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.

And actually, the private school families who genuinely now need to apply for a school place will suffer too

If you're suggesting that the intention of doing this is as a protest rather than the majority of people actually intending to switch their children to state (which I assume would be the case as otherwise they wouldn't be waiting for an email to tell them what to do!) then why would it put any pressure on state schools? They don't do the admin of allocating places, it's done centrally by the council.

If anything it might put some pressure on admin teams at the local council but as a pp has pointed out its already too late for normal applications so the most they'll get is an automated email saying sorry you are too late to apply, you will need to put in an in-year transfer. Whereas as a pp said they will probably be allocated a place in the most undesirable school and expected to take it up straightaway. At which point private school parent will have to make shame faced excuses, realise they're still liable for the next terms fees and don't want poor araminta to go to craphole comprehensive anyway....

How many parents are realistically actually going to go through the faff of filling in several forms just as a token process?

The tone of your first couple of posts sounded like you were agreeing with the mystery email. Funnily enough after the responses you got it seemed to change

Exactly what I was thinking lol the way things are going around VAT it's making me want to vote labour!

THIS IS TOTAL BOLLOCKS AND THERE IS NO EVIDENCE AT ALL OF ANY PRIVATE SCHOOL PARENTS DOING THIS OR EVEN CONTEMPLATING IT.

Sorry to “shout” but getting a bit tired of these transparent attempts to whip up anger with made up issues.

Within my friendship group we have children at 15 private schools around the country and none of us have heard any suggestion of doing this.

I work in admissions in a large state school. Parents already do this, as a 'safety net' in case their child doesn't get offered a place at their chosen private school usually, but some also do it out of curiosity, to see which school they would have had to go to, if they weren't rich (like giving themselves a little shudder of horror followed by a nice little feeling of smug glee).

Every year, even now, I am still contacting parents who have not returned their registration forms and 7 out of 10 of those will be because they are going to private school but either didn't realise, or didn't care, that we have a waiting list with children who would love to come to our school but who think they won't be, and whose parents in some cases, have already started to buy uniform etc for their current allocated school.

So I don't think the person who is sending this email round realises that it will make no difference to the state schools because they already have loads of applications who then withdraw further down the line.

They will be added to the waiting list, and if they happen to be of a higher place than a local state school child they will take the place and stress out a family who can not afford a private school. Nice.

Oh well, nobody seemed to care about the name calling that my disabled family members and I have had to put up with under this government who has sought to demonise vulnerable people for over a decade. I doubt you did either(!)

Me to. These threads are making it all the more delicious.

How embarrassing for anyone who actually does this.

Er...

nappyvalleynet.com/community/viewtopic.php?t=131976&start=30

I don't agree with doing this as a campaign, however if school put up by 20% we will have to leave so I am
In touch with the council and schools about places. Why wouldn't I? He is entitled to a place we have never taken up.

@ThinkAboutItTomorrow i stand corrected but it is certainly not a widespread or well supported campaign! There are a few loons in every sector. I don’t know anybody in real life who would even contemplate doing this.

Well I haven’t received any such email. I am also part of a large Facebook group for private school parents concerned about VAT which advises NOT to apply for a state school place unless you definitely want one.

If the parents sharing this went to private school they obviously weren’t taught critical thinking skills so maybe thier kids should go to state 😂

Hope this is a hoax. Appalling otherwise. Screwing up the life chances of potentially under privileged children because you are having an adult tantrum? I’d struggle to look at myself in the mirror.

Utter bollocks. My mum was disabled and I have a child in private school. The two are not mutuality exclusive you know. Are you actually saying that you want all private school children to be punished for the current Government?

Another stereotype…many parents who send their children to private school went to state themselves.

The parents on this private school WhatsApp group must all be a bit thick 🤪

Why are people so anti private school? What makes people think that they’ll stop existing?

Never dealt with any financial adversity. Bollocks, I was a free school meals kid myself. I grew up in poverty. Not everyone who sends their kids to private school comes from an affluent background themselves.

There are some parents who are genuinely worried about what is going to happen to their children, particularly those that were moved from the state system because they were not supported properly. It’s nothing to do with keeping all their “wealth”. If you genuinely believe that “rich” people should pay more then income tax should be increased. This policy doesn’t take into account how “rich” someone is and will not actually impact the rich.

And as for not contributing anything, please tell me where the £30k in income tax and NI that I contributed last year is going.

100% this. Maybe the (much!) larger number of state school parents should do the opposite of this - inundate private schools with emails and phone calls to the admissions department. Obviously with lots of complex questions about our hypothetical children we plan to send there. And then fill out and submit admission forms for places we have zero intention of taking up.

And see how the private schools and the parents with kids there like that. I imagine they’d be outraged at the waste of resources & money, and confusion this causes, and the selfishness. Which is what many state school parents think about the ‘plan’ OP mentions.

I’ll fess up that I got that message via WhatsApp. It got an extremely cold reception from every single other parent - either saying ‘don’t be so fucking stupid’ (although the ‘fucking’ was implied rather than express or just pretending it wasn’t sent. So there are those people out there hut they are not exactly rallying the troops behind them…

I’m not saying I agree with the plan to deluge the state system, but many people feel they are not being listened to. With regard to inundating private schools with applications, people are free to do that. However, a deposit is usually due fairly on in the process, and long before any real resources have been spent on admin.

somehow the nappy valley discussion is much more level, and no one appears to support this.