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.

@MNHQ yes can we do this? We can even start a thread aimed asking other private school mums questions unrelated to VAT directly before it gets derailed.

It’s really unpleasant

I think if all schools say no then you appeal under the fair access protocol and schools create bulge classes etc

It might put pressure on but it won’t mean they’ll employ extra staff just that the processing time will get longer, so genuine people that are looking to move into the state system either becuase they can genuinely no longer afford private (rather than applying to state to make a point when they have no intention of taking up place) or people that want to change schools for other reasons such as moving into the area will have to wait longer for their applications to be sorted perhaps meaning thst their child is out of school for a period of time.

A large number of these ‘snobs’ in independent schools outside of London are children of teachers, nurses, small family business etc who didn’t get their first choice of school or a suitable school place at all. Which is why some of them are in independent schools to begin with. To label them as disruptors is quite entitled - they have the same right to access education as anyone else. You have a very narrow and view of what private school is- the likes of Eaton and Harrow are a whole world away from most.

There may be the odd few spreading those emails, just as there are some misguided people direct personal attacks and slurs at the social worker/ electrician/ police officer who privately educates their kid because they were bullied/ have SEND/ got allocated a school too far away etc. It’s all about perspective.

On one of our moves (Military family)..

1. DHs posting got changed a week before the move... so school place we had already sorted irrelevant
2. Applied for 3 nearest schools to the base (didn't get the chance to see them even as we were abroad!)
3. Dd2 offered space in 2nd choice 10 days later
4. DD1... no offer made.
5. Started appeal for DD1... meanwhile council (who were being helpful) started trying to find her a place
6. 3 weeks later... place found for DD1, appeal date also approaching but we had to start DD1 in the school several miles away, only transport option the official school taxi service. This was mid October now.
7. Won appeal DD1 started attending the local(ish) school with DD2. But had developed school anxiety as the whole process had left an 8yo feeling like she wasn't good enough and the school didn't want her.

No imagine dozens of malicious applications happening at the same time... the process would have taken longer, without so much help, the appeal board might have been overwhelmed and not so sympathetic (the appeal was granted as there's a bit the admissions statement in that area about ensuring military children are given spaces quickly and together, and they felt it was beyond that)

If they have been forced to 'go private' then they should have an understanding of the negative effect this action could have.

But lots of private school parents have come on here and said that they are doing no such thing and have not seen any such email or Whattsapp or whatever it was meant to be. This thread is just as likely to have been started by someone who wanted to stir up trouble and encourage the name calling.

I don’t think it is scaremongering that private school children will take up the places in the best schools. The grammar school heads have already expressed their concern about this. My privately school educated DC will go into year 7 this September and most of those that are leaving his school are going to super selective grammars or the highly regarded comp that has become one of the most oversubscribed in the county.

Like many private school parents, we have been aware of this policy for some time and many parents at my DC’s school have made their choices as a result of it plus other costs of living pressures. In our own case, we did consider moving to the catchment area of a better state comprehensive school but we decided it would be more cost effective to stay private, even if that does mean borrowing against our house. However, that’s because we already have one in state school. If we were looking for two places it would have been more cost effective to move.

I don’t know why the transfer to state is considered scaremongering it will (and is) happening and some existing state school pupils will end up being pushed further down the list. Ultimately no one is going to benefit for this policy. The Labour Party proposed it because they know it will encourage name calling and division and some people will think that they are getting one over on the Tories. Of course, the reality is Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak will not be impacted.

Which will be why they are not taking this action or circulating the email.

The Labour Party have not done anything to encourage "name calling and division"
They're trying to formulate plans for a fairer society after 14 years of misrule, including the nadir that was the premiership of Liz Truss.

Of course they are. Because a policy which ultimately has a negative effect on a group of children and makes private schools more elite is definitely fair. Shame you fell for it…

And this policy is absolutely a “red meat” policy just like Brexit. Which is why I didn’t vote for that either.

Exactly and my child with a disability goes to private school because she couldn’t cope in state. I’ve tried to get her back into state for 6th form but she cannot cope with this. She has now developed anorexia as a direct result of not coping with having a disability. As is idk if she will be mentally or physically well enough to even attend her current private school next year. And I am disabled myself.

The fees are already a stretch and coming out of savings. We were supposed to use that money to move house to get a downstairs bedroom for me. That now won’t be happening. Dd wouldn’t have been educated at all had it not been for paying fees as I’m far too ill to homeschool.

Obviously I find the context of this op abhorrent. However, the vitriol on this thread is also off the scale. We should be exempt from VAT when we have already saved the state thousands over the past 3 years because of dd’s disability.

Not every parent chose specifically to send their child to private school to make them a cut above the rest. My dd’s school is small and accepts kids with some level of learning difficulties. A minority sit a single science and don’t have to study a foreign language to maximise their chances of passing a smaller number of GCSEs.

I think a lot of the problem with why there’s been so much debate on this particular topic is it’s pretty much the only policy we know about and have some detail of what is to happen. Perhaps when labours manifesto is released later in the week the debate around this particular item will die down. They seem to have kept a lot close to their chest, I suppose that’s so the conservatives don’t steal their ideas but the vat on school fees they could be open about as it is a policy conservatives are unlikely to steal.

im not in favour of the vat but its not my most pressing issue out of everything going on that would swing my vote one way or the other. Most people I know aren’t particularly bothered on this issue either way.

Not seen a sniff of this round our way. I suspect it’s fiction. In fact I suspect it’s a fiction created by rabid supporters of the vat policy as a social media “false flag”, to provide a smokescreen for the very real migration from the independent to state sector, which Labour are utterly unprepared for.

I’m saying that they are not necessarily wealthy snobs who cannot afford the VAT. Not that they should or would be making bogus applications- which is a stupid thing to do and will not serve any purpose whatsoever.

It’s fairly standard to obtain a state school space if you are weighing up private vs state. Lots of parents hold multiple places at schools for YR and Y7. You take up private by paying the deposit and release the state at that time. In grammar counties, dc take 11 plus then it’s up to you what school you accept. In year transfers are far more difficult as are entries to schools at non standard times. There are usually only spaces in schools parents don’t want!!

Whilst applying for the sake of it is in my view immoral many parents will be applying for places due to the increasing fees which is a reality - whether you agree with the increase or not.

Sorry - the last two posts were due to my dd getting my phone - I've asked MNHQ to delete

I have answered it multiple times you just can’t be bothered to read it properly. The Labour Party are implementing a policy that will have a detrimental impact on a group of children (i.e. private school children whose parents will not longer be able to afford the fees and will have to remove them from schools that they are happy and settled in). For some of these children the consequences will be severe, particularly those who were previously removed from state schools that were not supporting their needs. You seem to think that is ok. I don’t because any policy that has a negative impact on a group of children is not OK in my view, especially where there are other ways of raising revenue, and I would say the same whatever political party imposed it.

I don't think it is ok, no. But I think it highlights the fact that not enough children have EHCPs.

If you are talking about independent schools for children with SEN which have to be paid for by the council, I'm assuming the council will have to pick up the extra cost,

If you are talking about a child on the spectrum who needs a less busy environment then you can negotiate fees with the school. Most private schools will negotiate fees for existing students who would otherwise leave due to fee increases. And if they don't then maybe they aren't such a good school for your child in the first place.

Perhaps if the Conservatives hadn't reduced funding for pupils with SEN, some of the children who were previously moved to private schools from state schools that weren't meeting their needs would have been able to be properly supported in state schools.

@Another76543 That’s not the case with some schools. Some schools still haven’t announced their fee increases for this September. There are often clauses in the Ts&Cs which state that, where less than a term’s notice of fee increases is given, a different notice period becomes applicable (eg within a month of being notified of the increase).

Any parent relying on a clause like this had better check the legal phrasing of their contract very very carefully.

I would expect that in most cases the fee will be the fee exclusive of any externally-applied surcharges beyond the school's control such as VAT.

The invoices I issue have VAT as a separate item to my actual charges and the multi-year contracts my company has with customers (which incidentally include some private schools) will specify that our price is £10,000 pa for 5 years excl VAT so the customer actually pays £12,000. If in y3 the government puts VAT up to 25% our invoice would be £12,500 and the customer would have no right of termination because our price remained constant.

Unfortunately, any policy that any government introduces will negatively impact some people.