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!

Obviously if they support education tax then they aren’t going to exactly be brain surgeons. Outsourcing their kids care? They’re legally mandated to be in full time education until 18, PS is just an alternative option to consider. Sounds like you’ve not chosen PS, but I don’t understand the motivation in supporting making it more difficult for other parents who’ve chosen it. You never know if circumstances change and your children just hate their school or are really gifted in a particular area, you might need PS and find yourself priced out or all the local schools closed.

This is the kind of snobbery that made us avoid private schooling like the plague.
lookslikemeemaw you’ve said on another thread that you refuse to employ private school job applicants and have made negative generalisations on this thread about private school parents which is inverted snobbery.

Right. So 94 % of parent are shit then?

Poor reading comprehension.

Whilst the first part of the sentence is ambiguous about whether it's referring to 'some' or 'all' state school parents, common sense suggests it's 'some'... and then that's confirmed by the reference to 'wide ranging drag down effects'.

Inverted snobbery and sweeping generalisations from you as well. Possibly just as well that you refuse to employ private school candidates, for their own sake. (Shame for your employer, but I guess market economics will sort that out).

It is ridiculous that people think that private education causes problem to state education. If you take Italy, Germany, Norway, many countries with private education where the state is much better than the private.
The problem of education here is low investment, UK is one of the countries with less investment in education in Europe. And one of the richest ones?

I didn't read @Mrsbabbecho as saying all state school parents are awful and I'd be surprised if that's what she meant.

But I'll be honest, one of the reasons we are hoping to switch from state to indy in the next few years is because of the relatively small number of disruptive children at state secondaries near us who frankly ruin it for everyone else.

Whether they are 'badly parented', have unmet SEN or both, it means teachers spend too much time zookeeping and not enough time teaching. And even without outright disruptive behaviour, there is a minority of kids whose families don't place much value on education, and whose kids see no point in working hard or aspiring to do their academic best. And I don't want my children to be around them.

No doubt you will tell me how you know lots of independent schools are full of highly disruptive children and that little [insert posh sounding name] burned down your local private school, while state schools are universally filled with dedicated impeccably-behaved children all from high-aspiring and supportive families.

All I can say is that I've done my research and it's not like that round here (and indeed judging by a number of threads I've read on MN from state school teachers outlining just how bad things are on the front line, that's not the case in many other places too).

I wish it were otherwise, but it's not.

And Labour screwing the private sector to raise enough (in a best reasonable case scenario) to pay for a third of an extra teacher per state school isn't going to make the blindest bit of difference.

‘It is ridiculous that people think that private education causes problem to state education’

it’s really not, it CLEARLY has affected state education in many parts of the country.
We had a government in charge of state education who didn’t give a damn about it because neither they or their off spring and possibly their grandparents never used it.

We should care about the education of ALL UK children if we want a skilled workforce - not just the posh ones.

Yes, we should care about the education of all children and not write some off due to the choices or situations of their parents.

All children.

I really don't believe that private schools cause problems in the state sector. What exactly is the mechanism for this? In Edinburgh there are Boroughmuir & Tynecastle state high schools a very short walk apart - neither are selective. Their results are poles apart - the major difference will the socioeconomic demographic of families in their catchment areas. I would suspect more kids go private in the Boroughmuir catchment than the Tynecastle area (based on surrounding property prices & likely incomes) if anything.

The state certainly cause issues in the private school sector though.

The latest stat says 94% of children are state educated - this used to be 93% that they quoted (which also includes those that are home schooled btw) - already 1% have moved across to the state sector - that’s a substantial impact already to the numbers suggested by Labour that the state sector will receive with a the OBR report saying approximately 6% will move to state, which is 7% already (and other sources have said this is more 10+% as well as those not even starting private anymore) - the benefits are so watered down - what’s the point of damaging the private sector and also at the same time not being able to fund vast improvements to the state sector?

And state sector is going to suffer as class size get bigger - there was a recent thread somewhere which says their children’s class is now 38 as from year 3, there is NO legal limit in class sizes actually. I don’t see how anyone on earth will want to teach 37 kids (and don’t say that’s what they used to do in the old days - back then if the child is naughty you just whip them into shape).

It’s been 94% since before the announcement about VAT on fees. The proportion of school kids being educated in private schools was already falling.

If it’s still 94% and that’s a recent figure then the number of kids that have already left is negligible.

A school's financial history is easy to find and shrewd parents will probably have been familiar with theirs before dipping into their coffers. A single figure percentage decline in pupil numbers is likely to make a prep school nonviable. Once parents detect this may be happening, even if they could have afforded the fee hike themselves, they will feel pressure to jump ship before places in local state schools dry up.

The effects will be felt over the next year or two as countless small schools exhaust their financial reserves. In most parts of the country there will be wholesale shifts to state schools, which is of course the aim of the project.

And as our child population is fallling, there is room in state schools across the board. Our council is redrawing catchments to 1) make the schools more inclusive from different areas 2) because next year they’ll need 600 less spaces across the 5 main secondaries.
The numbers are also dropping in the church schools - they now take kids who aren’t of their faith or any faith.
The private schools - numbers also falling but as they’re stuffed full of overseas kids and children from all over the U.K. ( there are 3 ‘famous’ ones with boarding options, few local children can afford to go at all) it’s probably not the drop in birth rate affecting them as much.

Not much use if you have a child in Y9 - which was a high birth year - and there's loads of space in Reception two counties over.

The interesting bit will be Sixth Form in the next couple of years and getting the subject combination you ask for. For the best uni courses. Our schools prioritise the highest achievers at GCSEs.

The numbers in special schools and secondary schools are increasing, and as @OhCrumbsWhereNow pointed out, total numbers are meaningless unless the central politburo plans on stealing children and sending them off to different parts of the country to be indoctrinated educated.

explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/national-pupil-projections

Quite - we didn't manage to get a Yr R place in the school in the village in which we live (or the next nearest village either) so some areas are still oversubscribed.

The "bulge" was 2011-12 here so those kids are currently in year 7. The pressure on secondary's definitely going to be intense for 5 years more in high population areas where there's limited land space.

You’re really unlucky with that as where we live the fantastic village schools are all undersubscribed because nobody with kids can afford to live near them. One has just 4 children for Reception who live in catchment.

The schools in town which aren’t great are all oversubscribed because people would rather walk over the road to a crap school than drive 10 mins to an amazing one.

We were going to go private from Reception as we assumed we wouldn’t get into the best village schools but that now appears not to be the case we’ll use them and go private for senior school.

I was shocked how little effort many people make to access the top schools in some areas.

It's a bit the opposite here - there were 28 applications for 15 places. There is a housing estate in the middle of the village near the school and we lived on the outskirts of the village so we were further away. It is rated Good and it looks to be a nice village school. We were sent to a school in another village which was undersubscribed - but for good reason we subsequently found out. It's just hit and miss.

This.

But my point is this has nothing to do with the project. There isn’t a 1% fall already due to VAT on fees. The 94% figure comes from before the election and before Labour’s plans were announced. The proportion of pupils educated in private schools was already falling for reasons that have nothing to do with VAT on fees.

If the figure is still 94% of pupils privately educated then since the announcement and with parents looking into the school’s finances then it has made little difference so there is no reason to think that the numbers will be worse than expected.

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c98d3xr0290o

The purpose of the project is to change behaviour. If there isn't a large shift from the private to state sector it will have failed.

The schools census has just closed - so the government will have up to date details on changes to numbers in state and private. I'd love to know if and when that data comes into the public domain but have struggled to find anything online - anyone know?