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.

My heating bill has gone up by a hell of a lot more than 20%….sympathy for private school fees? Not on your Nelly!

Schools give priority to pupils already attending the school for 6th form. Quite rightly so

So there is also the issue that it’s been confirmed the moneymaking justification has gone. This isn't a hypothecated tax.
As closures won’t be reversible, and higher fees won’t come down, the policy will disrupt jobs and livelihoods and families of both private school pupils and teachers and other staff ? And with no benefits to the overall public purse?
this is worth a read https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/CBP-10125/CBP-10125.pdf#page20

As have our heating bills and utility bills. What a ridiculous comment

Is this a parody post? If not, it tells you all you need to know about oblivious privilege.

(If it is, then nice work)

The kids with SEND already in state will not get any extra resources through this. They’ll have to share what resource they do get with the kids with SEND coming in from private schools.

Kids like mine recently joining private who were told their local state secondary school could not meet their needs and who are being assessed for EHCP are meant to go back to where once we can’t afford fees? (which is coming) or our local small private school can’t cope financially and has to close?

Do we try for- The state mainstream school that already said they can’t meet DC needs?
Or, the special schools which are completely full locally with years long waiting lists?

And our kids are meant to just suck up the
additional uncertainty and disruption often after having to change mainstream state schools at least once already due to SEND needs, before resorting to private schools like several families on here.

Meanwhile what happens to parents jobs while our kids are at home out of school waiting months or years for our local authorities to come up with something?

I wish Bridget Phillipson and Kier Starmer had to work this out for their own families.
They’re welcome to come and have a go at making it work for mine. The system has completely fallen apart and VAT is making it so much worse

You are going to Home Educate for the exam years? Are you a teacher?

It is a little bizarre isn't it? If the fees can be covered by charging wealthy Londoners a higher fee for their weekend in Cornwall it all seems a bit win win.

Interestingly I was talking to a bursar in an independent school - who said that bursars ask HMRC the precise details of implementation, HMRC have no idea and say contact the government, but gov.uk only details the law as it stands and proposed revisions and no-one in government seems to know either. The legislation is not finalised yet, and the rushed implementation is currently a clusterfuck.

A lot of indy schools still haven't been able to register for VAT. Clusterfuck is correct but that's what happens when you rush an ill conceived policy through.

No one I know with kids in private schools has taken them out, nor are they planning to, and it doesn't seem to have made a material impact in their lifestyles either (e.g. they're still booking big/expensive holidays such skiing for Feb 2026, still planning big refurb projects on house etc.). It represents maybe a £4k increase per child per year and most families I know with kids in private schools can comfortably absorb that and is within the thresholds of what they'd expected with annual fee increases etc.

And no, no new kids at (not oversubscribed) at our state secondary school. Business as usual.

Agree, this is how it is for most people that can afford private.

Yet 10K fewer in Indy schools than last Sept. It only takes 10% to withdraw before this policy starts costing the taxpayer.
Once it becomes a cost to the taxpayer do you then think it's worth it?

So once it starts costing the taxpayer money will you then say it isn't impacting you? Would you be happy with it as a policy once it starts costing the taxpayer?
Only 10% need to withdraw before we get to that point and already we are nearly there.

No, I have a SEN child and know the damage done to the country by the focus on passing exams above actual education, but that is another discussion and one of the reasons I chose private.

Why would it cost the taxpayer? There are places in schools for private school pupils. Granted not in the best schools and more than likely not local but there are school places. They are not going to start building new schools and extending schools when there are places available.

I disagree with private education on principle. Lots of things cost me as a taxpayer, many that I don't agree with.

The SEND kids are the fall guys in all of this. I don’t know how many will have to leave their private schools but often their parents weren’t expecting to have to go private and are just scraping the fees.

Councils can’t afford to fund EHCPs so they limit access and use delaying tactics and some kids have been out of schooling for a year or more.

I think we will inevitably see an explosion in homeschooling and very small “schools” or tutor groups of SEND kids shut out from private and mainstream state.

Because once a child leave indy school then the taxpayer has to start paying for their education. Surely that's obvious? No extra income tax will be gathered in order to fund these kids. 7.5K per chid per year which coukd easily rise to 10K+ for SEN kids. Labour haven't offered a larger education budget.
Currently the Indy sector saves the state the cost of educating kids to the tune of £4 billion per year.
Any kids who move mid year to state are unfunded because budgets are set in Sept and not adjusted for new entrants.

Who do you think has to pay for transport to state schools which aren't local?

School buses already run to those schools.

Luckily for us DS is in Y11 and DD has left now, plus the increase is about £200 per month so we can absorb it.
Had the fees been this high when we started this journey DD would probably have gone to The Grammar (she had a place) and we would have saved Private for DS, which is the situation we wanted to avoid and why DD didn't go to Grammar in the first place.

Not if they aren't local.
LAs pay £££ each year on taxis etc. For rural areas the cost will be exorbitant

It's the same people spreading misinformation. It won't wash but you continue to waste your day if you wish.

Most people opting for private schools in the first place were already impacted by the COL crisis. That is what made the most difference for families who may have opted for private in the past but didn't in the last few years. People told me this.

You can carry on with hyperbole about councils suddenly having to pay millions of pounds for thousands of ex private school students to be bused to state schools out of catchment but we all know that's rubbish. And is not representative of what is happening.

It's hard enough to get transport for kids and send kids already in state education. Do you really think this will change just because a few private kids now attend state. It won't. People have been fighting this fur years. It won't change just for ex private school pupils. I know lots of people who have to drive their kids. If the school has a bus they will use that. If not they will either have to drive or fight it like every one else. Where I live lots of children use public buses to travel the school, the parents have to fund the transport costs. It's not going to change for ex private school pupils.