How's the Private School VAT increase impacting you?

[mumsthewordi]

To private fee paying ...are kids/s still in private ? Are you comfortably still able to afford and happy paying it ?

To state, how do you feel? Have you been impacted by more kids in class or would you expect that to play out this year? Or perhaps you weren't supportive ?
Do you think state schools will improve ?

Full disclosure
A struggling fee paying parent of one kid only other is at state and my oh is an amazing secondary school teacher - we are a divided household indeed at time, but we've made choices best for us.

He's in a state school btw

Don't see his wages going up anytime soon...but don't think teachers were meant to be the ones to benefit, not sure who was.

Not at all. No new kids in state school or college to report. I don't know anyone with kids in private so hasn't affecting any friends or family either.

I think it's too early to say. A lot of schools haven't gone back yet. People have made cutbacks so likely affected financially but the repercussions in classrooms is likely to take a while to show.

I’m lucky that my kids are in good state schools, but that means they are already full so won’t be taking any ex-private school kids (unless someone leaves)

All the people I know with kids in private school are just planning to suck up the increase

I think it will be the natural break points that will be most impacted - so Reception/ Y7 / Y12 this September

I am impacted in as much as I am fascinated by parents who really are outraged that fees will increase. This despite it being an obvious Labour policy, trailed for ages.

My DC are at state school. Both DH and I went to £££ boarding schools. Like lots of parents, we decided that private school fees were expensive and we couldn’t afford it for our DC. This calculation seemed quite normal to us.

Weirdly, many private school parents, on MN and elsewhere, seem furious that they should now have to make the same decision. These parents seem to believe it is some kind of social rallying call that school fees should be exempt from VAT.

Meanwhile, everyone else in Normal Land couldn’t care less.

I know of 2 families locally who can’t afford school fees with vat added but have been told all local schools are over subscribed and are looking at one over an hour away.

we're ok but there is one side effect no one is really mentioning and that is the amount of private schools I'm now seeing embarking on their capital spend projects as they get back the VAT they always incurred before. It's a brilliant governmental own goal. One school building a virtual golf course facility, another tearing down their 20m pool to replace it with competition size. the list goes on. Capital improvements with 20% financed by the government. In the end it's a tax against parents but for those who can still afford the school, they may well see a lot of facilities improvements. So a silver lining for what I know for many is a dark cloud.

Yawn
go and march on Westminster like the farmers
otherwise how about trying to support a government who will provide you with a school place but is trying to pull in money for mending the NHS for the benefit of all
Or if private school is your priority spend less/ earn more/ send your child to state school.
life is about choices.
I sent one of mine privately and worked more hours to cover it

Well there are 10K fewer kids on rolls of indy schools now than this time last September.
10% of DDs year have either left at end of last term or have handed notice in

2 indy schools announced their closure this week. That's over 700 kids who now need a state place in 2 LAs.
It's not just VAT, it's the NI rise + business rate increase. Most indy schools work on tight margins with approx 1 term surplus at any time. 75% of fees go to staff salaries therefore an NI rise massively eats into any reserves.
So it's the triple whammy.

Irony is of course that the really wealthy schools like Eton won't feel any impact and can now have government sponsored capital projects (as per PP said above), it's the smaller, local indy schools who are most impacted especially small Jewish/Muslim ones who may only charge £5-7K per year and those with a large % of SEN.

None of the people I know who send their children privately have even mentioned it. They can afford it.

I was expensively educated as was my husband but we decided a long time ago that we couldn't afford private schools for our children.

The main impact being felt by me is watching with some bemusement the total loss of perspective from parents affected.. apparently this is the most important controversial issue of the century, a HUMAN rights issue, will lead to economic catastrophe etc.

Nothing much will change.

13 schools have announced their closure since September.
That's 13 schools worth of staff who have lost their jobs (teachers, catering, cleaning, admin, groundspeople) and 13 schools worth of kids who have been forced out of schools where they were happy and settled. Indy schools are usually large local employers and in rural areas can help support whole towns.

I get it, you don't care but at the end of the day the people who suffer most through schools closing are kids and it says a lot that some on here are gleeful about that happening.

FYI the taxpayer now has to fund state places for all the kids at those indy schools with no extra money going to individual schools until Sept 25 cos budgets have alteady been set so the schools those kids go to have to just spread their budget even more thinly.

Our lovely state primary has been concerned (the only state primary in our fairly 'rich' village, with 2 nearby private primaries) but DS was back yesterday and has no one new in his class - and they do have spaces.

Honestly I don't see many people actually yanking their kids out of private over this. It's something to bitch and moan about, and threaten - but you'd have to be a bit mad to not have that much wiggle room in your budget when sending your children to private schools (unless it's those with SEN who are scraping every penny together - they have my sympathy)

So you can't understand that everyone has a tipping point in their budget, beyond which they cantbgo? I don't know many people who could cope with an additional 3-4K cost per year. Could you? We can't

Not sure how private schools investing in capital projects (and hence being economically active and boosting the economy) just because they can claim back 20% input VAT the same as every other VAT registered business is even remotely close to being an own goal tbh.

And no, no impact seen or anticipated. There is state school space around here but clearly any private school leavers would have to go to the less desirable schools with places if they didn’t make that choice at the admissions point. It won’t have a noticeable impact on admissions next year either though around here.

I'm not gleeful about it. It's just a niche issue.

13 schools isn't an enormous number - schools close, it happens.

In my area of London, several state schools have closed too because of demographic change. I don't expect the entire country to be up in arms about that.

It will be a gradual impact as people remove their children at the least disruptive point.

we prepaid so it doesn’t affect us but I know others who are planning on removing their children at the next natural break point (next academic year or after GCSEs etc)

It's fine if there are state places available but secondary rolls aren't due to fall until 2028 and many LAs are saying 0 places available.

How's the Private School VAT increase impacting you?

It is making me a tiny bit less anxious about the black hole in funding for public services.

All our local infants/juniors/primaries are under PAN in all years. The secondary is slightly over PAN in years 7-9 but could make space if needed. So basically no impact. Wealthy rural area where the private schools are all insanely expensive so only attract very rich people who can presumably afford the VAT. I don’t mix in those circles so no idea if it is affecting them but no apparent knock-on effect on the state schools so presumably not.

Why? The tiny red square in top left hand corner is the amount VAT is prohected to raise (that projection was before they had to apply exemptuims + before the 10K left) as a proportion of the overall tax receipt. It is negligible and clearly won't go anywhere near filling whole, black or otherwise.

Interesting you say "Wealthy rural area where the private schools are all insanely expensive so only attract very rich people who can presumably afford the VAT"
Most rural schools serve local cohorts and aren't big names. The likes of Eton make up 1% of all indy schools. The majority are not Eton.

2 indy schools announced their closure this week. That's over 700 kids who now need a state place in 2 LAs.

Won't some of them take up vacated places in other privates?

@twistyizzy of course I understand that. But from the pool of private school parents I regularly socialise with, as well as the advice I got when considering private for DS, you NEED a chunky buffer for price rises anyway. There's no way in any good conscience I'd put DS somewhere where a hike of just 20% would leave me needing to pull him out. I'm sorry you're in that situation - but in the circles of parents I know who chose private, 3-4K a year means one less holiday, or less going in savings etc. not uprooting a child's schooling.

Actually 1 private primary a few towns away IS closing, but it's been coming for a long time as they become less and less popular. I'm sure VAT changes are taking the blame for it, but it would be inevitable over the next year or so anyway.