How many kids do you know definitely leaving private for state?

[Quodraceratops]

I'd be very interested to know how many children people know of who are definitely leaving their private school for a state school - not people with plans to do so in future years, solely those definitely going now / in 2025.
For myself - large Scottish all years school, I only have knowledge of my early primary kids's classes - no-one leaving so far (but I'm guessing early primary may be less affected as Labour have been signalling this policy for a while so you wouldn't start if you couldn't afford VAT).

The people who are keeping as much money as possible for themselves are those who are just as wealthy, if not more, and still using state education. Tax them as well (as we've all suggested - by increasing income tax for all higher earners) amd make them pay their fair share.

“We will know in a couple of years' time. I predict that there will be pretty much the same number of private school places (taking into account demographics) and that it will raise money. I'm glad this tax break has been closed.”

Even that statement is not straightforward. A private school system owned primarily by international venture capitalists going forward is a very different proposition from what we currently have, which is more than 50% in charitable foundations.
It leads to a completely different outcome long term. But let’s just all ignore the fundamentals, right?

And again, the approach which I think is helpful is to prioritise the actual outcomes rather than blindly follow a political article of faith.

Self interest isn't a goal in itself, but sometimes a useful balance to idealism which can improve outcomes. (Alternative economic models have always ended badly.)

I don't think it's ideology to want good, real outcomes.

And speaking of people keeping as much money as possible for themselves, do you know how many people have made a voluntary payment to the treasury in the last 20 years?

153

That's less than 10 people a year in the whole UK who paid more tax than they have to. And some of those were bequests.

Seems that behaviour perhaps isn't so very different between people with left wing and right wing beliefs.

@strawberrybubblegum

no, you're wrong - ideology must prevail, even if it harms. It's all about fairness and equality after all. Why would anyone want to keep most of their earnings to themselves? Wealthy donors even help to cloth our government, this is honorable example.
Not some rich b... like Charlie Mullins who grew up in gutter, made a fortune here and are now "fed up with rhetoric".

That's less than 10 people a year in the whole UK who paid more tax than they have to. And some of those were bequests.
Seems that behaviour perhaps isn't so very different between people with left wing and right wing beliefs.

Haha, yes - posters on here quite often say that they would happily pay more tax and then when it’s pointed out to them that they can - and even decide where it should be spent - they go quiet.

That's because the PM overruled her in Cabinet (papers were released a while ago)

As soon as she became PM, the policy changed.

(Hold Thatcher responsible for what she did do, but don't blame her for following the collective Cabinet policy of the time and the PM who led it)

None. Lots of complaining but no-one making a change. Ans siblings still going as planned.

But there are lots of people not avoiding tax when they have the opportunity.

I run my own business and was once called by an investment company trying to persuade me into all sorts of devices to lower my tax bill. I said I had no interest in avoiding tax and was believed paying tax was a good thing. He didn't quite have an answer.

Likewise my parents did nothing to avoid inheritance tax so HMRC took a large chunk of their estate when they died when they could have put measures in place. Again, I had no objection to this. So no, not everyone voluntarily donates extra tax but some people do not tie themselves in financial, moral or intellectual knots to justify avoiding it.

I can't quite believe that someone is on here arguing that Eton and the like are essential to our success as a country! What a load of twaddle. Our boarding schools are stuffed to the gills with overseas students who's immensely wealthy parents are spending a LOT to have them there. They aren't even living in this country -they're living in tax havens in the ME, Russia, China...
20% more isn't going to make a blind bit of difference to the finance wonks in the City of London.

Even our solidly MC friends using private schools can afford the VAT, they may not like paying more, but they can afford it, because, yes parents who can afford and average of £18k PER child for a day school are actually very well off.

@goodluckbinbin - and I cannot believe there are people who do not actually bother engaging with the actual statistics!
https://www.isc.co.uk/media/uukn4r3i/isc_census_2024_15may24.pdf

Here you go, for example, 1 in 5 SEND, almost 40% identify as ethnic minorities, over 30% came from state schools.
Only 62k are non British and of those only a small minority are foreign boarders.

They are interesting statistics.

The 'public benefit' figures include by far the biggest number '790 play sporting fixtures against state schools'.

How generous of them. I'm not entirely sure 'allowing others to see how much better we are' is the grand gesture you think it is.

Also on the arts, they have joined together 'invite state pupils to attend lessons OR performances' and split out music and drama.

I'd put money on the performances doing a lot of heavy lifting there, like that scene in nativity.

Compared to 268 who share a swimming pool and 192 who share astroturf (I'm assuming these are the same schools and they are double counting).

"96% of schools raised money for charity"

Who the heck are the 4% who can't even manage a cake sale for those in need. I want names.

The sheer charitable largess of allowing state school children to play football with them is extraordinary.

The research also showed superficial ‘pupil events’ such as attending a private school-produced Wizard of Oz performance, joint carol singing or football matches comprise the majority of partnership activity.

The four key findings of the study (see report) included data which showed only 3% of the schools were in partnerships that involved accessing or borrowing private schools’ facilities. Just 1% benefited from private school staff secondment.

Worryingly, only three state schools (1%) reported partnership activities targeted at disadvantaged pupils.

Of the 16 state schools which participated in an academic pupil event with a private school, half reported activities which were targeted at high-attaining pupils. This supports other research which has shown private schools often use such partnerships as marketing and recruitment tools.

www.pepf.co.uk/publications/report-benefiting-the-public-a-study-of-private-state-school-partnerships/

1% of private school pupils are funded by local authorities.

7% are on bursaries.

So that's 8% of PS children from families who can't currently afford the fees.

Scholarship numbers are higher but they still demand a hefty contribution out of reach of median family income.

@pintofsnakebite - there are maybe 100k pupils in the elite type of private school in total that the general public conjures up in their cliched minds, as described by @goodluckbinbin
The rest are smaller schools, much more “normal”, full of SEND kids and serving local communities. Some of those are doing local outreach, others may simply not be able to do it. Not sure why they should? Our state primary does quite well and we raise a fair bit for external charity, it is a church school.
Surely it is common sense that a school that is rich should do more charitable activities? We know that the likes of Oundle, Eton, Christ Sussex etc do a ton anyway.
Half of the pupils seem to be in the junior bit of schooling and that will most definitely be affected by the VAT. It is madness to think it will not.

So the Labour Party wants to throw 300k plus pupils under the bus potentially because there are 100k elite pupils who can potentially afford the VAT easily?
And then we also have the fact that there are numerous elite state schools across the country full of rich parents, whose wealth exceeds the parents of the 300k pupils and who are getting an excellent education for free? Like my DC, for example.
None of this makes any sense whatsoever. I do not even know why some of us keep bothering with this. Clearly, the powers to me do not care one monkeys about the 100k plus kids with SEND and the parents who will struggle.

Because everyone's arguments keep changing to justify the value PS provides.

Plenty of posters have lauded their charity and lending of facilities (you included) which will stop if VAT is added.

Not sure why as there's a business case for making them more available.

But the evidence you cite proves that this is not widespread.

The poorest schools manage 50p for non-uniform day.

But now you have dropped that argument and are arguing why they shouldn't be expected to.

22,000 of that 100,000 cite social, emotional and mental health.

Whilst I'm not diminishing the seriousness of that as an issue, I wouldn't class it as SEND. In fact many PS children I know have had their mental health worsened by private school and had to move to state.

@pintofsnakebite - when I was talking about the sharing of facilities I was referring to my local private schools that are in London, are quite elite and do share extensively. Real estate is incredibly expensive here, without these schools there won’t be loads of playing fields anymore, swimming pools, art galleries, concert halls to share.
A lot of weekend sports in London are played on the grounds of private schools! That is a fact.

@DadJoke - when they talk about fixtures, they mean they host the fixtures for the matches. Not all state schools have the grounds! They often will also do a match tea and sometimes even send mini buses even to the grammar schools to collect the pupils for fixtures. They will also do uni application help etc and extension classes as well as music classes.

I don’t think private schools need to be justified. Other people’s children are not a shared community resource.

We should be able to spend our money as we wish, freely associate with whom we wish, and raise our children as we see fit.

If you don’t approve of private schools, don’t teach at one and don’t send your own children to one.

@pintofsnakebite “But now you have dropped that argument and are arguing why they shouldn't be expected to.”

I have not dropped any argument! I am simply pointing out what the statistics show.
It is for the Charity Commissioner to regulate private schools with charitable status not Central Government. Is it really that difficult to understand that some of us just do not believe the Central Government spiel full stop? Because past experience has taught us that it is usually utter bullshit?!

So we have a ton of obese unhealthy kids with mental health issues and their solution is to try and limit private schools that have grounds? Some of which will then be sold off and turned into housing or purchased by venture capitalist and made entirely commercial.
It does not make any sense to me! I will keep pointing this out. Just like on the Brexit threads, although in those days I had a different user name.

I quite agree.

But pay the VAT.

The issue that many of them are using this pitiful largesse to claim charitable status and get tax breaks.

@DadJoke - PEPF is entirely biased and anti private school.

https://www.etoncollege.com/eton-outwards/eton-connect-core-partnerships/

That does not sound like nothing to me, far from it.
In reality, a lot of them probably just do not have the resources to report on fully as to what they do locally. I just looked up our two local private schools and none of what they do in the community is specifically mentioned like this. And they do absolutely loads!
It seems Eton has both the resources and has realised there is some sort of need to report.

It sounds to me they just need to report more fully what they all do - this applies to the elite ones.

There are no tax breaks apart from being able to leave a bequest free of inheritance tax to a charity, which applies to any charity. You cannot go reinventing the whole legal structure of charities.