Additional Teachers in state schools

[ByQuaintAzureWasp]

The 20% VAT on private schooling was, we were told, meant to provide more teachers for the state sector.

Has anybody had an increase in funding to their school for additional teachers?

Has anybody had an increase in teacher numbers (FTEs)?

If not why not?

I agree.

Of course it will mean not enough teachers and no support. 12 children are leaving our private school due to the VAT (luckily there is a waiting list to take their place). 10 of the children leaving have SEN and no EHCP. They won’t manage in a class of 30. They will have to wait years for support. They will completely disrupt the class. Currently, their parents pay the school fees and for a 1-to-1 for them. They save the state a fortune!

As you can see from this thread, there are currently teachers teaching classes of 60 due to a shortage of teachers. So many are leaving that they can’t recruit enough to fill current shortages, let alone employ more.

Labour promised what people wanted to hear - fuck the private schools. Let’s take their money are give them to state schools as they are all loaded like at Eton. However, as no research was done they have no found out that many parents at private aren’t loaded, have children with SEN and the policy will barely raise anything. In fact, it will probably cost the government more.

They could teach another subject.

What, that they have no knowledge of, or qualifications in? Would you be happy with that for your child?

Trust me, no Indy teacher would go back to the hell that is tesching in a state school. They will just move out of teaching full stop. Getting a job at a nice, supportive Indy is seen as escaping the madhouse. No one will go back.

Plenty of teachers are teaching outside their subject specialism because there’s a huge recruitment crisis. I don’t know whether my adult child was always taught by a subject specialist in every lesson. Probably not.

But surely we shouldn't be accepting that?
It's a moot point anyway because as others have stated, most indy teachers would leave the profession rather than teach in state

It’s not ideal, but teachers are employed as teachers and can be asked to teach any subject. Just as nurses can be redeployed to different specialisms.The hypothetical Latin teacher can get a job elsewhere if they don’t want to continue teaching.

And they will, rather than go to into state sector

That’s OK, it’s a free country.

Yes, I agree with you. They need to improve things that make teaching more attractive to train for and remain in

It was a tax on the business owners, the guys who sweated their bollocks off doing 18 hours per day, sleepless nights struggling to make ends meet, employing the "working class".. those guys aren't working class they just work their tit's off to give folks jobs. The vat won't make any difference to state schools ever, but makes rach feel better.
(My kids don't go to private schools)

I’ve just been made redundant from an independent school. I teach year 3, down from 40 in the year group a few years ago, to 16 ( so only one class) next year. My local state primary schools are advertising for unqualified teachers as they can’t afford qualified ones. The shortage is secondary maths/sciences which I really can’t do.
VAT means parents will wait and send their children private later on for GCSEs etc…. The teachers made redundant will therefore be for the younger age groups. I’ll be looking for jobs out of teaching I suspect.

We have quite a lot of classics teachers at my school. They all went to Oxford or Cambridge, and are very bright and hard working, it's kind of the nature of the beast. All of them are under 35. They would be off to management consultancy or the civil service not teaching maths or whatever in a state school! I really feel most people who post on these threads have zero understanding of independent schools, or teaching.

I'll add my 2 cents on the policy whilst I'm here. There is SO much inequality in education. I really feel like to make much of a difference you wouldn't just need to address private and state but faith/non faith based and all the other forms of selection. Where I live you get a better deal if you have girls as there is a very nice girls school but no single sex option for boys, just a number of schools with more boys which are not as good. I would like to live in a country where the vast majority of kids just attended the local high school (14-18) and there was really decent vocational options, with private school options just for the extremely religious or whatever. But we are not there, and so I think this policy is just pointless rich-people bashing to please the left of the labour party.

I do vote labour but I don't like this policy, not really for selfish reasons (the school I work in is really selective and seems to be unaffected in terms of pupil numbers etc, although I'd rather be teaching more "normal" kids than just the super wealthy which was more the case in the past. Private schools haven't helped this though as there has been massive fee inflation anyway (and I can tell you it has not been passed on to ordinary teachers in terms of pay!).

Very sorry to hear that. Sadly you won't be the only one and with 18 indy schools announcing closure by July, the only result of this policy is to increase burden on the public finances.

Actually fee inflation has risen slightly under general inflation over last 20 years.

Not sure why they didn't delay the VAT then, at the very least to the start of the academic year.

They could supplement school budgets if they wanted to at any point, just like they can put VAT on school fees with very little notice.

So sorry you find yourself in this position. Hopefully you will find something suitable soon. Good luck.

Yes, as well as the increase in NI, the lowering of NI thresholds.

I have friends in business and they are getting truly hammered. I also didn't go to private school, nor did my child.

It was also a tax on the many parents who have given up everything to send their kids to private school, especially those who have kids with special needs, who are left floundering in mainstream schools.

The Conservatives' Rwanda scheme cost taxpayers £700m - that was a colossal waste of money. Bibby Stockholm £22m. Was it Theresa May who said there’s no magic money tree?

School funding is slow, "lagged". For the academic year starting September 2025 schools are funded based on the pupil numbers from the October 2024 census.
If state schools have an influx of pupils in September 2025 they will not receive any additional funding for these pupils until September 2026.
And with extremely tight budgets already (and teacher pay rises not being funded), schools cannot afford to put in place additional classes or teachers to meet this influx with the funding being 1 year after impact.

The anti 20% VAT on private school fees OPs are definitely busy today.

That is sad, sorry to hear about your situation. There will probably be more jobs advertised after the end of May resignation date. What a dreadful state education is in after Gove decided it was fine for children to be taught by unqualified teachers.

Because the VAT only applied from last month. Ignorant post OP.