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

God no @Araminta1003 I dont want government, and more specifically, BP, anywhere near my child! That would negate the "independent" part of independent schools BUT yes they do have a duty to monitor the impact of their own policy, even if only to track the impact on state sector.

@twistyizzy - I am not talking about imposing the National Curriculum or making all DCs do KS2 SATS or even GCSEs. But for those of us with kids in the state system, they collect very clear data which moves with them from primary to secondary. If you take them out of the state system, they simply wash their hands of kids? I do not find that acceptable. I think the local authorities should know where each child is and how they are being educated, at all times. It is not about telling you how to educate them, just that someone knows where they are. Of course there are GP registrations and child benefit, but absolutely I think there should be some tracking for every child, especially vulnerable children.
How else can you track a child’s moves and the failures of state education for some?

I don't disagree with that. When we moved from state primary to indy secondary all we did was email the LA to say we were moving to indy sector and got an automated email in response. No-one has ever contacted us to check which school etc she is at.

I think there should be some tracking for every child

This may not happen everywhere but when my DC moved to a post-16 place that wasn’t in the same county, the LEA phoned up to speak to my child to verify where they were being educated as they had fallen off their records. Presumably the LEA then verified this independently.

Yikes, @Another76543 , that sounds really tough for your family- I am sorry. I hope you are able to find a decent solution for your DC.

https://www.thetimes.com/uk/education/article/more-families-will-miss-out-on-first-choice-school-under-reforms-8fsjhprlj

https://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/news/liverpool-news/warning-over-liverpool-school-places-30949781

And now state schools being forced to cut teachers

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2025/feb/09/cash-strapped-schools-plan-to-lay-off-teachers-in-blow-to-labours-promise

Will the response be "yawn" again?

Maybe they could stop employing so many executive MAT heads on well over 100k and sometimes up to 500k a year, then they would be able to afford some glue sticks and teaching assistants.

Those Heads are managing multiple schools and enormous budgets.
Whilst i cant see a justification for 500K salaries you do need to offer a decent salary in order to get the skills set. Pay peanuts = you get monkeys.

I understand that. I don't see the reason why schools should be businesses. Things worked ok under local authorities for a century.

No they didn't work "ok". That's why Labour brought in academies ie to take the worst performing ones out of LA control because they didn't improve under LA

That’s a ‘bottle neck’ of everyone apply for the same few schools. It doesn’t mean there aren’t plenty of places in the schools in the city.

Academies are not businesses. They are charities. And things did not work ok under local authorities. The UK was drifting down the international league tables for performance of our education system and there is evidence that the things needed to have a high performing system are not compatible with LA control.

It's a bit more complex than that. Yes, certain failing schools were converted to academies under Labour, but the real push started under the coalition. One of the reason there are not enough special school places is because LA maintained schools were not allowed to expand and LAs were not allowed to open new schools, and most special schools were slower to become MATs because it means that they lose entitlement to LA services such as provided speech therapy or Ed psych time. This was a huge issue in my area.

lordslibrary.parliament.uk/improving-schools-performance-are-multi-academy-trusts-the-answer/

Ok I stand corrected.
But they can be expensive and top heavy management-wise.

The press this weekend is full of 250k Brits in Dubai and doubling by 2040 type thing. I assume these are all net contributors. The left policies like VAT on school fees are just going to destroy tax take further. Such a short sighted policy. And the EPC C on rental properties will also just push up rental prices. Why should renters have to pay to make housing stock more green when richer home owners do not have to? This current Government is going to run things into the ground further and further. Such a shame.

I work for a multi-national and my role covers EMEA. If I relocate to another EMEA country, my role goes with it and the UK loses £60k per year in income tax and NI. From one person! It is easily done as my company doesn’t care where I am based as long as I am in EMEA. They are not a UK company. This Government is so short sighted.

are you me??
I was in exactly the same position and when I tried to explain it here a lot of posters just tried to push their narrative that my role will be taken by someone else here so no loss. I'm retiring now at 52, exclusively because of Labour budget, and it's not just my role which is moving, but business decided to move the entire team who reported into me. Move means people are being made redundant here and their roles are filled in EU. I'm doing KT now.

Edited to add - I believe collectively for all roles the loss of tax from HMRC is north of 380k pa. All because of this stupid VAT and pensions now subject to IHT.
Slow clap

I think the question is more how do you introduce a culture of aspiration and doing your best for yourself and your kids, by whatever means, being viewed as a good thing back into the country? If you do not succeed in doing that and let this current narrative take hold, then we can really say goodbye to public services for good. We all need to be able to piggy back off success and celebrate success and ambition. Not run it into the ground with random tax thresholds and huge anomalies and putting young people and successful people trying their best off the country or off doing their best.

But @Araminta1003 , there isn't even intention of celebrating success here in the UK, it's only envy.
If you're successful it means you're privileged. No matter if you were born in abject poverty and worked bloody hard, you're privileged to be intelligent, bla bla bla, whatever. If you failed, oh poor you, life's been unfair to you. It's just ridiculous.
It's not just taxes but this attitude which drives high fliers away and there is no sign of it changing.

So you off then?

I have no doubt that my current employer will be encouraging more of us to move to the UAE as they are expanding in that area. My DS1 is in year 10 so mid GCSE’s but in around 18 months I see no reason for us to stick around. Yes, we would have to pay overseas student fees for uni if he wants to come back to the UK but that could work to his advantage. An academic high achiever, English speaking with the benefit to the uni of overseas fees. What uni wouldn’t want him?!!

So you aren't one of the squeezed middle scraping together the money for your SEND child who simply can't afford the 20 percent extra, that apparently dominate concerns over this policythis thread? You just don't want to? Even though you will then potentially have to pay thousands and thousands extra for uni? Ok.