Thread 2: VAT on school Fees- High court challenge

[EHCPerhaps]

Following on from thread 1
https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/education/5160565-vat-on-school-fees-high-court-challenge

Background to legal challenge (not yet a case):
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13824931/amp/Single-mother-autistic-child-launches-High-Court-challenge-Labours-private-schools-VAT-raid-claiming-violates-daughters-right-education.html

Sorry to begin a new thread, OP, but your thread filled up very quickly!

The average private school charges double the £7500 state funding amount. However the state figure doesn’t include teacher pensions or major capital projects. When you add these in the gap is not as large as you may think.

There is a very reasoned argument that state school usage should be means tested as happens in many other countries. I don’t think it’s unreasonable for a higher earning household to pay a few hundred per child in state school each month. That would help raise funding in state schools which is what people want.

https://www.savethechildren.org.uk/content/dam/gb/reports/humanitarian/uncrc19-summary2.pdf

Has anyone looked into the Rights of the Child in detail? In particular, the best interest of a child has to be a consideration, always?

There is no added value. School type does not have a significant effect on attainment. Any advantage that a privately educated pupil has, is attributable to the pupil not the school. Or to put it another way: "GCSEs are piss easy for those with aptitude, so it doesn’t really matter".

Regardless of what your experience tells you about class size, it is not the explanation for differences between state and private school outcomes.

@Newbutoldfather what is your profession? Are you a teacher?

Are you suggesting parents who can afford it, additionally contribute to their own children's education in order to improve standards? Seems a bit unfair, can’t the parents of some other children pay that for them?

This deserves a prize.

All of my intuition and common sense tells me that class size is incredibly important. I mark more homework and set more tests (which I then have to mark) in a smaller class. I get to know the children better as individuals and have less issues with crowd control.

I think the school expectations of regular written reports, parental communication, regularly marked homework and running extra curricular activities would be hard or impossible to meet with classes of thirty.

I know some teachers at state schools might manage the above. But then they get burnt out if they try it for too long.

Also I have never had a report with actual words of feedback in it from my children's state schools, just a few numbers and letters.

@Marchesman ,

You have mentioned above that private school pupils are 1.4x as likely to achieve a first at Cambridge than state school pupils.

When I try to find the data behind this, the only thing that pops up is another MN thread started by you.

Can you post a link to this please? Many thanks.

@Marchesman ,

‘Research by Cambridge Assessment found that, in Russell Group universities, private school-leavers were about a third less likely to achieve a first or a 2:1 than state school students with similar prior attainment.’

This data is more general. With a link.

https://www.timeshighereducation.com/news/cambridge-study-details-state-school-students-advantage-over-private-school-peers#:~:text=Research%20by%20Cambridge%20Assessment%20found,students%20with%20similar%20prior%20attainment.

That study is really old @Newbutoldfather . It measures the results of students entering University in 2006.18 years ago.

OP gave a link to Cambridge's own published analysis from 2019. (Still 5 years out of date, but a full decade more recent than the study you link.)

https://www.cao.cam.ac.uk/admissions-research/app-research-papers-2020

You can download 'Analysis of student characteristics and attainment outcomes at the University of Cambridge' which was done in 2019.

At the time of the study, Cambridge students from private schools were 1.2 times more likely than students from state schools to get a first.

This is more statistically significant than the difference in the other direction 18 years ago which the study you link to describes.

Note that 18 years ago that difference was seen as evidence of discrimination against state students, and prompted Cambridge to explicitly change admission criteria to positively discriminate in favour of state candidates. (note: school type specifically, regardless of social class, wealth, or other privilege)

But now that this positive discrimination has caused the pendulum to swing the other way (and to a larger difference ) for some reason some people don't recognise this as evidence that the positive discrimination has gone too far.

@Marchesman gave us some more recent numbers from FOI requests, which show the difference increasing even more. She seems to have a specific interest and so has gathered information which she's kindly shared. Obviously FOI responses don't have to be published but I've taken them in good faith since anyone could make their own FOI request to Cambridge to verify them.

She told us that sudents from private schools were more likely than students from comprehensive schools to be awarded firsts by the following multiples from 2017 to 2023: 1.24 ,1.17, 1.19, 1.17, 1.23, 1.43, and 1.44.

Thankfully, Cambridge have now said that they will no longer specifically positively discriminate purely on school type (although of course other contextual factors will still be considered). Presumably due to Cambridge's own analysis of these statistics.

The other thread has some discussion about it.

@strawberrybubblegum ,

Thank you, that is interesting.

It does look like Cambridge has gone too far.

Obviously, some of the base level bias may be due to scholarship/bursary pupils at some of the strongest private schools such as Westminster and St Paul’s, who will be actively seeking this type of pupil out.

I would be interested to see what the statistics looked like if you only included fee paying pupils.

@Newbutoldfather did you miss my message?

@Sunshineonarainyday80 ,

Nope, but why am I obliged to reply, especially when you don’t say what you do or why you are asking.

If you read my posts, it is pretty obvious anyway!

@Newbutoldfather

Obviously, some of the base level bias may be due to scholarship/bursary pupils at some of the strongest private schools such as Westminster and St Paul’s, who will be actively seeking this type of pupil out.
I would be interested to see what the statistics looked like if you only included fee paying pupils.

I'm a bit confused by your post - are you implying that non bursary SPS and Westminster and top PS pupils are unlikely to achieve firsts?

Because there are 23 pages to read back through so in a conversational cooperative manner I thought I would ask.

I'm a lawyer - not really relevant but happy to say.

@Sunshineonarainyday80 ,

A couple of decades in finance (which is why I am so cynical about it!) and a decade in teaching (in the private sector), roughly, now semi retired.

Two boys at local state, where they seem to be doing well, but would consider private alternatives if that stopped happening.

So a quick search shows you are or were a physics teacher (I had economics in mind but that must have been someone else). But it's good that you're not being deliberately awkward by not engaging in conversation...

Anyhow, I do take issue with your posts and specifically this:

"I think we can all agree that an Eton student who gets BBB is either thick or lazy, or a combination of both, and isn’t heading for a starred first!"

The thought that any teacher worth their salt would speak about any child like this is pretty awful. I thought instilling a growth mindset was a basic in the teaching profession these days.

If anything, that would show a larger difference, since Cambridge presumably doesn't discriminate against those bursary students if they have personal circumstances which warranted a contextual offer - so the larger underlying discrimination against non-bursary students is hidden behind that.

Incidentally, on the other thread someone pointed out that those top private schools are possibly even more academically selective than Oxbridge (in addition to being financially selective). Every single student at those schools is very academically strong.

@Sunshineonarainyday80 ,

‘The thought that any teacher worth their salt would speak about any child like this is pretty awful. I thought instilling a growth mindset was a basic in the teaching profession these days.’

You should be a fly on the wall in any staff room!

There is a massive difference in speaking anonymously about a hypothetical child and saying that to either a child or their parents.

Interestingly, although ‘growth mind set’ is still encouraged, it has definitely gone out of fashion in the last few years, especially the (mis)interpretation that anyone could achieve anything if they just worked hard enough,

The vast majority if schools do what is now called cognitive testing (in old parlance IQ) and expected grades are, at least in part, based on this. The word ‘thick’ may not be thought of as appropriate these day but ‘pupil with overall low cognitive scores’ is merely a PC synonym.

My observation of having my own DCs at London superselective grammars and some of DCs cousins or family friends at top private schools - there is literally no difference in potential in any of these kids, scholarship or not. Some end up at grammar who could have gone private and vice versa and plenty have offers for both. Plenty then achieve straight 9s with the odd 8 and 4 A stars at A level. Most have some extra curricular talents too. Some have gone to top performing comps with the same demographic, same parental professional/educational status and come out just the same.
Therefore, any uni discriminating between any of these groups of kids is being disingenuous. It is almost like they are rewarding the parents for choosing more socially aware groups rather than it being about the kids themselves.
There are also a ton of Asian and West African families now in the mix with similar educational background and professional status.

Pushy (aka educationally motivated) educated parents is what makes the actual difference, it seems. Whether they live in a 300k house/flat or a 3 million house etc makes no difference.

"I think we can all agree that an Eton student who gets BBB is either thick or lazy, or a combination of both, and isn’t heading for a starred first!"

Every child can lose a parent, suffer mental or other health issues etc - there are always circumstances that can interfere with a child’s potential outcome.

I read this more as a statement of the fact that the overall academic scores of the cohort at Eton are now really quite high so they are quite selective on entry, like eg Westminster. Same applies to a lot of London top day schools and grammars.

The real problem for Oxbridge is that it is a total pressure cooker and kids who have coped and thrived in equal pressure cookers be it top private or grammar or top set huge sixth college are well set up to then thrive at Oxbridge, whereas for other kids it can be far more of a culture shock. So that is the crux of the matter for me - if Oxbridge want to take children from different educational backgrounds that are not pre-moulded into the Oxbridge model, then they have to support or adapt themselves.
If you have been to Westminster or Eton or Henrietta Barnet or St Paul’s Girls you are already used to being surrounded by a ton of highly gifted hardworking kids who also do a ton of extracurricular and just get on with it, in a pressured short amount of time, so adapting to the Oxbridge workload/short terms (constantly “on”) is not that bigger deal.

And after that, working nights as a doctor, until midnight as a City lawyer or in investment banking for hours and hours - is again, pre-moulded.

I took @Newbutoldfather's question re: bursaries to suggest that the bursary/scholarship kids are more likely to get firsts than fee paying because their school entry requirement was higher, so more likely to be gifted than standard payers.

Oxbridge has always been designed as a continuation of public school and I can see why state school children might not thrive so well in that environment. That's not because they're not as bright or don't work as hard.

What I find confusing about these threads is

• if you don't think private school gives attainment advantage
• you don't think it gets you into a better university
• it's not about self-selecting a privileged peer group

What are you actually paying the money for? It's difficult to tell.

In my case it’s because my DC2 suffers from anxiety and struggles with noisy and crowded environments. I was the same at his age and ended up having a complete mental breakdown at 16 as a result of being in a school environment that was completely unsuitable for me (large comp). Ultimately, I want a happy child because happy children perform better.

My DC1 goes to a state grammar that far out performs DC2’s private school as far as academics go. One of the reasons I chose that school is because I knew DC1’s university prospects would be lower if he attended the private school. We didn’t try for grammar with DC2 as we knew it wouldn’t be suitable for him even if he did get in.

Leaving Oxbridge out of it as, even in the vast majority of private schools, this is at most a handful of candidates annually (I think I was one of 5 from my school, which was in the top 30 in the country), I think there is a misunderstanding how contextual offers work.

It isn’t favouring grammar over private, it is looking at a school’s overall results and assuming that if you can get AAA where the average is CCC, it is probably the equivalent of AAA from a school where the average is AAB.

I don’t think the offers for Tiffin Girls (grammar school) will be substantially lower than Kingston Grammar (private, despite the name), to choose two schools near me.

It is not about the “offers”. Grammar kids are still being allowed on Law/Computer Science/Econ courses at top unis, whereas it has become much more competitive for private schools kids. All these kids have equal potential.
The issue is around the most competitive courses!
No good for private school students if they are only allowed to study Classics/MML/History because it suits the unis to fill those places!