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

I believe that all cases should be reviewed based on the individual circumstances. For a child with SEN, a chance of environment could be very upsetting. If that coincides with potential bullying by children and parents who think that the former privately educated child gets what they deserve- that can be horrific for that child.

we all manage based on our circumstances.

“If a child's needs can really only be met via small class sizes and an independent school offer then those parents should apply for an EHCP to state as much.
Oftentimes moving a child with SEND out of mainstream just masks the problem for a while. It leaves children without the legal send protection they need or, potentially , their needs being correctly identified. Then they move back into the state at sixth form or uni and are plunged into instant crisis because they would and should have had a support package years earlier had they remained in m/s state.”

I don’t agree.
I think plenty of people move their children before a crisis point hits because they can foresee that unfolding. Often the child develops anxieties, inability to sleep, minor forms of self harm etc and the parents who can move them before full crisis hits. They witness the child suffering and they act trying to avoid the further trauma of going through the very protracted legal process. Which often takes its toll on the whole family, other children, parental relationships, work etc. The whole you are only as happy as your unhappiest child.

If a child’s needs have subsequently been met in an independent setting and they are fine it becomes difficult to prove that is the only setting that will do - precisely because the parent avoided the full blown crisis.

Quite often those shielded from a full blown crisis can then cope later on, when they mature and develop more coping skills. It’s all very individual.

And for a Government to come along and recklessly play with some of these children’s lives is unforgivable. Especially when we 1) have a SEND crisis and 2) have a teen and mental health crisis 3) have an issue with worklessness in the young 4) are still in the post Covid period and 5) have no compensating economic proof to make any of the former proportionate, well it’s just unforgivable.

Some of your points may be valid if we had a vaguely functioning EHCP process.

We don’t.

It has been completely and utterly broken for some time.

I’m quite surprised, to put it mildly, that you seem to think otherwise given that you say you work in SEND and and went through the EHCP system with your own DC, albeit some years ago.
^^
“If a child's needs can really only be met via small class sizes and an independent school offer then those parents should apply for an EHCP to state as much”

Many parents of independently educated SEND children did try to get an EHCP but were unsurprisingly defeated by the kafkaesque hurdles that are put in their way at every turn. It can easily take 18+ months for even the most articulate, educated, tenacious and well-resourced parent to battle the system to get an EHCP, and in the meantime their child is by definition not receiving the support they need.

I would have thought this is something you are only too familiar with.

Of course lots of parents do not have the luxury of choice (ie the means) to go down the independent route, and it is a scandal that the state sector does not adequately provide for all SEND children.

“Then they move back into the state at sixth form or uni and are plunged into instant crisis because they would … have had a support package years earlier had they remained in m/s state.”

This suggestion is frankly risible.

That would be nice.

Instead we are all told by schools that there is no chance of getting an EHCP and strongly dissuaded from even applying.

By the time you realise that you should have thrown the kitchen sink at it, it's all far too late - you've already spent years trying to get diagnoses worked out, doubting your own judgement and feeling guilty for asking for anything.

And the situation is even worse if you had a child who was transitioning to secondary in Covid years like the current Y11 cohort, as that was 2 years where you had no clue how they were doing in school as they weren't there, there were no appointments for anything etc.

It is no surprise to me that if you can scrape together the funds you would find it a cheaper, simpler and less stressful option to move your child to independent rather than spend 2+ years watching them sink.

I've been lucky that DD's SEN have been manageable in state - partly because we have an excellent state option, and partly because I have thrown money, time and research at the issues on the side. If I could rewind the clock I'd have gone all out for an EHCP in primary even if it didn't seem like she needed one then.

If you read what I wrote, I was saying quite the opposite. However, I was also saying there are others who are maybe slightly less deprived who also should have their context taken into account. I just find it strange that you only consider those who are at the very top end of the spectrum of deprivation and ND private school DC who have to move worthy of contextual considerations.

Just an update on the issue of how many parents will switch to state — at DD’s school apparently they had half the number of applicants for year 7 that they normally do, and nearly all of those were from local prep schools where the parents are already paying for primary education. And this isn’t a small school on the edge that normally struggles for pupils - it’s a very established secondary with a good academic reputation in a wealthy area.

So that looks very much like the result we were all predicting - the richer parents carry on as they can afford it anyway; but lots of parents who are less wealthy but might previously have sent kids who were state at primary to independent secondary have decided not to - even at a good long established school.

If year groups at independent schools halve from now on, not only will a lot more schools be forced to go out of business than the treasury - or indeed anyone - thought; but the policy will be a clear net loss to the taxpayer. Each state school will get more stretched, not less; funding will go down per head in the sector; and not only will the amount raised from VAT be less than the increased cost to the taxpayer, but all those kids moving to state will suck up the funds for other people’s kids.

If that ends up being the case, and this time next year it becomes clear that this policy is actually going to cost the taxpayer more than the revenue raised — I ask yet again, pro-VAT people: will you still think it’s a good thing?

@Kittiwakeup - the point is not about private schools. ND DC but with potential to attain (what used to be called higher functioning) tend to, as a group, not deal well with transition and do not deal well with missing education - hence best to get them into university and jobs asap. It is a loss to the whole of society if that does not happen. Of course, those failed in state education are just as much of a tragedy. But here we have a very specific policy and those specific DCs need to be supported with the transition to state education and then into higher education.

Yes support of course but that is a very different thing from contextualisation.

I personally think that disability should feature far more in widening participation and I feel the system is currently quite ableist. But that is the subject of another thread. Especially given the current lack of consistent SEND support in state education. I realise there are sections on the UCAS form to highlight it and challenges experienced, but I think personally that it is not given enough prominence, currently, across universities. I personally believe that needs correcting. I would hope that individual universities will realise that a transition for a child with SEND due to this VAT policy could be a big challenge and that they will consider individual circumstances carefully in their offers.

Disability is a totally different thing from contextualising results and it is disingenuous to claim otherwise.

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/higher_education/5265600-unis-offering-contextual-offers-for-disabled-applicants

Why? I was just reading the above thread a couple of days ago.

Examination access arrangements, University student support services and DSA all address supporting students with disabilities. Generally speaking, high ranking universities do not give contextual offers on the basis of disability.

Yes @Kittiwakeup - I know they do not, but I think it is quite wrong that they do not, pretty elitist.

I don't know where you are trying to go with this but I have no interest in trying to understand your skewed logic on it. Have a good evening.

"The vaping industry got 2 years to adapt!! They care more for vapes than our kids"

Honestly finding it hard to move past this. It's a point I'd very much like to put to RR and BP.

Likewise. I find that particularly bitter too. Given how much damage could have been avoided by giving a 2 year lead-time to get kids to a natural break point.

And that the delay isn't particularly significant for vapes. Not in the same way. It feels like taunting us.

The only balance I can find is that the vape tax is only expected to raise £40 million, in contrast to the £1.6 billion Labour were hoping for from VAT on schools. I'm pretty sure that there will be enough behaviour change that the VAT policy will actually lose money. But maybe they genuinely don't realise that? (they can't seem to get past the ideology)

I have to hope that it was 'just' the incompetence of not doing any meaningful financial analysis. Like you, I really, really don't want to think that they are deliberately maximising the harm to our children. But my mind still goes there..

DH and I both work in the independent school sector and three of the four schools were involved with are currently doing a great number of redundancies with staff. I know this happens in lots of sectors but teachers don’t expect it so there’s a lot of shock and upset, understandably. These are all stand alone preps.

The SEND issue aside, they wouldn’t even have needed to delay the whole thing for two years to avoid a huge amount of the disruption and related harm.

They could have waited until September to introduce it generally (even as late as July/August last year they were briefing to say that was the plan).

And then exempt anyone in Y11 until they have completed their GCSEs, plus anyone in Y13 to allow them to complete A levels. By delaying until September that would allow anyone currently in Y9 and Y11 to move to state school before they start their GCSE and A levels courses.

(Appreciate some schools make a start on GCSE work in Y9 so really it would be better to exempt current Y9s too).

As to why Labour are doing it the way they are, they say “Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.”

But this level of stupidity is completely inexcusable! Even if it’s not malicious, there is definitely a level of wilful blindness driven by ideology - zero interest in considering or trying to mitigate the disruptive impact of moving children at a key stage in their education.

No wonder Reform is reported to have overtaken Labour in the polls…. 😫

@icouldbevioletsky wilful blindness driven by ideology

That's exactly it. And that is also very, very hard to forgive.

Whilst of course my DC would benefit - since they are actually getting a good education - that's not the only/main reason.

The current Lefty attachment to the hierarchy of disadvantage is pretty harmful. It infantilizes, removes agency and creates a sense of victimhood which helps no one.

I was being facetious about "going back to everyone being judged on their results", but of course eventually we are all judged on our results. You can only bend that for so long. I'd argue that bending it following 14 years of standard state education is pretty unambitious about state education. Why do you think that 3 years of University education will get someone up to level, when 14 years of state school education didn't? Do you have so little faith in state schools, compared to University? Why not fix that?

A certain amount of taking context into consideration is healthy. I remember reading an article years ago where a girl from a Fairground background talked about her challenges getting an education, doing her assignments in the truck driving back overnight after working a fair for a week during twrm time. She was at Oxbridge reading English - and it's obvious that they should consider her interview - look at examples of her work, and discuss her ideas, consider her raw ability - far more than her exam grades. Especially for English, where missing previous education is less of a problem than other subjects. I don't think anyone would ever object that.

But making up graduations of under-priviledge and using that systematically. No, that's degrading, harmful, victim-mentality creation.

Far better to:
a) actually improve state education, so that you rarely need to consider context
b) in the very few cases it's still relevant (like the Fairground family student), use your brain to apply sensible judgement

Hard agree @strawberrybubblegum.

My point about context was that logic would dictate that the effects on the child themselves via eg a disability are far more important than eg state/postcode etc. However, unis use the latter because it is an easily quantifiable metric. They do not use the former as it would be too much work to objectively assess. So quite often logic is defied and therefore, I only agree to contextual use if multiple of those metric factors are present. It was down right ridiculous when one of my DC qualified on postcode and state school alone!

This demonstrates that you know nothing about how context matters. I read facetious as ignorant. I think you need to open your mind and understand this a lot more before you can have any meaningful debate on it.

@Kittiwakeup your last post reads as ‘if you don’t agree with me it is because you are uneducated’, which is a really lame way to shut down a debate. It should be possible for two adults to have a thoughtful debate without resorting to insults.

I agree that disability has a huge effect @Araminta1003 . Also that it takes effort to think about each case individually - but that's what's needed.

I think disability should largely be supported through access arrangements, at school as well as Uni, and (again) having leeway for flexible thinking at an individual level.