc. Always did and always will.

Therefore the better off and clued up are offered sen provision (eventually) in line with everyone else (never good enough) but often decide to pay because they can pay. The vast majority cannot. Usually the poor do not have the same advocacy and have to take the limited offering of the state.

Very few schools are £500k a year!!! Some will charge significantly less and take quite a narrow range of sen, mostly dyslexia. So you cannot say all sen schools can reasonably welcome all parents.

Well as a parent, you do have to advocate for your child, yes. But that’s the same as things like advocating for your own health. It’s the only way to get something when you are in a minority group. I’d be the first to say that nobody will come knocking on your door with solutions when you have a child with SEN. I won two tribunals against our LA though and I’m not rich or particularly well connected.

The current government has caused everyone to hate people with disabilities and accuse them of faking it to get money. And that culture needs to change before anything else will get better.

I haven’t received this email. My 2 DC go to private school.

I always apply for a state place and I will be doing so next year when my DC is in year 11. It is part of my decision process. Also, who knows what will happen. We might lose our jobs, or be unable to work, or Labour may make it unviable to send them to the private school. If you don’t have this as a back up, you are pretty silly.

Right now it looks like I won’t send my DC to private 6th Form, but we are undecided, so yes, we will apply for 2 state options for them.

I find it laughable that you want me to pay VAT on my DC’s education, something that has proven an own goal in other countries stupid enough to try this, and more and more and more tax, but I’m not even allowed to have state school as an option. I’m also confused. I thought you all wanted us in there to improve standards, hassle the teachers, join the PTA and donate money to the school? So which is it?

My DC have just as much right to apply to a state school as yours do, and we will be doing so, whether some people like it or not. Since I’ve saved the UK 2 x kids state school education costs up until late teens, I won’t be feeling guilty about it either.

@TakeAnOldBagShopping

"My DC have just as much right to apply to a state school as yours do, and we will be doing so, whether some people like it or not. "

You are welcome to. People are just annoyed by the idea that some parents will do this without needing a place specifically to create more work.

You are welcome to. People are just annoyed by the idea that some parents will do this without needing a place specifically to create more work.

Has there been any evidence yet that parents are doing this?

@Barbadossunset

This thread started to encourage parents to do this, and some have said that they will.

This is what people are objecting to.

I'm applying to state as a back up too.

Except they're not. I haven't seen a single comment on this thread or any of the other VAT ones I've been following where people have said they will do that. On the contrary, lots of people have said they haven't seen any such messages, and it would be a stupid thing to do.

Could you 'quote' a few from this thread who have said they intend to maliciously apply for a place they don't need, so that the message comes back to the top and we can see them?

Or are you just shit-stirring?

A few people have said they'll apply as back ups, or because they're not sure. That's not the same at all: it's perfectly reasonable and sensible.

That's what the tread started as a point of doing, other people have said they've seen whatsapp chats with it on?

It might not be many, but the sentiment is awful

@Onomatofear The big issue for Sen dc is ability of parents to advocate for them. There are lots of dc whose parents aren’t ok with this and feel out of their depth. It’s not about money or connections. It’s actually about not letting go and navigating the system. Some parents (many being sen themselves with low IQ) just cannot do this. These parents often find their DC are the least likely to get what they need. In the past we didn’t allocate funds according to need, I feel we allocated according to advocacy skills of the parents.

Any particular reason to think that Surrey has more non-Surrey children coming from outside the county to board in Surrey than there are Surrey children going to boarding schools outside the county?

I think it's likely to be the other way round, given that Surrey is an unusually wealthy county, likely to have an above-average proportion of children boarding compared to other counties.

There are 22 boarding schools in Surrey, which range from schools which are mainly Day like Priorsfield with about 60 borders to big names like Charterhouse with 800 borders. I'm not going to add up the numbers, but I'd give a finger-in-the-air estimate of around 3000 borders.

A lot of children will of course weekly or occasional board close to home. But anyway, boarding isn't actually big enough to be significant to these numbers anyway.

Even if all the Surrey boarders came from outside Surrey, and no Surrey children boarded outside the county - which is a ridiculous assumption - that's would still make it about 27,000 private day school secondary students compared to 60,000 state school secondary students.

Boarding schools barely make a difference to the impact.

And as for commuting across from other counties, there's likewise absolutely no reason to think that there are more kids coming into Surrey than going out.

*A lot of the approximately 3000 borders will be weekly or occasional boarding close to home.

I don't mean 'a lot' overall. Boarding is tiny.

"Any particular reason to think that Surrey has more non-Surrey children coming from outside the county to board in Surrey than there are Surrey children going to boarding schools outside the county?"

Because boarding students are often from outside of the local area, and Surrey has several high profile boarding schools that attract students from across the country and world?

You're also assuming that all students studying in Surrey as day students are from Surrey too, some may be from outside the county.

But as you said, Surrey is an unusually wealthy county, and for this reason we probably don't have to worry about too much migration between private and state provision?

Quite rude to accuse the poster of "shit-stirring". I'm very surprised you haven't seen some of these posts, particularly as you seem quite invested in the debate.

Here is one specific example from one of the many VAT threads. I won't say which one to protect anonymity but it is very clear that these are real and recent posts. I have removed the posters' names.

I have seen several more examples of this is recent weeks and I am not even following this debate closely.

XXXXXXXX· 02/05/2024 22:28
I really hope that, if this comes in, every parent paying fees at the moment gets together and causes absolute chaos for the government and local councils until they reverse the policy. Everyone should apply for a place at state school for their child. That would cause chaos in itself. Then when the place is given, let them go for a day, then keep them off for as long as possible before you get fined then deregister them. Then repeat the process!!! All whilst keeping them in their private school. Would grind the system to a halt. I’m so angry about all this I would happily organise it. Edited
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XXXXXXX 02/05/2024 22:44
XXXXXX · 02/05/2024 22:28

Would MN allow a plotting thread 🤣🤣
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Not one private school parent called them out. Not one.

@Paradoxygen

Thanks.

Although tbf it's only some of the private school parents who are opposing this tax have not covered themselves in glory with many of their posts.

I agree. And there are nasty comments on both sides. I was just addressing the 'shit stirring' comment as I remembered reading that specific example.