Have your school shared VAT update?

[nearlylovemyusername]

Just heard from ours, total increase will be 15%. This is on the top of annual increase of 4%.
Significant number of kids moving to grammar

Some PS parents seem very quick to claim that those of us who have a fundamental disagreement with private and selective schooling are claiming the moral high ground.

Nope, spend your money on what you like, that's up to you. See, no moral high ground required.

@SabrinaThwaite

"You, as a private school parent, are knowingly buying into a system that promotes and entrenches educational, social and economic inequality, whether you are willing to acknowledge that or not."

Well given that intelligence is 60 to 70% heredity then a bigger problem is that intelligent people tend to be higher income earners and also tend to marry other intelligent higher income earners.

Clearly not a serious proposition but I you truly want to promote social and economic equality you would be better off forcing intelligent high income earners to only have children with less intelligent low income earners. In order to even out the genes more fairly.

You ARE claiming the moral high ground through comments such as this:

Getting off my arse with a group of others to do something for the community which costs me time and effort = privilege.

Outsourcing this to private educators by paying for it = not privilege.

Or comments like this:

Glad to see that you realise you’re part of the problem when it comes to perpetuating elitism and privilege.

BTW, both DH & I went to a poor state school but we never once considered sending DC to grammars or private schools. It’s not the justification that you think it is.

Children in PS are being tutored too so no nasty shocks.
People are not stupid, they see what's going on around them. Many families in all through schools have been tutoring for 11+, just in case.

My DC who was pushed out of the school they love due to VAT had to do VR/NVR/maths for another school literally overnight, with no prep whatsoever. We got an offer. Tutored children will do better than that.

If you think that the poster sending their child to one of the big public schools isn't entrenching elitism (which was the context of the reply that you've helpfully extracted) then I can't help you.

Who are you referring to? Do you mean that's your reason for posting I'm not sure how you can be certain otherwise

Everyone on MN who sends kids to private school, or even has one doubt about Kier is a Tory Bot

Post pro Labour / Starmer or else ;

Some posters clearly don't know what they're talking about (how much fees can or cannot be, how bursaries/scholarships work etc) and mostly keep winding ppl up by spiteful nonsense so I assume they're just trolls? 🤔

@EasternStandard - I just find these threads really quite bizarre and entertaining. I am afraid that I am of the opinion if you can afford to send your child to PS school then you pay the additional fee. The rest of the discussion is just game playing by people employed to influence information on social media or as a pp said unpaid trolling.

That's because you've swallowed Labour propaganda about the types of people who use indy schools ie they miss out the 1000s on bursaries as 1 example.

I believe that poster was fully aware of what you accuse them of. You seemingly aren't aware that posting that you never once considered private school has undertones of moral superiority for making that decision.

I don't think so at all and it's probably better to just think people have different opinions to you on something, that's the nature of an open forum. Especially one which isn't just limited to say Labour voters (although I do feel the attempt is there ;)

A Labour FB site with might have that if it's what you're after

We're the only ones to do this type of tax and people are imo correct to say why it's poor policy, other countries actually do rebates

It does after all impact children and their education which for some parents does matter a lot

@1dayatatime
jokes aside, you're raising a very interesting topic.
Unfortunately it's a societal taboo to talk about inherited intelligence as well as correlation between intelligence and income (not wealth).
Would be interesting to see any stats on CATs across different types of schools, socio-demographic groups, areas etc.

I'd love to have a discussion about this on a separate thread but this will certainly end up in another s... fight.

@redwinechocolateandsnacks

Totally. When people were crying about COL, unable to absorb mere 11% inflation, they were game playing by people employed to influence information on social media or as a pp said unpaid trolling. If they were able to pay their bills before, what was the issue with additional costs?

There's not as many posts about DC with SEN whose parents thought they would qualify for EHCP. I guess sufficient time has now elapsed for them to apply for assessment and have been turned down? First hurdle is assessment.

You imagined your DC would be assessed, would be awarded an EHCP all in time to select a school before VAT was imposed? Unfortunately that's not how it works and the timeframe is off by months if not years.

I am sympathetic but for your DCs sake you should stay the course even if it costs you more. In terms of time taken to achieve things you have made your choice and left it too late to change horses.

I suspect many made the gamble knowing their DC would never qualify. Application of tax doesn't change this. If you still think it's worth the cost you pay. Really you should not have gambled with restricted funds. The cost will be paid by DC who make a hasty return to the pubic sector with no or little support. But this is on parents who made the choice to remove their DC with limited funds and now choose to return them.

I would never have done this to my DC. Yes I was desperate but I knew I could not privately fund for as long as it took so battled through assessments and tribunal for the right setting.

After all the posts I would be interested to know how many DC transferring from private qualified for an EHCP (not just assessment).

How is this relevant to the thread? You probably know that significant number of EHCPs are awarded after tribunal? for these group of kids parents are likely to bridge the gap short term, get award and continue with PS if EHCP gives VAT exemption.

Some proportion of high functioning ND kids won't meet threshold and will suffer in state eventually causing disruption.

Not moral superiority, just sticking to my own principles of disagreeing with private and selective education by not considering sending my DC to these types of schools.

What's your state school option like? Mine was good but then I read threads from others about teachers with PSTD and realise there's a whole range of state in reality

Would you say your state is a type of place where teachers could have that outcome?

@EasternStandard

Both decent enough schools, both had their own issues (one had its own police station).

Decent enough with own police station? how does this work? I need to know more

@SabrinaThwaite

Not moral superiority, just sticking to my own principles of disagreeing with private and selective education by not considering sending my DC to these types of schools
*
One thing that never gets mentioned is the large number of parents who choose a private education to try provide an equal footing for their children. Even at primary school there are alarming levels of racism that state schools can't seem to stamp out. It's a huge factor in why there are so many kids from black and Asian backgrounds in fee paying schools (definitely the case for me). Private schools tend to have a zero tolerance policy, you just feel a bit more at ease. It's entirely unreasonable to expect parents in these situations to suck it up if they have the ability to go to a private school and not have deal with excuse after excuse from teachers. *

“One thing that never gets mentioned is the large number of parents who choose a private education to try provide an equal footing for their children”

@BusyBeatle this is true for children with send as well. I had to go private to get reasonable accommodation for my ND child. State school fought reasonable accommodation (which I understand to an extent given resourcing even though some of the sought accommodation was pretty minimal) and the whole state SEND system requires children to fail repeatedly and profoundly before they will intervene.

it must be nice having one of those kids that will thrive anywhere or have access to state schools that don’t repeatedly fail at the basic task of keeping kids safe, supported and welcomed. In that situation I suppose private is a luxury, but for those in different situations it really is about minimising trauma for our children.

No parent wants their child to experience trauma or racism.

Anyone who can afford to choose a different school where this has happened, whether it's private or state is very lucky indeed.

State schools cannot easily kick children out. Private schools can.

Surely this is obvious.