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

What happened to @Wemaybebetterstrangers posts?! The first looked pretty uncontroversial and I was about to post to say I agreed! Didn’t see the second.

It's part of a conversation I was having with boohoo76. Not a general comment on private school parents. Thank you.

Part of the issue around places is - LAs have no idea how many kids will actually need places. There was a big campaign on SM for private parents to apply for places EVEN if they weren’t going use them to cause as much confusion as possible in some sort of protest. I know it was big around here, and at least one friend did this - despite having no intention of moving their child to state.
It’s going to take a while to shake all this out to see what’s actually going on.
And conservative leaning newspapers saying that there’s no room in oversubscribed schools isn’t helping.
Of course there’s no room in oversubscribed schools - they’re over subscribed! Yes, even for people with money… it’s the other schools that have space.

So true, sadly...

This tax on education began long before they were near power, as a Labour manifesto commitment, it is definitely a Starmer era Labour Party invention.
There will be civil servants absolutely tearing their hair out over how to actually implement this nonsense and draw up laws around it.

The civil servants don’t make government policy, they have to do the bidding of ministers and try to make their ideas happen… they very much try to soften the blows of the worst of them. But it’s not always possible.

Also there are no cushy civil service jobs left. Civil servants got 0% pay rises for years on end and have a lot of stress . We have to, and can only blame the Labour Party for this appalling mess of VAT on education and lack of vision overall for education. I say all of that as a very disillusioned Labour voter.

I read the article in the Times. I did raise an eyebrow at the comment that state schools in the City of London have fewer than 10 spaces in year 5 - mainly because there is only one state school in the City of London (used to be Sir John Cass, now called The Aldgate School). One school having fewer than 10 spaces is not all that surprising.

The other one was the Isles of Scilly. I have no idea whether independent schools are an option there - a brief google tells me that there is one all-through school for the Isles of Scilly.

Including these examples in the list was a bit of a weird thing to do. Having fewer than 10 spaces in year 5 in Sutton and Solihull probably is a problem.

It’s not weird, it’s a deliberate political bias as The Times - which I subscribe to but take most stories with a pinch of salt - has skin in the game … lots of Times readers will be private school users. Same as The Telegraph. And they’d be in real shit with many subscribers if they decided to announce that it’s all fine, actually… and perhaps more higher income families using state schools will be a better thing.

Why would higher income families using state schools be a good thing?

What magic do we bring?

I really hate this idea that private school families will be good for state schools! Its bullshit. I'd do fuck all.

As I’ve said before on these threads, there’s a huge confusion between the idea that a) it’s desirable that private school parents pay the VAT to raise money for the state sector; and b) it’s desirable that private school parents switch into the state sector.

Logically if you think b) is a good thing, then the VAT policy won’t make any money, and the end result is more kids in the state sector sharing the same amount of education budget, so funding per student actually goes down. How is that better for state schools?

Or if you believe a), then logically you want the policy to make as much money as possible, so you actively don’t want private school parents to switch into the state sector: you want them to stay put and pay the VAT or none of it works!

You can’t have both a) and b) together, because that doesn’t make sense in the first place. So which one do you think is good?

I mean, I pay for tutors and loads of extra curricular. And used all means at my disposal to ensure she had a selection of top rated comps to pick from.

Otherwise, I leave school alone to get on with doing the education thing.

Not sure that helps unless you count having a relatively well-behaved, bright kid on the books as 'good for the school'. She is very SEN though so probably quite expensive.

Another superb example of Schrodinger's VAT

Yes, everything outside of school to prop up whatever needing propping up. Not pouring time and effort into the school. I resent the whole 'good for the school' shit. One state teacher once told me she loved my daughter because she would work with anyone and not make a fuss. She was vomiting every morning with anxiety but as long as she's not making a fuss hey! About sums up my experience with state primary.

don't let facts to cloud your judgement

Well I am definitely the kind of state parent they want. I volunteer regularly, PTA, governance, the lot. However, I can only do all of that because I work part time, precisely to keep myself under the ridiculous tax thresholds. So not sure they want more of me as they would otherwise be raking in thousands in extra tax!

Oh god I could have written this. ‘A pleasure to have in the classroom’. This means mostly silent, heavily masking, terrified child, and always placed by teacher next to the most high needs unpredictable emotionally labile kids in class. As they told me, for my child to be ‘a good influence’. Offensive practice and useless to my DC and the other kids on so many levels.
I can’t generalise across state primary schools but due to typical class size this seems to be a not uncommon classroom management scenario. Awful for masking kids with autism who have their own sensory needs for quiet and calm and in our case contributed to not being able to go to school

Yep and 1 of the reasons we moved to indy for secondary. Not my daughter's responsibility to police the behaviour of other kids

People not working much so they keep benefits is a real issue for growing the economy. It’s become ridiculous to give money to people who could work if they wanted to. People who have great well paid jobs are not privileged. Not everyone is the same and not everyone can do their roles. We don’t have enough ambition and if people can do their jobs abroad and be better off, why would they not do this? Obviously some prefer staying here but we are now relying on 40% plus tax payers for the majority of income tax receipts. It’s not sustainable.

Eh?

“The civil servants don’t make government policy, they have to do the bidding of ministers and try to make their ideas happen… they very much try to soften the blows of the worst of them. But it’s not always possible.”

@EHCPerhaps - but should the actual long term serving Government officials not be able to stand up to the quasi lunacy and political dogma of the day? What is the point of a civil service if they cannot tell politicians that some policies are not workable? Why do we always have to end up relying on the press and the judges ultimately?

“I mean, I pay for tutors and loads of extra curricular. And used all means at my disposal to ensure she had a selection of top rated comps to pick from.
Otherwise, I leave school alone to get on with doing the education thing.
Not sure that helps unless you count having a relatively well-behaved, bright kid on the books as 'good for the school'. She is very SEN though so probably quite expensive.”

@OhCrumbsWhereNow - did you not know? It is your uber middle classness that they are after. Apparently it is “catching” aka your motivation for your DC to excel and they very much hope your DC will end up spreading it across school like the norovirus!
Nevermind that there have been millions of us there already. Apparently the offspring of this 50-100k extra or more are the golden geese that will keep on giving. We just were not quite middle class enough because we opted for state in the first place.

Ditto, my daughter is NT but she is sat between the disruptive boys in her class to try to moderate their behaviour.

I don’t blame her teacher, I’d probably do the same, but the lack of adequate SEND and TA support is shocking. One of the reasons we are hoping to send her to independent secondary; she’s not going to be a human shield when those boys become violent 6 footers.

Mine, despite being SEN herself, was also used as a buffer as she wasn't as disruptively SEN as the boys in her class at primary.

So didn't get any of the provisions in her EP (teacher said yes, she should have them, but so should another 8 in the class and they took precedence because they were also badly behaved) and was left to sink until Covid hit and I suddenly saw how bad things were.

@Araminta1003 We are post Sir Humphrey Appleby ere of civil servants. It’s long been said the CS has frustrated ministers but this vat policy was clearly stated and Labour has been stupid enough to go through with it. The CS are not elected with a manifesto or policies. Politicians won’t listen anyway!

I am opposed to the VAT being put into independent school fees, for various reasons. I think it is a pity that the author of this piece included these two examples because they didn’t really support the point being made. Overall the article was good and interesting - particularly the point about the lowest capacity being for years 7 and 8.

I would ordinarily describe the Times as a centrist newspaper. It’s a real failing of the government that they have managed to fall out with the press so early.