What if Keir Starmer had been forced to move school part way through?

[Kitsot]

I find it interesting that Keir Starmer attended a state grammar school and was allowed to stay on for free after it moved to private whilst he was there. He doesn’t seem to consider it an issue that children will need to be moved from private to state school part way through their time at a school due to the VAT imposition. I wonder how different his life would have turned out if he had instead been forced to leave his school and move to the local comprehensive or wherever had space.

Further to this, to me it would make more sense if VAT was only added to fees for children joining at the usual entry points from next September and then going forward for those years from that point. It would still be an unpopular policy but it would at least give parents time to apply for state schools within the normal entry rounds and children wouldn’t need to move school part way through, which can be hard even if it is between two similar types of schools. The downside is that it wouldn’t initially raise as much money as planned.

Just for transparency to add that I am in a fairly neutral position regarding this and have experience of both sectors. I myself am from a working-class background and went to a bog-standard comprehensive in the 1980s.

Also I’m actually offering being part of funding so it’s quite funny to hear back your values are x y z

Maybe it’s a bit like reverse psychology people offer and it’s a no

Yes, it's amazing how popular a policy of taking money from someone else and spending it on me has proven to be.

Something that the typical private school parent - merchant bankers, captains of industries and lawyers - would never, ever dream of doing.

You might, but you would be wrong. How many times have you looked at the accounts of small private schools? Many are publicly available. Ours is. Absorbing costs is out of the question. All fees fund education and bursary.

The only way to reduce costs would be to lay off teachers. Our classes are capped at 24. If numbers raise above that, people would not be willing to pay the fees. We do not have pools, or ponies, stadiums or fancy facilities. Small classes is literally all that the school has as a usp.

Most people simply do not understand the reality for small independents. They picture fucking Eton. That is ultra rare and simply has no relevance at all to your average independent school.

Well, I'm sure that some very small schools would struggle because they are already running on an unsustainable financial model and can't attract enough students to cover their costs. We all know that some schools have been teetering on the verge of collapse for years, but that's the same as any business really - if you can't generate enough income to cover your costs then you aren't a viable enterprise.

But when you look at my local private schools and what they actually deliver in terms of the education on offer, it is very difficult not to wonder how they are spending so much more per head than the much less well resourced state schools when they really aren't adding that much extra value. The smaller class sizes are the main costs, of course, but there is scope for adjustment there if needed.

Knowing how hard state schools have had to work to find efficiencies because of chronic underfunding, I really don't agree that most private schools couldn't find some savings if they really had to. But of course, many will make the calculation that they can afford to pass the increase to their customers because they deem demand to be relatively inelastic. If they think they're going to lose most of their customers, believe me, they will find a way of sucking the extra costs up.

No, many small schools catering to SEN, especially autistic children and children with dyslexia and processing issues and other issues that may not quite get an EHCP, and children with emotional & anxiety issues, who NEED small class sizes and quieter spaces, will go bust and be sold off to developers and private equity.
There is no “market” in the state sector for these children! There are either very expensive special schools some costing the tax payer up to 100k per year per child! That is why the private school sector has had to fill the space - because the state failed to cater to these children, in many cases. Councils have chosen to pay for some of these places because they were cheaper than special schools (state and private). If you let some of these schools fail, then the kids with EHCPs there also have nowhere to go. It is completely unacceptable and if you bother to listen carefully, it is what the ISC has been saying and nobody in the Labour Party has engaged properly. They are complete cowards, digging their heads in the sand.

The reason people only picture the top private 100 schools in all of this, is because most of the journalists focus in on images of school boys in Eton or Harrow uniform and their extensive facilities. These schools have endowments anyway and can weather the storm which is probably temporary anyway until the next Tory Government gets in. But by then small SEN schools will have gone bust and been sold off. And none of us should be accepting that. Especially if you have leftie principles, it makes no sense whatsoever to support this policy.

Look at what is happening to this school that was recently closed and that was part of one of the bigger foundations! And not a SEN school. This is what will happen and it is unacceptable.

www.standard.co.uk/homesandproperty/property-news/croydon-girls-school-for-sale-john-whitgift-foundation-b1172649.html

I find it bizarre too that people want this to happen. A 20% tax in one year on any sector would wipe out a banding and schools / children seem to be where people are enthusiastic about that happening

Except it’s dc and schools you describe, why is that good? if what you say does happen I hope there is scrutiny from somewhere

I think it is just cliched, blinkered thinking on the part of some Labour MPs and members: a la the Etons of this world are factories for future Tory MPs/Tories so let’s at least make them pay. Never mind that if you follow that through to its logical conclusion, a VAT penalty is the best way of ensuring that that fallacy does become true as you victimise and put them off Labour and create an “us and them”.

In the real world, the top elite 100 private schools only represent 100k children and their families.
The remaining private schools, many of which are small significant local employers and catering to eg doctors in poorer areas and or SEN kids, are thrown to the wolves in pursuit of the fallacy above.

The problem I have with all of this is that it is just like Brexit or Rwanda- blame a small minority for the ills and make them a scapegoat.
Except when it’s children and it includes children with SEN I really have to draw a line!

I think when people say the true elite don’t care, I think they mean that the elite understand the motivations and can withstand it . But I think many are uncomfortable with it affecting poorer parents than them, or teachers or kids with SEN or local ground staff. A lot of the top schools take their roles as significant local employers very seriously and often do overspend for that reason. It’s not necessarily an inefficiency it’s eg to keep the local tailors in business due to hundreds of years of loyalty and respect for the trade.