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.

At least you've gone from the lie that I defended it to the misinterpretation that I minimised it. Still wrong though.

In your opinion and I care nothing for your opinion in same way as you care nothing for my delirious opinion

If the government knocked down your house to give your neighbours' kids a shortcut to the park, would you say 'people have to move all the time'? Or would you be angry and say 'WTF?!? You complete fuckers.'

Oh, the digging is done at the taxpayers expense (including you, as a taxpayer). They claim that it will reduce the walking time to the park by 3 minutes, but actually there's a dual carriageway there, so no one will ever use the 'shortcut'.

Even if you had somewhere else to stay whilst you rebuilt, and even if you could cover the expense, I'm pretty sure most people would be in camp 'WTF?!? You complete fuckers'

If your neighbours cheered them on as they drove the digger - and said that it served you right for having a better garden - would you ever lift a finger to help those neighbours again?

@tortoise18 - you cannot defend them anymore. Our currency is still collapsing and Reeves nowhere to be seen? Rumour has it she has jetted off to schmooze/snooze with China.

Trussonomics Part 2 except it has been renamed Reevonomics Squared.

Add Bow House Durham to the list of closures , just announced.

Do you have a link to a list of private schools closed down / due to close down (citing the Labour budget as the reason) , so far?

Not one I can share because not all have been announced but will come to light over next few days. 4 out of the 8 are now public. Another 2 of those 8 expected today and more to come

I know of 2 friends who have moved their child from private schools because of bullying and poor teaching this year, nothing to do with fees. They have both move to local state schools and are thriving.
Our other friends using private are fine paying the tax.
Our school is unaffected as there’s a ( smallish) waiting list for it anyway and there are plenty of spaces in at least 4 of the 8 state secondary schools in the city, plus space in the 3 church schools and every primary school
has room because of falling birth rate.
In fact the city is doing a consultation now on future places at schools as there are -city wide- more places than children by quite a margin.

I've had this conversation with you several times on related threads. Each LA have a policy for allocating school places. They aren't just going to abandon it for ex-private pupils. Ex-private pupils are no different from any other new pupil that pitches up. There is the Fair Access Protocol that can be invoked if the offered spaces are too far away, but otherwise you'll be expected to take what you are offered.

And no - it's not like booking a holiday. You can't reserve spaces for a time of your choosing.

‘I have access to the stories and experiences of 1000s of parents on a daily basis. What we know is happening:’

of course you do. I personally have access to millions of stories and experiences of state parents who are able to understand there is a process to applying for school places, timelines for applying for school places and protocols for applying mid-year.
The beautiful thing about state schools is that money isn’t going to get you higher up the list, you can’t ring up a head and offer to bung them some cash so that little Hugo and Clemmie can be found a place in school that is at capacity.

My disabled son was very nearly late for college this morning because he got in a big stress about whether Paddington Bear - who was accompanying him - should be wearing his wellies or not. Our very lengthy discussion - which could not be cut short and took quite some time to resolve - was based around Paddington’s wellies potentially falling off and getting lost, which has happened before, vs a bear from a hot country having unreasonably cold paws on a chilly morning. My son is nineteen.

He is why we entered the private system for both of our children after a disastrous state experience and no alternative offered for him, in spite of him having an EHCP. It took 3 years of us paying in the private system for us to finally convince our LA that he needed to be at a specialist school.

We will have to grapple with social care and multiple other agencies throughout his life. We’ve been fighting for him every bloody day since he was born. But I’m very relieved that he’s coming towards the end of his education. The lack of provision and apparent lack of future plan for SEND children is devastating.

DS2 is in Y12 so we are sucking up the VAT, difficult though it is. I dearly wish that our ‘share’ could make a difference to state SEND provision.

My answer was in response to PP who asked me to prove that LAs didn't have a "plan" to incorporate kids from Indy schools. Yes you are correct with FAP, I was just highlting the experiences parents had who were trying to move.

“I've had this conversation with you several times on related threads. Each LA have a policy for allocating school places. They aren't just going to abandon it for ex-private pupils. Ex-private pupils are no different from any other new pupil that pitches up.”

@shockeditellyou - you have missed the key point which is if state schools are closing due to the falling birth rate, then the LA is finding the state schools kids a place, well in advance mostly. And giving those DCs a transition plan. To treat the private school DCs differently is very problematic! Those are council tax payers too. The state does not owe some DC more than others. What is the actual law? So they are changing the law for the displaced state school kids but not the private school ones? How is this even legal? Under what framework etc

And I know it is legally complex with the Academies etc but that is not the problem of council tax paying ex private school parents, is it?!

But they do reserve spaces for the children when they close state schools.

@Liddlemoreaction ‘..little Hugo and Clemmie can be found a place in school that is at capacity’

So bigoted. What do they call it? Reverse snobbery. I think it’s worse than that. You’re showing the ugly face of judgmental bitterness.

Hopefully Lula-May and Duane won’t have their school classrooms disturbed too much by little (but sure to be taller than average) Clem and Hugo.

“Each LA have a policy for allocating school places. They aren't just going to abandon it for ex-private pupils. Ex-private pupils are no different from any other new pupil that pitches up.”

@shockeditellyou but LA’s do “abandon” (your word) their normal policy in relation to state school closures, they don’t just tell affected families to wait until 4-6 weeks before they need a place to put in an application and hope for the best/scrabble around for places at the other end of the county.

It’s recognised that a school closure affects a significant number of children who will all need new places at the same time and that it’s in everyone’s interests for this to be managed and planned. It’s entirely different from dealing with ad hoc requests for places outside the usual application cycles.

So why are independent school closures treated differently? Why do LAs “abandon” what is their usual policy?

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/66fd4f0a080bdf716392eccf/Opening_and_closing_maintained_schools_2024.pdf

To job people’s memories on the detailed statutory process for state school closures.

Zero, nilch, nothing in sight for private school closures directly caused by the Labour Party. There should have been detailed consultation and a process. Especially for SEND and rural schools - look at the precedent in the state system. Illegal political interference all round!

Hold on a moment. That school had ALREADY amalgamated with another prep because it was struggling, and the pupils are all moving to other schools under the Durham umbrella. They were due to lose the lease for its site in a decade or so… this isn’t to do with VAT…
Maidwell Hall another ‘victim’ of VAT is under an ABUSE enquiry and has been operating at a financial loss for YEARS. It was rescued in 2022 from insolvency by another school paying off a bank loan of 100s of 1000s.

Amherst is ANOTHER one that has admitted it’s not financially viable as hasn’t been for years - and this is partly due to the drop of BOARDERS in these schools as well as the falling child population in the country.

They can blame VAT if they want, but these schools are tiny, undersubscribed - seems lots of people do t want to send & year olds to boarding schools these days- and are facing the same issue as many MANY smaller state schools across the country - not enough pupils.

VATs the easy way out though, right? Why take any blame as a head or a business manager or as the marketing lead at private schools when you can say it was all the commie governments fault, with their envy and their hatred of ‘strivers’

What’s weird comment. The only Clemmie we know ( yes he does go to private school) is tiny, but then his dad’s barely scraping 5’7 himself. Also, ‘Duane’ ? Sorry but the 90s called, they’d like their US sitcom standard name back please…

Straws. Camels. Back
The triple whammy of fewer numbers due to VAT + increased NI + increased business rates = tipping point.
Most indy schools work on max 1 term surplus so when the government hits them over the head with a sledgehammer they die. No real shock is it? Some of us have been trying to explain this for 18 months and posters like you kept on saying they would be fine.

You are missing the point entirely @Liddlemoreaction - that is just the first wave of closures. Many more to come and there is NO PLAN and there is an IFS report from yesterday stating how state school budget’s will struggle. And that is not even considering the additional SEND needs coming out of the private schools.

Do you even have children? We should all be on the same page here, all of us with children in Education and grandchildren to come (who cares is it is state or private, I don’t). This is not an “us and them”, this is successive Governments disrupting and disrespecting the education of our children and not investing in the future of our country. This is them deliberately pitting one sector against another to gloss over the fact that education is the bottom of their priority list, full stop.

I will say, take it with a pinch of salt.

We moved our children and are very open with friends, family and other school parents that it was an entirely financial decision however other parents who have also moved to state have used other reasons, some have some truth to them but most are financially motivated.

I do think our kids will thrive in their new school, but there are definitely things we miss about the private school and I'd send them back in a heartbeat if the vat decision was reversed.

This is also only the first wave. 8 schools in 1 week is the beginning, not the end

Should that be interpreted as an Echo Chamber facebook group? Certainly not the experience of my network. Even at the more expensive school we are only talking £8k-£10k per year. Many parents will spend that on a few nice meals. The interest rate increases over recent years alone will cover the cost. This seems to mainly be political posturing.