Whitehall “braced for private schools collapse” 2

[ICouldBeVioletSky]

Starting a second thread as the first one is still very busy, albeit it's veered off in a few directions...

Original article

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

No significant benefit or no benefit at all?

"I bet you needed a language though, right?"

Nope.

"No significant benefit or no benefit at all?"

I would say none. In anatomy you memorise flexor carpi ulnaris and you don't need to know what the derivation of the words are. In prescribing you write od, on, bd, tid - you know what they mean and knowledge of the Latin phrases being abbreviated are not needed.

I'm not going to bang on more about this but in my experience, the familiarity helps with the memorising. We'll just have to agree to differ.

That actually really surprises me! I wish I had told DC to drop theirs and keep something they enjoyed more or just do one less to focus on their science and maths...

I still think it is unfair that she can't do a language any more through no fault of her own.

"I still think it is unfair that she can't do a language any more through no fault of her own."

No disagreement on that score.

The requirement for a foreign language at GCSE level for UK university entry was dropped a long time ago.

I don’t disagree with anything in your post here, just wanted to note it was not literally ‘corrupt’ what Starmer did over this GCSE/holiday flat borrowing because it was 1) within the rules 2) declared

Beautifully put, @Araminta1003

It was completely hypocritical of Starmer to claim that it was right for him to take bungs including 20k in free accommodation on the pretext of his son's education not being disrupted, while at the same planning a tax which would disrupt the education of tens of thousands of children, many of whose families are less well off than his.
Declared / within the rules is irrelevant. The civil service code of conduct prohibits civil servants from accepting gifts or hospitality more than £25. If a civil servant was seen to be taking gifts or hospitality amounting to tens of thousands they would be subject to disciplinary action. Ministers should be held to the same standard. The rules as they stand are grossly inadequate - they mean our politicians can be bought cheaply.
As for corruption, Starmer's government is already attracting the wrong sort of attention https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cp3zqen209go

Once again, I don’t disagree with you on the broader points at all but it’s definitely not ‘irrelevant’ at all what the rules are, and I’m happy that we can both agree that Starmer hasn’t broken them here.
If you feel Ministers and PMs shouid be held to the same rules as all other civil servants fine but that’s a different question.

Yes agree with you, SEND DC will be disproportionately affected. Labour have no plan to deal with SEND just making more complacent Ministerial noises about keeping more kids with SEND in mainstream schools. As if special schools are some kind of luxury not a necessity. Awful.

This Labour government (after 14 shameful years of Tory underfunding let’s not forget) is giving no more money or teachers or training or even any extra capacity. Despite years of bulge classes. Nothing, even, to help support the inevitable impact of a load of extra kids with SEND now joining state schools whose parents can’t afford private any more.

This VAT policy isn't even going to raise the negligible 0.5 of a teacher per school that the government says it will raise. The kids who left state for private due to SEND will need far more expensive and taxpayer funded special schools or alternative provision that isn’t available at the moment, so what’s going to happen there?

As school returns today (with great difficulty for my DC) and more parents speak to each other this new VAT imposition is being ever more revealed as bullshit populist policymaking, burdening kids who haven’t done anything wrong. It’s going to be burdening kids whether they are in state or in private schools.

Many of those less affluent kids with SEND currently in private will now face the disruption of changing schools, and that disruption is an additional hardship directly due to an avoidable government policy.

Some of the SEND kids in state or private who can sit GCSE and ALevels this year at great effort and personal cost will now get worse grades due to thinner stretched resources in state schools. Some of the ones in private will have to switch subjects due to disruption of changing schools and start from scratch.

And some of their parents will have their earning power restricted due to these changes of school or even move home etc as there will be no suitable local school to meet the SEND needs of their kids. Some parents will need to take time off work to support their SEND kids after a change of school. It just goes on and on.

For us I’m worried that if my have to DC leave this last resort of private school that will be the complete end of brick and mortar schooling, such is their anxiety. My autistic DC hits the roof if we have to do a simple change of route driving in the car somewhere. Changing school again will probably be the last straw after months of missed school in previous state school due to SEND. The local authority special schools and alternative provisions are all full with months or years long waiting lists. What is the government doing about that?

If Labour were doing this as part of a thought through big plan for improving education then maybe I would start to understand. I vote Labour and I work in the public sector because I want to support public services like the NHS and education and social services.

I’m also stressed to hell as a SEND parent dealing with a broke and shit Local Authority while paying with money we don’t have for smaller classes in a private school, after the local state mainstream said it couldn’t meet my child’s needs. Trying to get an EHCP assessment is being illegally delayed as a blanket policy in our LA and all the neighbouring ones. It’s open widespread lawbreaking directly due to underfunding.

I’m sick of being told by ableists including at the highest levels in government that I have made a ‘choice’ to jeopardise our family finances (like some others posting on here), when there wasn’t a state special school place available.

Don’t they think we would all have been delighted and relieved if an accessible school place was on offer? What it is about our kids that makes them not deserve an education like other kids without disabilities get for free?

The option we had was a DC being out of school at home for months or years. With the presumption that family adults would give up work to facilitate that. I don’t know what else to say about that really. it’s brutal and sexist and economically boneheaded all at once.

Bridget Phillipson should be ashamed of herself not even visiting a private school. She should meet the SENCOs in those private schools and ask how many kids in those schools are lucky (‘lucky’) enough to have been able to come there from state schools that have already failed them due to SEND.

And she should go to visit the specialist sport or music or ballet schools, where our future sport or cultural heroes are being trained or the Steiner or Forest or Montessori schools that support families who want an alternative curriculum and go to the religious schools. And the single sex private schools where there is no state single sex school in the borough. She should ask those families what the state school equivalent alternative is for their kids (clue: nothing, there is none).

Basic information gathering. In fact I am going to write to my local MP and ask them to do this in their constituency. Labour making education more exclusive is not something I thought I would see.

She darent and doesn't have the balls to face parents and kids and try and justify her policy

Totally agree

Neither does my Labour MP

What appears to be happening is the denial of a real tsunami increase in SEND and they will blame it on poor parenting and screen addictions and poor diets and the Tory curriculum… Go and listen to what their advisors have to say on all of that.
They will throw around some policies around better parenting and minimising screens and hope for the best. And more teachers will leave and anyone who can will tutor on the side, have to somehow make up for it at home and more and more kids will suffer serious mental health issues and worklessness due to their policies. Because they only give a shit about their own DCs. And they will just bring in more and more immigrants to do work and foot the welfare bill for worklessness, rather than tackling the causes and investing early and properly in DCs who need it. They will simply continue to ignore what teachers and heads tell them and carry on. They have ignored what businesses have told them too.

Remember, now they are in power they will just do what they want. Just like the Tories. They do not listen properly or invest in long term goals, none of them. Because they are just there for themselves, for the next 4 years, hoping at best to wing another term.

I will ask the school if they have invited our MP (also Labour, and in support of this)

https://www.tes.com/magazine/analysis/general/labour-schools-bill-is-timid-education-policy

"Labour has no clear vision for improving education"

@EHCPerhaps I feel you. Currently sitting here in tears because term started today. Youngest, autistic with anxiety, had a migraine so trying to get him to limp along to get in for pm lessons; eldest (19, at tech college doing an access course as previous 6th form college could neither understand or support her AuDHD/anxiety and failed both times she tried) is having a full on autistic/ADHD melt down and rocking in a corner due to assignment due tomorrow. College have said she can possibly have an extension if she gets a doctors note. GP not making appointments until after 21st Jan due to rolling out a new online consult system… no idea why the fact that she is listed as AuDHD doesn’t in itself qualify her for an extension. Anyways, have been waiting for the shoe to drop for ten days.

Knew we’d have this issue. We have the hysterical meltdown several times a week since getting her back into college. Frankly, today, I feel pretty fucking suicidal. And I do not exagerate. I cannot call my DH as it is first day back for him and the last time I did that he sat and sobbed at his desk; cannot let this impact son as he needs to get into school. I have gradually lost all my friends as they simply do not understand what it is like to go and wake your child for school every morning, pause on the threshold of their bedroom and hold your breath because you’ve been on suicide watch for 4 years and every fucking day you fear you will find them dead. And that’s before you get them into school.

We should have found a way to keep her in her private school as they at least worked with us, helped with flexible attendance, shared work on teams so she could study from home in bad MH weeks, but we couldn’t afford it anymore - 6th form fees rocket compared to Y9-11 and there was the post covid fee rise, so we just couldn’t do it and keep two kids in the school. The threat of VAT meant we took the decision to move our DS into the state sector because with VAT the fees jump from y11 to 12 almost doubled and my DH’s company is facing another wave of redundancies. He’s survived 5 rounds over 10 years but can’t rely on being safe again.

Frankly, I am done with ableist assumptions, the spiteful abuse because you dared to go private at any point, the inability to understand just how fucking exhausting/heartbreaking/unrelenting it is to try and support your SEN kids in the State education system… especially when you can’t get a fucking GP appointment to discuss acute anxiety and ineffective ADHD meds when your child is is crisis. No point calling 111, as they will direct you to A&E, where you will sit for 8-48hrs and eventually be discharged without so much as a psychiatric follow up (they don’t so Autism/Adhd… that’s a different department 🤬). But, hey, at least you can scan in the pink discharge slip and send it to college/school so that she gets the essay extension!

@CautiousLurker01 💔 - I wish I could say something to make you feel better. I am so so sorry,

My heart really goes out to you CautiousLurker

I'm so sorry @cautiouslurker. That sounds so hard.

@CautiousLurker01 thank you for putting my (financial) concerns into perspective. I am so sorry you and your children are experiencing the dreadful unintended consequences of a policy that was designed to target others. You sound like an extraordinary parent- your DC are fortunate at least that they have you fighting for them.

@CautiousLurker01 Sorry that’s horrendous.

‘College have said she can possibly have an extension if she gets a doctors note’

https://www.livi.co.uk/pay-as-you-go/

My husband got a prescription and note from them on the same day.

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