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.

Ffs. It's not that much more money a week. Just buy less wine!

A lot of parents already do this.
It works out in the wash. Causes anguish to some parents waiting to get their kids in school.
Selfish assholes. Tax them at 40%. Those that do this.

The latter will be a minority, but coupled with declining applications to independent schools, this could see some of the smaller ones close. This has already started to happen ( I know of 3 independent primaries within half an hour of me which closed last year) and some of those children went into the state sector. The numbers of applications to independent will generally decline and more people will enter the state sector at reception/ y7.

All this bill will serve to do is make private education even more elite and state education even more stretched. The super wealthy won’t bat an eyelid.

What entitled plonkers ..

But now that this email is publicised if the la get applications for state schools from virtually all private school children won’t they just think, “its just lots of private school parents trying it on to induce panic about places they won’t actually take up the place”, to induce the panic you’d then actually need to go as far as taking up the place and sending child for an amount of time which most aren’t going to want to do.

its not just the faff of the forms either, I know of people who have transferred into our local authority area mid year and had lots of problems getting a school. The council just do nothing even though they are legally obliged to offer a place and kids end up out of school for months whilst parents spend day after day trying to contact the right person at the council. Inevitably a few of these a year make it into the local press when parents feel they are getting no where

This. 100%

And there you go again. “Posh” school, you just can’t help yourself. Being moved from a school that they are happy and settled in will be traumatic for some children. It doesn’t matter what “type” of school it is. There are lots of children in private school who were moved from there from the state sector because their needs were not being supported. They are amongst the pupils that are most likely to be removed because their parents are already stretching themselves to pay the fees. Do you really think it’s not going to impact them?

It doesn’t matter that it’s a first world problem. You could say that about a lot of issues but it will still impact some children adversely. And that’s why having a policy that will detrimentally impact a group of children shows that the Labour Party are just as bad as the Tories. There are other ways to raise money and this policy won’t even impact the genuinely wealthy. It will be the small private schools with a higher proportion of SEN kids that end up closing, not Eton or Winchester.

I do wonder if threads like this are started by either

1. people who oppose the vat and want to scaremonger people who support it

2. people who support the vat that want to change of minds of people that oppose it.

I’m actually against charging vat on education as I think there will be unintended consequences, effects on Sen etc, won’t go into the detail as I’ve posted on other threads.

However this thread and a few others similar has showed me how out of touch some people are with the realities of life for the majority of the population and only think of themselves. Although I’m against the principal of charging vat on education threads like this are making me move towards being more supportive of labours policy, so if the op was aimed to try and achieve point 2 from above it’s doing its job, if its point 1 it’s done the opposite

@Morph22010 are you saying that private school parents cannot express their concern about the policy because they are perceived as having more money than someone else? Even where they don’t actually have a spare £4k to pay up and are extremely worried about what is going to happen to their DC. Amongst my friends that send their kids to private school, one is a social worker, a couple are state school teachers and one is a careers adviser. None of them earn big money or could be described as “rich” but it seems quite acceptable for people to call them names on here. Dreadful.

As if getting into your school of choice isn't difficult enough without the private school snobs acting as disruptors.

If there's not space in local schools, then children coming from the private sector will be allocated a space at the nearest school with space - which could be several miles away. There's no obligation to create spaces at parent's preferred schools.

That said, 10% of private pupils is very roughly 62000, which is less than 2 students per UK school. The vast majority of schools have to accommodate more than 2 in year transfers every year, so it's hardly a major issue.

In my county parents have to apply directly to each school for admissions other than Reception and year 7, the council doesn't get involved.

Why do you think it is acceptable to call someone names because they choose a different type of school for their DC?

It’s not - we’ve been called “plebs” and told to “enjoy your shitty schools” on one of these other interminable threads.

Please can we have a separate private schools section? This is getting g ridiculous now.

Let's hope the NUT are reading this then so they are forewarned not to panic!

No it is going to put pressure on council employees, who cannot do anything about VAT that might not even be introduced and if it is might be brought in at a different level.

Well I haven’t seen that and I have been on many of these threads. However, I have seen private school parents being called names by numerous posters and have suffered personal attacks including being goaded by someone who insisted that I had a favourite child because I have one in private and one in state.

Indeed let's hope the NUT gets a grip.

Or even the NEU!

i have no objections to people expressing concern and as I said I’m not in support of the vat policy. I know a number of people with children with Sen who have had no choice but to use the private sector even though they can’t really afford it and it’s people like this that are going to suffer along with people like yourselves, people in your situation if you are applying to state school it is because of the very real possibility thst you will have to take up that place. Where I am losing sympathy is comments from people that have no intention of taking a state place (so follows that they can afford the vat) but want to try to mess up the application system for other children (including your child and the various ones you mention in your post) or scaremongering that this increase will mean that ex private school children take all the places in good state schools, and lots of other posts along these lines, they just show me how out of touch with reality some people are.

What happens if all the schools say no? Ultimately it is the la’s responsibility to find a mainstream school place

Why do parents of AEN children have to do this? Because provision has been cut in state schools. Because of 14 years of governments committed to slashing budgets and cutting taxes for the wealthy.
It has to change.

lol any proof?

Two kids in private school and not seen anything remotely like this.

We was asked last year by the school how we feel about the proposed plans - that’s it.

Try harder! 😂😂

We are averaging 17 kids per class in our rural village school. They’d love an extra bunch of kids funding wise. Lots of parents have taken their kids out and sent them to private due to behavioural issues. I don’t think they are coming back regardless.