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!

This could be true.

However, could the reverse also be true. Oxbridge colleges/tutorials mirror the more personal approach of private schools with small classes and individual attention.

Could it be that it doesn't prepare children as well for the rowdy, large, impersonal and often distracting environment in larger universities.

Maybe that's why they are choosing comp and grammar kids over private ones.

There really is no generalising @remotecontrolowls - some private schools are huge and very busy environments with an expectation of kids to be very organised and complete self starters.
I would say our grammars are similar. There is no handholding, it is get on with it and work stuff out yourself. I hear from friends with kids at top private schools that the expectations are huge, and not just academically, leadership, volunteering, extracurricular pressure, all of it!

These competitive private schools are obviously going to be very different from the smaller nurturing ones that parents choose for kids with SEND, although there are also top private schools full of gifted kids with ASD as well. Therefore, some arbitrary all state schools are this and all private schools are that, is never ever going to work.

I get that, but I'm just countering the 'generalising' about private school children being more suited to the rigours of Oxbrige.

There is no generalising, and I also think that experience of London schools, whether grammar, state or private, is markedly different to experience in other areas of the country.

@remotecontrolowls

sorry, I'm not sure I understand the point you're making.

Could it be that it doesn't prepare children as well for the rowdy, large, impersonal and often distracting environment in larger universities.
Maybe that's why they are choosing comp and grammar kids over private ones.

"It doesn't prepare" - who? Oxbridge doesn't prepare?

If Oxbridge colleges/tutorials mirror the more personal approach of private schools with small classes and individual attention, then they would be more inclined to admit PS kids who are used to such environment?

Are you trying to say Oxbridge want students from "rowdy, large, impersonal" environments to join to experience their personal approach?

No. But a poster was saying that, outside of Oxbridge, state school children were being selected for offers instead of private school children.

@Araminta1003 ,

‘There really is no generalising ** - some private schools are huge and very busy environments with an expectation of kids to be very organised and complete self starters.
I would say our grammars are similar. There is no handholding, it is get on with it and work stuff out yourself. I hear from friends with kids at top private schools that the expectations are huge, and not just academically, leadership, volunteering, extracurricular pressure, all of it!’

I do think sometimes you have a fantasy of what private school is like, regardless of whether your children went there or what they told you.

Yes, they are busy, but part of the reason parents pay up is that children are prevented from failing. If they are struggling with work and parents communicate with the school, you sure better be able to explain what ‘clinics’ are available and how they can access other additional support.

I do find it amazing that you are arguing that children need to be more independent in a £40,000 per annum private school than in a regular comp! Why do you think people pay? Yes, I know that there are a variety of factors, but support (individualised reporting, clinics, pupils having direct access to teachers outside classes, revision notes, online portals with past papers and worked solutions etc etc) are a big part of it.

Grammars are a completely different kettle of fish. They are just like any other state school, bar the selection and lack of setting. And the ‘super selective’ grammars in London aren’t that ‘super’ selective. They take the top 5%. St Paul’s is probably after the top 2% or an even more rarefied group. To be honest, the grammars can be extremely tough for the over tutored. They get in …and then what? They don’t get the support of the private schools but are taught at a fast pace and just get left behind.

@Newbutoldfather

They take the top 5%. St Paul’s is probably after the top 2% or an even more rarefied group.

So if St Paul's and the likes already done the job and selected top 2%, why this top 2% being discriminated at unis?

@Newbutoldfather - my children go/went to superselective grammars in London, where there were loads of tests and clinics and specific reports and any parent was regularly told if their DC missed even 1 bit of homework! And my experience of grammars was there were interventions. However, if parents choose to overtutor from Year 2 (and that does happen), no school can then ensure that kid gets A stars at A Level.
My experience of private schools is via colleagues and being a guardian to kids in the family on several occasions. So I do know what I am talking about as regards the specific highly selective schools they attended. I also have a lot of friends who teach in both sectors. So why you think your experiences are more relevant than mine, I do not know, What is your actual real lived experienced of grammars in London? You said you only taught in the private sector and your DCs attend state schools currently. Does that include grammars? I am going to assume that every grammar is different and moreover, that things can change quite rapidly - see eg St Olave’s.

@Araminta1003 ,

I did a term during my PGCE (11 years ago) at one of the ‘super’ selective grammars.

it’s not a lot but it is first hand, not what my mates or children told me.

And I also have lots of teacher friends, and friends’ and family children in a lot of the schools you talk about.

Only in education do people think that using a professional service or having friends in it gives them the authority to pontificate.

I wouldn’t pontificate on the inner workings of a law firm because I have lots of lawyer friends who started at magic circle firms.

@Newbutoldfather - I have also been a governor and on the PTA in several schools. Do you count that?

You will find that quite a lot of lawyers have been governors in numerous schools over the years. It was one of those things encouraged from the 90s/2000s onwards, to go and be a governor in the City of London, Tower Hamlets in some of the more deprived London schools and many people stuck with it so have quite a few years experience in that regard, across lots of different schools and also with interview practice and setting up schemes for children from poorer households.

@Araminta1003 ,

‘I have also been a governor and on the PTA in several schools. Do you count that?’

Definitel (the governor bit); it is not the same as working in a school but you do get to see more of the inner workings, and it is surprisingly hard work.

I was also a governor of a state primary for 4 years, on two committees and chair of one.

This is all very lovely, but the policy is supposed to be revenue making and not about the merits of private school or childish left wing identity politics.

The question is how much revenue (if any) is worth causing harm to children for?

The message from the government is that it will be revenue-making because few will leave the private sector. On the other hand, Green's paper for the IFS suggests that the private sector will shrink enough to improve "educational equality".

I don't think the government would have decided to do this without input from educationalists. I also think that selling it to the public in accordance with Green would be problematic because the downside of an influx of pupils for the state sector is obvious. It would also have an extremely left-wing "optic" which might frighten the horses.

My guess is that Starmer and co. do not expect that it will raise money, they anticipate that it will cost, but ideologically they reckon this would be good value for (our) money.

It rather depends on whether you are talking about day schools or boarding. The figure of £40,000 pa is somewhere between the two so it isn't clear.

One of the less important reasons that parents pay is for their children to learn to be independent. If you are in a boarding prep dealing with your own laundry and getting yourself organised in general from the age of 10 or 11, without parents breathing down your neck and just one matron between a couple of dozen children, you absolutely need to be independent.

At senior school a different set of challenges require good time management, gratification deferral, self motivation etc. Some schools do apparently put pressure on children to succeed academically, others definitely do not. Either way, as someone once said, GCSE's are piss easy and A levels are not much harder, and it is a very long school day if you are unable to take responsibility for yourself.

How much encouragement do you think parents get when they "communicate with the school", and how do you think it would go down with Marchesman Minor?

You have the failure thing the wrong way round too. Parents want their children to be resilient, for that they need to learn how to deal with failure, and for that they first need to fail.

You must teach in a very strange school.

I think it was just election talk to get the hard left/spite vote that wasn’t ever really meant to go anywhere. They must have known it would contravene the ECHR, that if they ignore the ECHR and implement it that would be a net loss in the medium term, would lead to school closures, negatively affect children’s mental health and that it will be reversed within 5 years when they are out anyway. In a way, it makes it worse to have put all the parents and teachers through the anxiety by persisting with the charade knowing it’s a lame duck.

'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.'

What.A.Load.Of.Balls.

It's this kind of myth perpetuated but private parents, and some of the tutors in Colleges at Oxbridge, that has kept so many bright, state educated out for so many years. As yes - the 'elite' 7 % of private kids are always soooooo much more hard working and more clever than the state kids. it's snobbery, pure and simple, and also - just not true.

In fact, the opposite is often true. Being handheld and tutored and cajoled into getting exam results in a rarefied atmosphere doesn't foster independence, competitiveness or creative and critical thinking.

Going to a normal school, living in challenging circumstances, not having everything handed to you all the time...and still getting those great grades?
Every good university in the world knows this - Harvard, Yale etc have their share of rich kids - but they also give FULL financial support to smart students who need it because they know those kids are motivated beyond anyone else.

@Marchesman I think that 'independence' of 10 & 11 year olds has to be weighed against the damage to emotional development that can occur in some children by being removed from their family at such a young age.

There have been countless studies on attachment and how boarding school children struggle with maintaining relationships in adult life.

But yes, they can do their own laundry.

I realise this is a Guardian article so will be instantly dismissed, but it makes interesting reading.

amp.theguardian.com/education/2014/jun/09/boarding-schools-bad-leaders-politicians-bullies-bumblers

I listened to an interview with Johnnie Vaughn recently who went to boarding school and prison, who said prison was better.

He said when he had his own children, and a lot of therapy, he realised boarding school was developed to ensure people had no sense of home. We needed it once to send people off to war or to run an empire, but we don't need to do that to our children anymore.

I'm people will argue that boarding school has changed in 40 years but our emotional needs don't.

I listened to an interview with Johnnie Vaughn recently who went to boarding school and prison, who said prison was better.

Just because Johnnie Vaughn, a convicted cocaine dealer, says that it doesn’t mean everyone thinks that.
Of course there are going to people who hate their schools. Plenty of people have a very unhappy time at state schools but maybe you blame them for that, not the school.

I knew that would touch a nerve.

The difference is boarding schools are like that by design. People see that lack of emotion as a good thing, or at least not a bad thing.

I do not. Which is why my objection doesn't come from jealousy or spite, just different priorities.

And ask any teenager, they will all tell you that the only difference between private and state school is the price of the drugs.

"Going to a normal school, living in challenging circumstances, not having everything handed to you all the time...and still getting those great grades?"

Yes this was me. But those grades (because that's really what it boils down to with me - I never had much else to offer) means I now have a high paying job and so can afford to send my DC private - they are similar to me but by your standards they're automatically less intelligent. I actually want them to be more rounded than I was - I was praised for academics so consequently I was very much a one trick pony.

We were/are paying the money as follows:
DS1:

• for him to receive a basic education. The state schools available to us couldn’t provide that. At our village infant school they refused to believe he was autistic and on numerous occasions ‘lost’ or refused to complete the autism questionnaires for his paediatrician, regularly sent his full time 1:1 LSA off to work with other children, ignored the bullying, didn’t tell me when another pupil picked him up and threw him across the room, repeatedly separated him from his very few friends, accused me of being paranoid and a liar etc etc.
• The local secondary schools all refused to take him. The one that was told by the LA that it was taking him whether they wanted to or not, told us he’d be arriving at every lesson 5 mins late, leaving 5 mins early, learning through the window in the door, and a bunch of other things hardly conducive to an education.
• The private school he attended with 1:1 support before the LA finally agreed to place him in a special school had small classes. The classes were quiet. They put him down a year so he was with younger children. Due to the small school, the teachers knew him and knew his needs. And they helped us to get his autism diagnosis rather than accusing me of making it all up.
• He left school with two GCSEs and two functional skills, so we were hardly buying him an advantage over other children. But while he was in mainstream we were buying the best we could for his mental health and self esteem.

DS2:

• He is a carer for his brother. I have PTSD and depression as a result of his brother’s extremely traumatic birth and multiple disabilities. The local state school decided he was the child from hell and left his peg on the ‘thinking cloud’ constantly for other pupils and parents to see.
• We wanted an environment small enough for his home life to be known and understood. Where they would stamp down on bullying immediately when other students laughed about his brother. Where it’s ok to want to work hard. Where his hobby - which he hopes will become his career - is part of the school timetable and where other students don’t laugh at him for having a ‘girly’ hobby. Where all of his education and his hobbies were available in one place because I don’t have the time or energy to do extras for him after school in addition to effectively being a PA for his disabled brother. He did ok in his GCSEs but certainly not Oxbridge level!

I am so fed up of some of the comments on these threads (I am not referring to yours in particular, @remotecontrolowls ). We share our own lived experiences and are told we’re wrong. The special needs system is completely broken, and yet posters pop up to tell us our lived experience is wrong or we’re lying. A higher rate tax payer with non disabled children in the state sector declared the other day that all we need to do is go and talk to the LTA [sic]. I mean, I could, but I doubt the Lawn Tennis Association would be particularly interested. 🙄 In contrast, I am beaten down and knackered from 15 years of dealing with our mean and nasty LA.

Obviously not all state schools and not all private schools are remotely the same, but we’ve done what we can to suit our boys’ needs during a very difficult situation. Our income puts us in the band to receive full child benefit and I am grateful every day to my mum for helping us with the fees.

Boarding schools belong to the era of the 'Empire' when the pupils were going to be sent off half way across the world away from family and friends to lord it over the local population. No emotion or empathy needed for that, just a huge sense of superiority and entitlement.
The fact they still exist is baffling.