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.

Schools will close a lot quicker because people just won’t be able to make the money to pay the fees.
I see a lot of little private schools closing.

The problem with this is the children in these schools are usually there because they are the cheaper option than the bigger private schools and/or the parents know their children might not cope with bigger class sizes or need the more gentle approach that smaller class sizes bring. As well as their child needing a slower pace because of learning with a SEN

Ds was unable to read by the time he went into year 3
Yet in the state system he was punished for not completing his written comprehension homework.

I know that teachers in the state system are supposed to have a degree and are supposedly intelligent
But I just found a bunch of teachers who couldn’t understand that if someone couldn’t read then they weren’t going to be able to write anything which just made me question what qualifications they did have

The majority of the teachers in my state school are almost at breaking point every day. We have no money, no staff and no time. There's no money for heat, no money for broken fixtures and fittings to be fixed and no money for proper cleaning. Coupled with ridiculous curriculum
expectations, massive classes and significant needs growing every year, any suggestion we 'try harder' will lead to many more leaving the profession.

I know that teachers in the state system are supposed to have a degree and are supposedly intelligent
But I just found a bunch of teachers who couldn’t understand that if someone couldn’t read then they weren’t going to be able to write anything which just made me question what qualifications they did have

Actually think I might have been right when a few weeks after I pulled dd and ds out of the school, a surprise OFSTED inspection had all the teachers and HT removed a few hours later and a team of substitute teachers took over.

Yeah, this didn't happen.

My mum was a state school MFL teacher and she took early retirement due to how awful the conditions were. Since that time they’ve got so much worse - am so sorry this is what you have to put up with.

You are absolutely right to highlight how grossly insulting Bridget’s stance is to teachers and school staff. Zero comprehension of any of the (very well-publicised!) challenges faced by schools coupled with zero empathy for teachers at breaking point.

Oh well, at least you’ll soon have yet another flavour of new curriculum to distract yourselves with!!!

It is indeed grossly insulting. Quite extraordinary. She has managed to piss off private school parents with her nasty little tweets about us. And managed to piss off state school parents and teachers by suggesting they are lazy and not trying hard enough.

I know that MPs are often pretty clueless about their briefs, but this is a whole new level of terminal stupidity.

A few hours later?

I’ve been pondering the messages that Labour are sending out. The Times has put out a lot of articles about the VAT on school fees (to the point where people commenting have said things like “This AGAIN?!? The Times are like a dog with a bone”. However now there’s this new thing and an article / opinion piece written by Bridget Phillipson in the Telegraph (which I think is just one of her speeches redrafted a bit). The Telegraph is not a great fan and the comments are pretty savage.

I expect that Labour have suddenly realised they are pissing lots of people off and have decided that they need to engage a bit more with the Centrist (The Times) and right wing (The Telegraph) press. The problem is that they are not persuasive. Telling people that middle class people support her plans does not make it so. And what does she mean by “middle class”? My understanding is that nearly everyone is middle class now.

There are 677 comments under the story in the Times and 2.58k under Bridget Phillipson’s piece in the Telegraph. Neither paper is going to stop writing about this - it gets so much reader engagement.

Absolutely did happen.

All SEN children were removed because HT didn’t believe in SEN

If I was to hazard a guess. A parent or two of these pupils complained to OFSTED/LEA and surprise OFSTED inspection happened

Heard from a friend who still had children at the school that those that could were asked to collect their dc and substitute teachers were brought in and teaching staff were told to leave, including HT and OFSTED down graded the school from Outstanding to In special measures

Friend arrived with other parents to collect their dc just as the procession of the former teachers were leaving the school

Frowningprovidence

Yes a few hours later

Frowningprovidence
I am assuming that on finding a HT who had sacked off the SEN department declaring there was no such thing as dyslexia etc And teachers who weren’t actually teaching anything, I think their mind was made up in a few minutes.

I am also assuming it took a few hours (friend got the call/text around 11.30) to get substitute teachers on site

Well what an incredibly unique response to a school going into special measures.

I don’t believe anyone can actually believe this, including the government themselves. So, state schools will be turned around by parents being a bit more pushy? Does she actually think that teachers and school leaders just need to try a bit harder?

The optimistic VAT figure has already been allocated to a few more teachers, free breakfast for all and a bit of mental health support. She can’t seriously think that this will solve the problems in the state system? The problem is that they don’t appreciate that the problems in the state sector run far deeper than a lack of funding. There is a huge behaviour problem. There are too many parents who don’t want their children disciplined and fight against, rather than support, the schools. You only have to look at threads on here where parents complain if their children have been disciplined. Poor behaviour isn’t going to be solved by giving a child a free breakfast muffin.

As for her expectation that schools need to absorb the VAT, she seems to be forgetting that her colleague has just announced NIC and living wage hikes which will be implemented shortly. That, combined with the business rate changes, will cost our school the equivalent of almost £2k per child. That’s before the VAT implications. There have also been changes to the TPS, along with huge increases energy bills.

Business leaders are warning of dire consequences of the Budget announcements; presumably they’ll be told just to be a bit more pushy and magically absorb the increased costs.

Suggesting school staff just need to try harder is hugely insulting.

I tried being pushy with my DC’s state secondary school it didn’t work, they just ignored me, along with most other correspondence, as was the case for other parents too - maybe we weren’t middle class enough!

Seriously though, although the school was awful, I could see that they were struggling with the issues including those that you describe. My DC were well behaved with engaged parents and so were not a priority because the school had to concentrate their limited resources on the worst issues, even when one of my DC was badly bullied and the other one seriously declining academically.

God she is atrocious. Like her boss. And his mates. This government is embarrassing in its inadequacy. The bitter incompetent left are really ruling the roost now. It’s going to be a long, infuriating 4/5 years.

You do realise that school is on-going? That there will always be young people going through their GCSEs?

Her comments don’t even make sense. On one hand, she says that middle class families have now been priced out of private education and that pupil numbers are decreasing because of falling birth rates. On the other hand, she expects there to be a minimal fall in the numbers attending private school, and the government are basing their tax receipt estimates on that fact. The two standpoints are contradictory.

Yes the messages and expectations are contradictory.

I think we are simply seeing modern politics in action. Doesn't matter who is in power, left/right were clearly defined ideological sides a long time ago, which are murky now and often overlap. Nowadays the primary driver is messaging/PR to spin attitudes towards those in power, whoever it is, and however long they can retain it. Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be much analysis or modeling to back up policy decision making as the messaging itself doesn't require that: an op-ed will suffice, to tell you what to think about it (either furious or supportive etc etc)

The Tories did something similar with Brexit/COVID lockdowns etc. But closer to this topic, Gove did this with reforming the education system/curriculum/reform the way he wanted it, despite lots of pushback from education professionals telling him it would change the system for worse. Now BP is doing the same rubbish, seemingly from an opposite ideological position, but from the same smug methodology that destroys what is working in the system in the hopes of leaving some sort of legacy (which will be spun into some nonsense message and outright lies, as we are seeing now).

In the meantime, children currently being educated simply lose out, while all these new decisions will take years to settle. Why on earth would you break something so suddenly, with no back up plan if it goes tits up? I don't know. The Tories did it and got away with it. BP will do it and get away with it. Soon enough Reform will get in because they have the best funded oily PR machine of them all.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/starmer-private-school-vat-tax-pupils-oxfordshire-b2664167.html

and on the same day:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/12/28/tax-breaks-private-schools-luxury-britain-cant-afford-vat/

The obvious question to me is : why is it that every other country (except Greece, and look how that turned out) can afford not to tax education but we supposedly can't? It's almost as if (a) there have been consecutive teams of morons in charge of the treasury, and (b) these morons are unwilling to address the elephant in the room

https://www.london.gov.uk/new-report-reveals-uk-economy-almost-ps140billion-smaller-because-brexit

It's quite spectacularly stupid of her

Yes the messages and expectations are contradictory.

The Labour Party couldn’t care less about messages being contradictory or the fact there aren’t 650 teachers queueing up to teach or any of the other holes in the policy.
The policy’s only intention is to punish poshos.

By “pushy middle class” Bridget must mean her mates from Oxford who have been priced out by evil private schools. And probably herself when it suits her; when it doesn’t she is the poor self-made working class gal.

What I think is happening is that the penny is dropping that the policy is going to lead to way more pupils moving from independent to state than Labour forecast. This means lower tax receipts and also greater difficulty and expense in finding state school places.

She’s now claiming that middle class parents were already being priced out of independent schools and making the move to state, and that the imposition of VAT won’t have much of an effect against this backdrop.

You can guarantee that in a year or two when this car crash of a policy has played out, she’ll claim it was never intended to be a revenue raising measure at all.

That’s when the Labour messaging will shift to say that independent schools really are bastions of elitism and privilege, are used only by the ultra wealthy and must therefore be shut down completely.