Whitehall “braced for private schools collapse”

[ICouldBeVioletSky]

Whitehall ‘braced for private schools collapse’ due to fee rises

Worth reading the whole article, it’s not quite as alarmist as the headline suggests. But as you’d expect, gov sources are talking it all down while the ISC is ringing the alarm bell.

https://www.thetimes.com/article/e6465c9e-d462-48cb-a73e-74480059a1f3?shareToken=05bf599cd4a2376fe3ce83cdce607100

I’d be quite surprised if some of the schools near us don't fold tbh. There will definitely be a contraction in the sector, I just hope those that hold on can remain a viable concern.

It's not private schools that are divisive, it's the structure of society and British culture. There are private schools in Germany for example and they do not cause any division, why do you think that is? Or as pp from Australia gave us an example upthread - why are they not fighting over private schools there?

It's futile to destroy private sector if the society remains essentially the same, deeply divided by class. If anything, the VAT is yet another attack of the elite on the bourgeoisie that accumulated too much wealth during the 1990-2000s and became too ambitious politically. They must know their place. There is nothing new or unique in this, middle class is being destroyed everywhere, not just in the UK. What I find rather funny is that in the UK it's being done in the name of "proletariat" by "Labour" party (what does it actually mean these days??).
Yeah right, the elites care so much about poor people, they always do 😂

Or we need to rethink what ‘normal’ is and completely reconfigure our approach to education to be more neuroinclusive. There is nothing wrong with my ASD child, and she has a number of special skills and natural strengths that will be valuable to society if properly nurtured. She also has an incredibly hard time in a large state school classroom and under a restrictive curriculum/ behavioural management approach. The children aren’t the problem, the outdated and underfunded system is the problem.

The state provides services for all.

It doesn’t. There are not state places available for all, depending on where you live and which year your children are in. My MP has admitted there are no spaces for children who need to move school in our area.

@Another76543 legally the state has to offer you a school place if you need one.

@MerryMaker if I had a pound for every instance that state failed to provide something they were legally required to provide I would be less concerned about vat

Quite. I actually asked my MP how my children would be provided for by the state. The MP couldn’t answer and admitted there are no places available.

“FFS families are not gifting the state anything.”

@MerryMaker - private school parents are gifting the state 8k for every child in private education every year they have paid up for private school fees. The state spends that 8k those parents saved them on other things. Now they have disincentivised many families to use private education through their own sheer greed, trying to take almost another 50 per cent off those same parents by charging them another 3k on an average of 15k private school fees, they will have to find the money to educate those DCs. It follows that money won’t be spent on the NHS anymore. But on some of the kids who would otherwise gone to private schools and those will need extra spend due to their SEND. So the NHS and other services will lose out.
The same parents can now choose to spend some of that 15k plus 3k VAT they would otherwise have spent on top up tutoring instead. Win win for them in the long run, but the state will lose out.

Well, lets look at that shall we?

Eat out to help out? stunning success... not!!
covid business support loan fraud, billions written off by Sunak... then as PM Sunak gave us a technical recession, months of -0.1%, 0.0% and +0.1% growth.... allowed his chancellor to cut NI by 4% without having the means to fund it... the cause of much of the problems Reeves is now facing.... and doubtless why they did it.

Brexit was also heavily supported, and still is, by Sunak.... Reeves opposed it, had her side of the argument won, the UK wouldn't be quite so badly off right now.

Yet you think Sunak is the better Chancellor??? Partisan indeed lol!

BUT WFA cuts were daft, economic but more importantly, political suicide & something Labour might never recover from.

I'm quite able to criticise both parties and individuals but i do not forget the 14 years of mayhem the Tories have done to the UK, not a single public service has improved or even stayed the same, they are ALL worse & now, thanks to Brexit, we've immigration tripled, yet still have labour shortages.

@Araminta1003 Such a victim complex. You seem to have a real chip on your shoulder.
Send your children to private or state school, your choice. Nobody cares.

What councils are supposed to do and what they actually do in practice don’t always match up.

www.bucksfreepress.co.uk/news/24569930.council-asks-mum-prove-school-finances-ahead-new-vat/

The teachers that state schools would really like won’t be coming. Our school’s maths and physics teachers would go back into the city. Teaching at a “nice” private school was a lifestyle choice. The older ones would retire and the younger ones could easily find more rewarding work in quant farms, insurance companies, gambling industry etc.

That is because of that stupid campaign to get parents who send their kids to private schools, to request a state school place with zero intention of taking it up. Why should local authorities go to the expense of creating extra school places for parents who are just playing silly buggers.

Every parent is entitled to apply for a state school place. Councils should not be asking for financial information of parents applying. Do they also request financial information from those applying at 4 or 11? You admit yourself that the state has a legal obligation to provide every child with a state place, and yet here we are with councils and others trying their best to deny children a state place if they attend a private school. The policy has nothing to do with social justice and everything to do with trying to punish those who chose the private sector, as evidence by behaviour from councils themselves

What expense @MerryMaker ? You just said previously that parents sending their children to private schools weren’t “gifting” the public purse anything.

@Sibilantseamstress it is not a gift not to use a public service.
If you use a public service there is a cost to taxpayers for that.
That is common sense.

@MerryMaker also said that “The state provides services for all.” So, if the state apparently has places available for all, what extra expense is there? Those parents are just applying for places which are apparently there waiting for them.

@Another76543 Oh come on! We do not have empty classes just waiting for parents who send their children to private school to send them to state school.
Just as there are not empty buses running all over my city in case people like me with a car decide to use a bus.

Fair enough, semantics aside, you agree that private schools parents have been saving taxpayers £8/yr.

@Sibilantseamstress I save the state lots of money by not using certain public services as well. Nearly everyone does not use some public services. So what?

@MerryMaker when a local village eliminated vehicular access on certain road they spent years studying the potential impact and planning accordingly for adequate public transport. Labours vat plans are the equivalent of closing roads with a couple months notice with no thought to impact on residents or adjustments to public transport.

Well of course they don't. It's not a cost where 100 kids in a school cost £800,000 to educate while 1000 cost £8,000,000. There are original fixed costs and then each extra pupil beyond a point costs less and less to absorb.

And, again, if the private schools are so magical then they could save their customers from going elsewhere (because, hey, they're a business, they are customers) by reducing the fees that they've incessantly raised ahead of inflation for decades. If they can't educate your kids well enough for double the price of state education rather than triple then maybe they're not that magical after all.

And that is precisely the point I am making. There are not spaces for every child in the state system. The state system is set up to rely on a certain number attending private school. Spaces for many needing to make the switch to state simply do not exist.

This! The best teachers really will not be showing up at your local,

People are not taxed for not using other state services though. People are not hit with a VAT charge if they choose not to use the NHS for example.

Actually, we do know why, and the numbers are not going down any time soon.