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.

Yup, lost the plot! By taking away a tax break. Seriously, it’s happened, just get a grip people.

In the event of private school closures, clearly communicated to the LA or LAs in question, months in advance, the LA or LAs in question should be legally obliged to treat those school closures the same way as they would treat permanent state school closures. They should plan and offer places in state schools in exactly the same way as they would to state school pupils.

But the children won't want state places for the most part, if at all.

Whereas children in a closing state school will.

You do see there's a difference. Please try to keep some grip

for all we know may develop into something good

I salute your optimism!

I'm a pragmatist, and I'd rather have sensible fiscal planning today than jam tomorrow.

But they aren't legally obliged to. It would also be very difficult to implement as the private school would need permission to share pupil information with the local authority and the local authority would need to work out which children were their responsibility, which were the responsibility of another LA, which were not eligible for state provision etc. where as when a state school (including academies) closes the children are already in that system, the information is already known and the LA already has a responsibility to those children.

Go and tell the kids + teachers + staff in the 8 schools which have announced closures just this week to "get a grip". T
This is the beginning of closures, not the end.
I won't stop until the outcome of the 3 x UK + 1 x Scottish legal challenges have been decided.

For the millionth time the exemption of education is not a tax break under the legal definition of a tax break. Take your divisive language somewhere else please.

Thats a great point, this is exactly what the LAs could and should be doing - planning and consulting on adding a bulge class if that’s required (I accept the numbers may not always justify a whole class) and implementing it for September.

There’s plenty of time to do this - in my area it became clear on secondary allocation day in March there was a need for a bulge class at a particular school for September, due to demand exceeding available school places. A consultation was run, the necessary discussions took place between the school, the LA and the DofE, funding was agreed (!) all in the space of about a month - in time for the places to be added for the continuing interest run in April - and the bulge class duly started in September. Oh, and this was in circumstances where there was spare capacity elsewhere in our town.

As I say, it may be that whole extra classes are not required when the smaller indies close, given some children will go to other indies or possibly home school, and they may live in different LAs.

But if a whole class can be added in under a month then it must be be eminently achievable to make provision for a smaller number of extra children to go to local secondary schools, rather than being sent to the other end of the county or simply told “there are no places.”

If those children want a state place, they will be treated in exactly the same way as any other child.

As for a private school telling the LA months in advance about a closure - why should the public sector support a failing private enterprise, when the children are well accommodated using the existing mechanisms? Are you going to change the law to insist private schools tell LAs well in advance of parents, that they are in financial difficulties, so that LAs can prepare? And what exactly do you want the LA to prepare? Schools run as businesses tend to collapse suddenly, even if the financial picture is bad for years beforehand.

An LA could add a bulge year to an incredibly popular secondary. The bulge year would then promptly be filled by all the students already on the waiting list, according to the existing oversubscription criteria, no matter whether that student is at a state school or a private school, or filled according to the in-year admissions process. So you can’t dedicate any new space to students from any particular closed school, state or private, but because the way state catchments work, it’s much easier to predict what schools can cope with extra pupils from a closed state school.

@ICouldBeVioletSky the bulge class was because there was a need for spaces across the LEA. Regardless of preferences if there had been sufficient spaces across the schools in the LEA for all those children the secondary school allocations would have been different and yes some children would have attended schools further away.

LEA's have to find a space. It may be far away but if they provide that space then they've met their responsibilities. If there are absolutely no spaces the Fair Access rules kick in and a place is created.

This is no different.

Same thing happened in our LA - two schools took bulge y7 groups between March and May.

I would disagree wrt taking smaller numbers of pupils - adding more than a couple of pupils to a class is tricky, until you can cover a whole year. You generally can’t fit more than a handful of extra pupils in most classrooms, and at that point you don’t want to pay for extra teachers for a new class of less than about 25, although sometimes bulge funding will mitigate this (but not the space issue).

Is this a creative format for posting insults so you don't get even more of your posts deleted?

How will the LA know either way if it makes zero effort to find out and if it tells parents who do want a place to naff off until the summer?

They could at the very least be contacting the affected schools and asking parents who want a state school place to contact the LA now. They could then start to plan accordingly, whether it’s for 10 or 100 extra pupils.

“But the children won't want state places for the most part, if at all”

@Heathbear - I am not sure that statement is true anymore. A lot of the private school posters have been stating that the smaller cheaper schools are more likely to go bust which means the remaining private schools are likely to be more expensive plus VAT on top - which to me means a lot of the parents will want state schools (not least because they will be traumatised by the prospect of a private school always being at risk of closure).

All children from all homes are the responsibility of the LA ultimately. The state and LAs need to plan for this. I don’t think it’s just scaremongering.

And why should it do that at the expense of its statutory obligations? If you want the “advantages” of being in the state system, join the state system. The onus is on private schools, not the LA. It’s not there to sort out failed businesses, nor is it there to reserve school places for private parents to take up at a time of their choosing.

Oh do keep up @shockeditellyou, these schools are telling the LA months in advance that they are closing. That is literally what is happening, they’re announcing now that they will shut at the end of the summer term meaning state places would be required in September!

You do know that LAs model school place demand years in advance, and believe it or not, will not wake up on 1st September amazed that they may have some small number of extra pupils, which they are perfectly capable of dealing with?

Are you suggesting that the definition applies to you?

OK. Own it, I guess...

Not in the way state schools do. They aren't alerting the LA to the impact it'll have on them and the LA don't actually need to do it action anything with the information. It's very different. (And I don't think private schools should have to formally inform the LA of the closure).

@ICouldBeVioletSky if parents really want a state place they apply now and take it up. Otherwise if they only want one in September they wait until the summer. That's how state school places work for everyone.

However as these hundreds of private school children flooding state schools are entirely fictional it's a rather pointless conversation.

What's more likely when a private school closes is that the other local private schools swoop in and gain a number of new pupils. Private school closures aren't unprecedented despite certain assertions upthread by posters who seem rather like the tricoteuses around the guillotine as they announce another closure.

No one is suggesting that they sort out failed businesses.

People are suggested that they could plan to support children who will need a new school, when they know about it 6 months in advance

Exactly as they already do for BP's in-group children.

So the LAs modelled “years ago” that these schools would close and they’ve already accounted for the fact that displaced pupils from them will need state provision come September?

Er, ok, if you say so!

🤦🏼‍♀️

@shockeditellyou - in London, when they are closing state primary schools primarily, the children are given a choice to stay until the school closes and then moved to the new school. They have months to prepare themselves and they often move with their friends. Why should it be any different for other children? I am not trying to be difficult. I just really do not understand.
Why would an LA want to penalise the local parents who have paid council taxes too etc by sending them miles away and not planning for their DCs. Especially if the Education Secretary is openly stating these children are welcome in state schools. Is this a financial issue? I just do not understand why there is no plan and process in place when it would make sense for everyone to have one.

Like the 100s of kids from the 8 schools which have notified of closure you mean? I think you meant to say 1000s as this is just the beginning of closures.

FYI not every area is swamped with indy schools like London or SE is so there may not be alternative indy schools to transfer to.

Where I live in London even the private schools have to notify the LA of the kids on their roll so for us, this is simply not true. The LA is informed of the kids on their school roll formally by all the independent schools. It is a legal obligation to do so. It changed some years back.

Yes, it's a financial issue.

Let's say a private school of 300 children announced closure.

Option 1:

Private school seeks permission to provide LA with children's details.

LA spends hours, day, possibly longer working out which children are eligible for a school place in the LA. They write to the non-eligible children's parents. They spend time working out the responsible LA for the other kids, provide those childrens information to those LAs, write to the parents to inform they've done this.

The other LAs spend time working out if the child is their responsibility, then spends time working out where there's available places and where on the waiting list they should sit. LA allocates space to a child, writes to their parents and then finds out they don't even want the space as they're going to a different private school.

OR

Option 2
LA waits for parents to complete the in year transfer form and follows the usual procedure from there.

Goes from having to work through 300 children in option 1, to having to work through possibly 50-100 children on option 2.