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.

This thread is hysterical. All these dramatic responses and life changing decisions as a response to an increase in private school fees. Comedy gold!

I haven't worked in state-run institutions like the NHS, but I suspect that it's different when your aim is to spend value effectively, rather than create value. I imagine it's less measurable.

The things I build have to actually work, and their final cost and value are very clear. Having seen this Labour government, I'm more convinced than ever that spending time in industry should be a prerequisite for cabinet members. In an industry where the outcomes are measurable. (I'm not sure how measurable Law is.) You learn a different perspective.

You misunderstand the nature of our objection to this when you say that increasing income tax will have more impact. Re-Read @Juliagreeneyes eloquent post yesterday at 19:02 and the responses to it. It's human. It's about our relationship with the state and other UK citizens. It's that which has been irreparably damaged.

And incidentally, I don't think it should be the higher rate of tax which should increase. I think it should be basic income tax. Everyone benefits from state education and everyone should contribute. We need to get away from this take-take-take mentality in the UK in order to have any future.

The problem is that one should never implement policies that are political rather than revenue raising! The general public is not financially or economically savvy enough to understand what is genuinely revenue raising for the country. IHT should be a low flat rate for all kicking in at small amount because that would raise far more overall and people would stop tax planning against it. But they won’t do that, because politicians are not economically driven primarily, they are vote driven primarily and short term-ist at that. Countless experts will have told them how best to raise actual revenue but they simply ignore it in favour of vote pleasing policies a la turkeys voting for Christmas.

It depends on the area - we have some excellent state 6th forms near us (all fed by the private schools in recent years as people have baulked at the jump in fees to 30K+ at that age with the economic uncertainty of the last 5 years and the threat of VAT hanging in the air. In the cohort after covid of the 90 children in our y11, 77 defected to state 6th forms doing 3-4 A Levels and all have gone on to good unis. The places were filled overseas students and kids moving from other private schools where the fees were higher still, so it was a bit of musical chairs, plus a local private catholic school closed a year later so people moved in anticipation of the closure.

The 6th forms are not allowed to discriminate against kids in the private sector applying (I’d hope that would be especially so now). They also welcome kids with good academic credentials and study ethic as it makes their job easier and enhances their stats (A level scores and numbers going on to uni).

Staff shortages are an issue, though, as is staff attendance as several of us have noticed, so I would target the Oftsed Outstanding ones with really good grade and Uni stats… and hire a tutor outside. This is what we’ve done, to ensure that understanding is definitely consolidated and that you have someone monitoring that the full syllabus has been covered - and who can step in if someone goes off sick/maternity leave and supply teachers are over-used. That said, my DD has had a fab supply teacher for her course who was even better than the one who is on leave.

“This thread is hysterical. All these dramatic responses and life changing decisions as a response to an increase in private school fees. Comedy gold!“

It won’t be funny though will it if inflation keeps sticking, we are even more in debt and debt service balloons even more as a percentage of GDP and those remaining tax payers end up picking up the tab. And services deteriorate further.
Taxation is always a balance between revenue raising and disincentive.

We did financially plan from birth - hence they were privately educated, had access to private assessment/support for their SEN, and have a trust fund to cover a large chunk of uni and a house deposit all ready.

The financial planning is to ensure they get as much of the rest as possible when we die - or, now, long before - whilst ensuring we have a great early retirement regardless of syphoning off our assets towards our kids.

Thanks @CautiousLurker01 - DC could stay in their school but the school they are aiming for is excellent at the subjects they wish to do and there is a strong peer group there too. But we were effectively told at open evening that to do those subjects, may well require 9x9 grades to get in! But if they wish to do an undersubscribed subject like an MML then the grades required to get in would likely be lower. So trying to second guess how best to do this given they may drop an A level at the end of Year 12 anyway, in most cases. The MML classes are so small it is basically like having a private teacher so doing that for 1 year may actually make sense. All this scheming for education should not be required!

Absolutely incorrect as of late. I cannot comment for 15 years ago but today ISI is equally rigorous.

OFSTED is often mistaken as being rigorous rather than outdated and narrow thinking.

This

I am also now thoroughly enjoying all the competitive financial planning and top state grammar-ing!

ISI inspects schools on eight standards. In the year 23/24 90% of schools inspected met all eight standards.This may be because they are all good in all areas of course but it seems unlikely.

Our council has been trying to increase state grammar places so maybe they will be able to off the back of this policy come next August. At least for Sixth Form. If they get to take an additional class, that would be a fantastic outcome. So there may well be positives like this.

So all you’re doing is reviewing your plans.

Good for you. I hope you get to enjoy your early retirement.

The local independent here is the biggest employer in the area. That isn’t, of course, just teachers who will be affected (as so many have pointed out), it is a whole range of jobs; gardeners, chefs, a domestic team, ICT staff inc. apprentices, marketing, matrons, technicians. Then there are the local services used by the school including suppliers such as a butchers and generally the shops in town.

The rich will always have more to play with - tutors, houses in the ‘best’ areas, enrichment…

If it closes, a lot of people locally will struggle to get their children into their nearest school. I am already worried our toddler won’t be able to get into the same as their siblings (infant/juniors run as separate so sibling doesn’t hold as much weight).

I'm another who paid all the tax that was due via PAYE at rates up to 60% and viewed it as the price you pay to live in a civilised society. Between DP and myself (one in public sector, the other in private) we've regularly paid over 100k per year in income tax without complaint.
It's bad enough when you see people at work being paid as contractors to their personal corporations so they can launder the money as dividends and pay less than 10% tax. It's equally irritating when a family member whose income is comparable to yours tells you that once their accountant has finished playing tricks with their "self-employed" (but actually NHS) earnings, they paid just 6% tax.
But when you've tried and failed to get your child's needs met in state schools, had to pay privately for assessments that a failing NHS can't do, reluctantly put them in the private school that meets their needs, and the response of the government is to target your family and your children with a tax that jeopardises the future of school they're at and the continuity of their education, it feels personal. They've made it personal. They've chosen to make an ideologically motivated attack on your child's future and dismissed the harm of their actions as fiction or acceptable collateral damage.

Sorry i mis-wrote. I was doing currency conversions in my head! The mean in my home country is the equivalent of approx £46 k.

Lol. Opportunities to make life changing decisions occur throughout most people’s career. My DH was offered a partnership in the US when DD was 6 and DS was 3. He flew back from the interview to collect the kids from the (state) village infant school/nursery they were in at the time - cricket playing on the green in the sunshine, families paddling in the stream, others already pitched up at the pub watching the game or on picnic blankets… and thought ‘why would I leave this? Why would I take this from my kids?’ A year later at junior school my DDs SEN needs became clear and after 2 years of fighting with the school for assessment and ECHP application support, we defected into (an equally idyllic) private school. He has had life changing opportunities presented to him dozens of times, but not wanting to disrupt our children’s educations and having a sense at the time that it was a privilege to grow up in England, that our high taxes were the price of that privilege - that they helped other families have a better life here, supported a society we were invested in - we remained.

Now we are being told by the very society that we have invested in that we are despicable, that our children’s welfare is of no concern - in fact the opposite - that despite the hundreds of thousands of taxes we’ve happily paid, the sensible financial planning we undertaken to ensure we are not a burden on the state during our lives and can support both our parents and our children in the same way… we should just get over ourselves? Our kids will be in unis next year, so there is absolutely nothing tying us to the UK or to jobs here now. So when the invites to discuss jobs in the US, Geneva and UAE come up (and they all have in the last 6 weeks), yes, my DH is going to go and talk to every company.

It is not that we are all running away in a paddy and sulking because we don’t like the changes the government is making - it is that we are no longer incentivised to remain here. We no longer feel valued or respected in our own country. And we are not alone. You can see that in the alarming move to the right and the increasing popularity of the Reform Party and the hideous Farage. We have an already fractured and divided nation and all the Labour Party has done so far is lob a load of TNT into the cracks and ensure that they become deep, unbridgeable chasms. Not that I’d want to cross those bridges now, as why would I want to engage with people who clearly despise me, my family and what we’ve worked hard to achieve?

You seem to have misunderstood or minimised the main point many people have been making over and over and over. Contrary to your assumption, most of us absolutely WANT the state education sector to succeed. Of course we do.

To do this, we as a COLLECTIVE group need to generate the vast amounts needed to make this happen. The only fair way - and the only way to generate the huge amounts needed - is for everyone to get a slight increase in income tax, which will generate far far more than this one tiny sales tax (which won't generate much, and will involve closure of schools - which in turn will have a knock on negative effect on the very thing it's supposed to improve).

The highly paid people moving abroad is a function not just of this tax, but that in general they are expected to pay more and more (disproportionately more, mind you) into a system that never gives back in return. We pay in, but don't take a penny out in any benefits at all.

I'm quite happy for you to donate 20% of your mortgage amount to HMRC as I'm sure it won't mean much to you, and you're so keen on financially supporting the state system.

'We have been told by the very society we have invested in that we are despicable'..

because we have to pay a bit more for our school fees..

You can apply to as many state 6th forms as you want to, fortunately, and can cancel the place right up to the first day of term so it’s worth applying to them and holding places so that you can decide when GCSE grades come in? Everyone I know in both the state and private system did this and held places at 2-3 colleges so that DCs could make informed decisions in August.

It may help your DCs exam stress levels to go in knowing that if the 9x9 grades don’t happen there are great alternatives. For most 6th forms, they often like you to have a grade 7 in the chosen A level subjects but some accept a 6, so it’s worthwhile knowing you have a viable plan B at a college they like.

But 90% of state schools were rated “outstanding” or “good” overall, before the ratings were recently abolished.

Is that really any different from independent schools “meeting” all 8 assessed criteria?

🤷‍♀️

Because harm to our children has been dismissed as unimportant - even a benefit 'so they develop much-needed grit'.

Because Bridget's divisive language has made clear that our own children aren't considered part of the UK's 'our children'. That they don't matter.

Because our substantial net financial contributions to the UK have been twisted into lies about tax breaks, and <laughing at how utterly ridiculous it is> nonsense about working people subsidising our children's education when the exact opposite is true.

When threads here on mumsnet are full of outrageous insults about 'posh kids', using made-up names like Tarquin and pushing the most ridiculous stereotypes, and actively hoping for them to be bullied and harmed.

You've out-grouped us. The people who actually pay for all the state benefits you want even more funding for. Fuck the lot of you.

To do this, we as a COLLECTIVE group need to generate the vast amounts needed to make this happen. The only fair way - and the only way to generate the huge amounts needed - is for everyone to get a slight increase in income tax, which will generate far far more than this one tiny sales tax (which won't generate much, and will involve closure of schools - which in turn will have a knock on negative effect on the very thing it's supposed to improve).

@LetItGo99 but all the main political parties know that this would be electoral suicide and they therefore would either never have an opportunity to get into government and implement it, or would know they would be booted out at the next election if they tried to bring it in mid-term.

This is why all they can really do is tinker round the edges with policies like VAT on school fees that they know the majority of the electorate are not particularly bothered about.

Well that's very stupid of them, isn't it?

“We have been told by the very society we have invested in that we are despicable'..”

“because we have to pay a bit more for our school fees..”

That is not what the poster is saying. The issue is that the Education Secretary has openly stated on social media that she pretty much doesn’t care about the well-being of the 6-7 per cent of DCs in private schools, by implication that they aren’t really kids, just numbers to squeeze. It’s completely offensive for anyone who has contributed massively to this society via talent and huge amounts of taxes. The Labour Party have insulted their DCs, I get it. People are angry and emotional because their DCs have been targeted.

Some of these people will have paid the 50 per cent additional tax rate in the past without a peep. But this is the personal and offensive as it targets the DCs. The Labour Party really should have known better. You know have hundreds of thousands of DCs and parents and grandparents who will out of principle never ever vote Labour again due to this (add in the farmers and WFA fallout and small businesses) and the outlook for Labour as well as what they have already done to the economy looks bleak, it’s another dead man walking I am afraid.

Careful @strawberrybubblegum - references to Tajfel’s Social Identity Theory might but a step too far for some of the PPs here. Even if they evidence its validity with every post.