Whitehall “braced for private schools collapse” 3

[ICouldBeVioletSky]

Starting a third thread to discuss impact of VAT on private school fees, as the topic looks likely to run (and run). Though probably best to finish off the second thread before posting here, thx.

I think there will be a number of changes.

The top selective schools will stop offering bursaries to anyone who isn't also one of the strongest scholarship candidate. (Starting to happen now).

Some schools will switch to catering to those with very deep pockets but whose children are not academic superstars and provide amazing facilities.

Parents who aspire to private education will have one child (already seeing this - the vast majority of our friends who are/are thinking of private education have only had one).

Those who are priced out will switch focus to selective and top state options.

What will disappear are the smaller schools that offer small classes, fewer frills and provide a non state alternative for those who can't afford the big name schools or who don't have kids capable of landing the scholarship bursaries.

The latter becomes an issue when areas of the country can't attract GPs because they don't have good schools, or when parents have children with the kind of SEN that struggles in a standard comprehensive but aren't in need of special schools.

All of it leads to less choice and more elitism - whether that is academic or financial, and enhanced competition within the state sector. It also doesn't help the countries birthrate which is not a good thing for growth or prosperity. None of it provides extra resources for the state sector, and the people that will suffer most will be those children who don't have parents who are making their education a major priority.

charity status hasn’t changed - about half are charities and half are not. Our school is very much a charitable organisation- a faith based organisation with a very long history and deeply held commitment to its mission. There will be redundancies in staff as well as significant drop in charitable work as well as direct monetary contributions, and I don’t see how any vat gain will offset what is lost.

Incidentally, I’d love to see the context of the suggestion of nail technician as a career option. I assume it was either an urban myth or one of a huge range of suggestions following a questionnaire identifying aptitudes and interests and the sort of quarter truth unquestioningly used by state school bashers.

Closing SMEs is the opposite of ‘renewal and growth’.

Labour have managed to show this by taking growth to negative via their policies and have shown that a 20% tax on any sector will damage it.

Which sector are you in? If you had 20% tax on what you do you’d likely find the opposite of ‘renewal and growth’. You’d see job losses and shrinking.

Even worse here as people are happily accepting it for children who also get hit by the disruption.

@twistyizzyNo ivory tower here. My Ds’s school had less than 30% 5x 5s at GCSE last year. It was just over 30% in his year.

I’ve just done a quick google of our three nearest secondary schools. All are academy comprehensives. Two of them offer NVQ Level 2 Hair & Beauty so I’m not remotely surprised that being a nail technician is suggested as a career option. Strange that another poster wouldn’t believe you.

@twistyizzyJust noticed your charming “odfod” Right back atcha!

Because some people can't see past their own experience and imagine anything other than what they know.

@CatkinToadflaxI said that it might be one of a range of options offered based on a careers questionaire. @twistyizzy’s horror at the suggestion implies that it would not be a good fit for her neice-there will have been others at the school that it would have been a good fit for. She wasn’t being corralled into being a nail technician when she actually wanted to be a history teacher.

@CurlewKate - it is not just GCSE results that matter, but some comprehensives that are very large, still manage to set very effectively for the highest achieving kids. So did your DS’ comp do that or not? Often the “outstanding” comps do set effectively. The RI ones do not.

You also suggested that it was an urban myth.

No, you said it was an urban myth ie you disputed whether it had happened.

I work as a free-lancer. Funnily enough have just had to add 20% VAT to my invoicing as have hit the threshold. It happens, lots of businesses (most?) attract VAT when they are of a certain size. Yes change is disruptive and I've no doubt that individually there will be short term pain. But I do believe this policy is better for the citizens of this country collectively. It's not a personal attack on you, I just don't think or feel the same way you do.

Why would I take it as a personal attack?

I don’t. I think Labour are getting it wrong and you can start to see proof of that as they’ve wiped £9bn off headroom and now going for welfare cuts.

They are poor policies which are anti growth and since they have nowhere else to go it’s welfare next up. People likely thought policies along the lines of VAT would give someone who needs welfare more support, the reality is the opposite. Cuts instead.

@twistyizzyIt is a urban myth that children are told to aim for being nail technicians when they have the aptitude and ability and desire to be something else. One that is often perpetuated by the anti state school brigade “I wouldn’t send my child there- they offer BTec Hair and Beauty!”

Except its not. Sorry you can't accept that.

@twistyizzySo are you saying that your niece was told that she should be aiming to be a nail technician when she had the aptitude and ability and desire to be something else? What actually happened?

My SIL complained and they just ignored the advice. Over 70% of girls end up in local college doing Apprenticeships in Beauty/Hair so really not a stretch for a teacher giving careers advice to point to nail tech.
You're aware that most careers advice is giving by teachers who haven't set foot outside a school in years? Even doing IAG qualifications really doesn't mean they are knowledgeable about the world of work. Previous Ofsted framework judged had criteria on "meeting local employment market needs" therefore careers guidance tends to be focused on local area.

@twistyizzy So your niece was told that she should definitely aim for being a nail technician? She didn’t fill in a questionnaire issued to the entire year regardless of ability which included that as one of a range of options? Like the one my DS did that suggested, among other things, actor, teacher tourist guide and receptionist. Because he likes meeting lots of different people, is a confident public speaker and likes helping people. I would have been pissed off if receptionist was presented as his only option, but there were plenty in his year for whom it would have been an excellent option.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/private-schools-government-vat-conservative-england-b2717590.html

“[Lord Shinkwin] insisted that removing the part of the Bill set to end tax relief for private schools is the “only way to protect all pupils with Send that attend independent schools, like those that I attended, where the proportion with Send is much less than 50%”.
Lord Shinkwin said: “The sad fact is that, in the Government’s eyes, the damage to many of these children’s life chances seems to be a price worth paying.
“They are expendable, immaterial, inconsequential collateral damage caught in the crossfire of what appears to be an ideological obsession with punishing anyone they perceive as rich.
“Yet, many of these children’s families are not rich and the Government knows it. But they seem not to care incredibly, about pupils with Send’s mental health, which is undoubtedly going to be hurt by the impact of this measure.”
^^
“Lord Black of Brentwood… accused the Government of burying its head in the sand and being “impervious to rational thought” on the topic of private schools.
He said: “Their policies simply won’t end up benefiting the state sector in any meaningful or visible way. The 6,500 teachers promised are likely to be a fantasy and will end up just being another broken promise…
But they will end up profoundly impacting the independent sector and the lives of tens of thousands of pupils and their hard-working parents.”
He added that it will negatively impact military families, faith communities, gifted children who benefit from bursaries, and local communities through a loss of partnerships with private schools.”

👏👏👏

‘Why do people try minimise the impact of the governmen's policy, by saying that the schools which close were already in trouble?’

because that is a fact? And true. And private schools are businesses so if they can’t balance their books then they close as failing businesses do?

They will probably lose the human rights law case in April too, after spending thousands and thousands on QCs. Question is what are they going to do. Ignore it all and carry on regardless? Starmer’s Iraq? No proportionality?

We all said all along it’s not proportional. Fundamental basis of our legal system.

The schools which are closing were previously just keeping afloat.

Without the government's attack, some of them would have stayed afloat.

The 20% attack tipped those schools over the edge.

The closure of those schools has a devastating impact on employees and students - who would still have a job / a school if the government had not chosen to attack private schools.

The taxpayer will now pay more to educate some children whose parents would otherwise have paid for them.

Some children will have lifelong consequences from their education being disrupted in this way.

All those things are true.

It's not OK that the government did that.