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.

What? I think you can find them yourself.

It’s generally good form to back up claims with actual evidence.

Otherwise anyone can claim anything, can’t they?

Are all the children happy and settled? I was talking to one yesterday who is hoping her parents will change her school in September as she isn't happy where she is..

🙄👀

Isn't that the Eton and harrow colleges - so in fact a rich minority

Essentially if you want to be classist , the very rich.

I don't think that's the majority

I’ll take that as a no, you can’t actually point to any evidence.

Same as your claim about all those privately educated children switching to state for sixth form to bolster their Oxbridge and other university applications.

Righty ho.

Who needs facts when you have emojis.

When I said more clever state school DC were applying, I meant larger numbers of clever state school DC. There are many state educated DC who don't need any special considerations. They have the intellect, motivation academic results and supras to earn top university places on their own merits. And then there are many super bright DC with challenging circumstances who (deservedly) are given contextual offers and who go on to achieve higher grades anyway.

The point wasn't whether selective school DC were reliably capable. You were making the point that state school DC are favoured for university places in general, which is very different and untrue. Aside from Bristol it is generally only the bottom third of state schools that receive any contextual considerations.

Hilarious you two. I’m speechless tbh. So emojis were all I could muster. 😴

Great deflection.

@mumsthewordi you're in the top 5% of wealth in the UK of you earn over £82,000 a year. I'm not sure how many people that applies to in this debate, but it doesn't take much to actually be part of the privileged "very rich" in the UK. I would imagine, admittedly without evidence, that that figure isn't far off what many earn in order to avoid school fees in the first place though?

I had such an obnoxious and quite clearly jealous council admissions worker tell me if I could consider affording private (before choice was made), that I can afford a tutor - this was a discussion she had with me when my daughter was offered a place at the awful state primary, the same one my son was bullied at.

Classes are of 30 , English a second language (i am not white before anyone remarks), and behavioural issues as well as low standards/ expectstions were common.

I'll pay the VAT because NOWAY was she going there.

I had a state education and have outdone financially and academically most of the colleagues around me whether they went to state or private, given my sector more came from the private for some reason. However, I probably achieved this through hardworking immigrant work ethic rather than my education - but most of my bosses have always been privately school educated but that didn't bring the money, just the job title. Am I resentful ? Hell yea, I want it all at least an opportunity. This is one of the reasons I picked private for dd, I also consider networking a big part of private.

So I guess there are some things no type of schooling can teach u, judging by said admissions officer.

Then there is just who you know not just what u know - that I think is more a private school mindset

Surely you can actually back up your statements rather than just claim to be ‘speechless’ and resort to childish emojis?

I don't find anything about your false assertions hilarious. There's so much banging on about nastiness towards private school DC. What about this nastiness towards state educated DC that somehow they all get some fictitious leg up to get their university places? It is anything but funny.

I know kids who’ve changed to state for 6th form and got significantly more offers than friends they left behind at private school, even with better predictions. Some have gone to Oxbridge but they might have anyway. Others would say the same.

By and large the top private schools seem to be finding that while 30 years ago up to 50% of the year might have gone to Oxbridge annually, now it’s more hit and miss so they encourage students to think beyond it. They’re all getting 2,3,4 A* so the schools’ performance hasn’t changed.

In principle it’s a good move, the issue is it that turns out that 50% of Cambridge’s state school intake is coming from London and the SE particularly grammars in privileged areas.

So they’re basically just taking the same students they’ve always taken.

That's not much for a combined income - so guessing you mean as an individual. It doesn't seem wealthy if only one person and then when you've more than one child

Anyway my mind was sold when my son said he'd give his pocket money towards his sisters private education, he had an awful time in state

@mumsthewordi so you are looking for a luxury experience? That would be why it has VAT, surely? It's not about the quality of education per se, it's about the luxury of being with other people that are worthy of networking with?

Yes happy to pay it for that :) hence my opener at the beginning of this thread.

Happy to pay just hope there's payback to the state system - that I doubt we it's an ideological over financial move by labour.

It's kinda like how private system saves the nhs system - no ? But no vat there

@mumsthewordi I believe it is individual income but that's still the top 5% regardless of how it 'feels'. So we are talking, broadly speaking, about something that mostly affects the extremely wealthy (in national terms).

I'm sorry he had a bad time within the state sector and that he's happier now and it is lovely that he wants that for his sister. However, that does not mean that in all state schools he would have a bad experience or in all private ones it would be good, after all.

I don't worry that it is ideological because the Labour party, like many in the UK, believe it is morally right that if you want a luxury (a luxury which, let's not forget, is basically at heart not having to mix with the likes of most of the rest of us because that isn't perceived as having benefit) that you should pay for that and that in paying for it, the majority should benefit.

@Mirabai

By and large the top private schools seem to be finding that while 30 years ago up to 50% of the year might have gone to Oxbridge annually, now it’s more hit and miss so they encourage students to think beyond it. They’re all getting 2,3,4 A so the schools’ performance hasn’t changed.*

Plenty of state school (and not just grammar) students are getting A star predictions and achieving them, and the state schools have got a lot better at prepping those students for Oxbridge (and Imperial or med school etc) applications and interviews.

And for very competitive courses, meeting or exceeding the standard offer is not a guarantee of the offer of a place, regardless of the type of school attended.

In principle it’s a good move, the issue is it that turns out that 50% of Cambridge’s state school intake is coming from London and the SE particularly grammars in privileged areas.

Less so now, as Cambridge has cottoned on to this and is looking to consider broader socioeconomic factors than just type of school attended. Will be interesting to see how it plays out.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cambridgeshire-68545303.amp

@Kittiwakeup the state school kid you’re talking about was me. A shit comprehensive then colleges in a shit location. I never got a leg up (which kids have been doing btw as stated a PP article, not fictitious at all) for anything. No advice, no contacts. Fck all. Somehow I managed to get good grades and go to uni, then become someone who could afford to send my children to private school.

Following my own experience there wasn’t chance I was sending them to local shit heap. I wasn’t lucky enough to have grammars or decent state secondaries near by (whilst a child or a parent). Luckily I didn’t need to.

So - because I’ve been successful financially - despite - my school, my children are now being penalised. Sickening really. Doesn’t make sense, does it.

Exactly. Not much will change there, in reality.

Of course state students are getting their predictions, they always did. But there was definitely more of a bias towards private schools back in the day and certain private schools in particular.

You say “less so now” but Cambridge’s dropping of admissions targets for state schools was only announced last spring.