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 find your repeated wilful minimisation of a government attack which will harm people incredibly offensive too.

Well @CurlewKate the Government did chose to gaslight private school parents from the outset with the specific rhetoric of “tax breaks” and making them sound like tax evaders openly and unashamedly, so some people are going to have strong feelings of a deliberate assault being mounted against them and their children. That is probably were the strong metaphor is coming from.

I think my analogy shows quite effectively how completely ridiculous the repeated comments of 'they were failing anyway' are.

Reductio ad absurdum.

I must have missed anyone calling private school parents tax evaders. But there is no planet on which equating a change in taxation with a school shooting is anything but offensive. I hope Mumsnet agrees.

'People in suits' isn't a school shooting.

The government have deliberately targetted a hated group of people and our children, have deliberately destroyed schools they depend on, and have used divisive language to stir up anger at them.

It's an attack, not a tax.

Taxes which aren't a deliberate attack actually raise money.

It is probably also a breach of the human rights act in any event, which we will find out soon enough. If the evidence shows it is not proportional, it will be proof it was never a “tax” in the first place. You cannot use the guise of “tax” to discriminate against a minority group to garner votes for yourself in an election. You have to prove it is going to make money.

And give Chinese vaping companies that actually cause real harm to teens a two year extension, but deliberately disrupt children who have already been disrupted by Covid, negligently and recklessly.
That is why feelings are running high. It should be pretty obvious why.

On the balance of it, 20 per cent charged on school fees of the 7% in private education was never proportionate ab initio.
The maths does not work at all. It cannot prop up the 93%.
So the harm done to the 7% to supposedly prop up the 93% - it was always a lie.

But why hasten it? They might or might not make it through the next five…ten…hundred years, but this measure was designed to make as many as possible close as quickly as possible. It is completely ideological and that is what sticks in my throat. Children’s lives are being disrupted and adults are losing their jobs because the far left of the Labour Party needed appeasing by Starmer. independent schools are the sacrificial lamb.

Imagine if I was in government and I really hated nail bars and hairdressers. Within months I make them pay an additional 20% in tax and add a few additional charges too. I am sure that a significant number of nail bars and hairdressers (which would otherwise have chugged on quite happily) would also close.

I wish you’d all stop pretending it isn’t have an impact. It is having an impact and those who supported VAT on schools are responsible. Own the impact of your chosen policy on other people’s lives and hope it goes as you want in the long term.

I believe that wage increases for teachers are not being covered by the government and have to be found by the schools. I think I read that schools (which actually have teacher shortages) are making cuts so they can fund the increases.

(I am not sure about where I saw this, hence my ‘believes’ but you can’t assume there are jobs for those being made redundant. This goes for all those working in schools, especially if they are tied to a certain area for other reasons. The falling birth rate is going to lead to state school closures too.)

If we’re going to be getting offended, i’m offended that this government is inflicting actual harm with its VAT policy against private schools. This harm to pupils is made especially likely in the school budget context of 20% VAT + other higher taxation on employers coming in soon. Plus in the family budget context of this sustained COL crisis and the widely- acknowledged breakdown of the SEND system.

The impact of VAT and other taxes to private education is clearly causing excess small private school closures already. The impact of private school closures is harmful to kids in both private and state education, for reasons we’ve already covered many times on here. It’s harmful to taxpayers ultimately.

Because of the locally or nationally specific unique characteristics of many private schools (eg small class sizes, or being SEND-friendly, or having a specific minority religious-based curriculum, or being a single-sex school) the policy impact of these permanent closures is in many cases ableist, racist, anti-religious, and sexist. Or several of these at once.

I wish there was a state funded accessible ecosystem of schools with these same unique characteristics, but we are where we are with that right now. And this punitive policy only further narrows the educational ecosystem of the country. That is really unacceptable for the inclusive, multicultural future society that we all need to build and support, or at the very minimum, be tolerant of, and not seek to shut down, in a decent society.

So I disagree that these discriminatory policies can be justified on the basis that

• ‘half full’ private schools are fair game for closure; and that

-niche or small private schools don’t ‘deserve’ to continue, and that -only the ‘best’ schools survive.

Still waiting to hear what Labour’s plan is to actually improve state schools, for all pupils, with and without SEN. So far we’ve got a third of a teacher per school, plus a breakfast club which may be hard to implement.

Genuinely, what is their plan to transform state education and how are they going to fund the mystery improvements? Or is what they’ve outlined already really enough? They were elected to improve the country, including education, not just slag off the Tories. Yes improvements take time - of course they do. But where is the plan?

https://unherd.com/newsroom/cutting-down-gcses-will-coddle-children/

It is not just private schools they will inflict harm on, it will state academies as well. And ultimately all of us once anyone with any money and ambition leaves the country to go elsewhere with a more stable and sane political situation, where children and adults are not used as pawns in their deluded ideological games. This is about power for me primarily. I am not willing to relinquish power over my own children’s education to them. They do not know better than I do and if push comes to shove, I will vote with my feet. If it means leaving with 4 talented future taxpayers in tow, I will absolutely do it. Out of principle.

The plan is to water down GCSEs so that pass rates will rise and they will then claim they have improved schools.
The other plan is to make it harder to get, and appeal, EHCPs, force more SEN kids into mainstream with only a tiny % funding increase
The plan is to clamp down on any education provision that isn't state comprehensive eg academies, home schooling etc. To limit choice etc.
To use AI to replace teachers and then claim they have solved the recruitment crisis.

They want to use Wales as the blueprint. Wales has worst outcomes in whole of UK and most of Europe.

You forgot to add:

Serve a teaspoon of cornflakes to every child as they file dutifully through the school gates and claim that the £££ VAT bonanza has abolished child hunger.

The biggest joke in all of this is that people believed the Tories were LORDING it over us. Think again, that was probably, in hindsight not the case! It is this lot, far worse than anyone could have imagined, on current track records anyway. In by default because people hated the Tories for Brexit and Covid. Labour think they have some sort of massive mandate from the masses. They do not. They are deeply unpopular already and things just seem to be getting worse and worse.
If you lie about the super rich paying billions and then throw the genuinely disabled and Covid damaged young under the bus because you know fuck all about how the economy and business works due to your own negligence, not a good look!

The fundamentals won’t change if they dumb down education for everyone. Strong education is pretty much most of what we have going for ourselves as a country in terms of attracting talent into our universities and culture and tradition and using that education to promote further developments in technology so there is any hope at all that we can survive long term as a country against the large Asian and US super powers, by positioning ourselves as experts in education, technology.
They want us to believe the Tories destroyed our education system because they only think in anti opponent terms in their out of touch bubbles. It’s Covid that destroyed education and a generation of young and it needs funding to build up and reassurance to parents and engagement in a positive way. Not this nonsense!

I suppose I come to this from a state perspective- in which schools open, schools close, schools federate, schools add capacity or dwindle to mixed age classes in response to local supply and demand pressures.

The government can increase or decrease demand for goods or services through its policies. It can decrease the demand for private education by putting a tax on it and increasing its price. OTOH, if it allows the state sector to deteriorate, it may end up inadvertently increasing demand for private education. I would argue that happened to some extent from 2010.

Here’s a different source of information on the proposed changes to the curriculum and GCSEs. For balance. https://www.theguardian.com/education/2025/mar/18/fewer-gcse-exams-proposed-in-labours-curriculum-review-but-sats-to-stay

Yes, increase coursework burden for teachers when there aren't enough to cover all classes, let alone mark coursework. Thats where the AI will come in, who needs teachers when AI can mark work?
In no universe do any of Labour's proposals = raising standards. They will just reduce standards so that more kids pass!

Yes! I can't believe that more state parents aren't alarmed by the school bill, it's making my decision about what to do with my current yr5 dc really tricky.

When I saw the headline I was hoping it meant they might consider abolishing GCSEs and moving to a kind of baccalaureate at 18. I was hoping this was the case as we are one of the few countries that insists on the brutal (and life impacting) level of examination at 16.

I’d like to see it gone with a kind of leaving diploma on a par with the one year Access Diploma my DD is doing (part teacher marked, part externally examined/moderated) but with a general, broad spectrum year 1 where all the basics are covered (maths eng humanities) and the scope to begin specialising so that in Y2 they able to narrow down to arts/languages or STEM subjects then. I actually feel that because kids would have to work in partnership with the school (they’d be doing the initial marking and assessment) kids might be motivated to try to get on better with the teachers as they would be pseudo-examiners. Kids see teacher as the enemy when a new system could foster a partnership and create allies.

My kids, it seems, wasted from Dec to May of Y11 revising/practicing for exams when they could have be learning new topics or developing deeper understanding. Same in A Level - too much focus on how to play the exam system and revising when they could be extending knowledge and when teachers could be revelling in their subject knowledge. My eldest (doing the Access) is producing the most incredible work - research, critical analysis, writing at undergrad level; all skills that employers need and properly prepares them for university.

I have no idea why everyone claims our education system is so brilliant when I’ve taught in secondaries and observed in IB schools - the quality of intellectual reasoning and critical thinking in the IB students was massivley more impressive than in the A Level peers I taught (even allowing for the very bright kids I was privileged to have in my classes).

But, alas, what Labour are offering is less of the crumbs we are already offering in our state school.

“OTOH, if it allows the state sector to deteriorate, it may end up inadvertently increasing demand for private education.”

The equation is not that simple when you rely on 800k taxpayers only and many are leaving in droves and a run on the pound results in greater sovereign debt etc. This is dangerous territory they find themselves in. This is not a closed economy where they can wield their magic power wands inadvertently. People choose to stay in this country for reasons which include the education system, certainly not the state health system in its current form, unless they have no other choice. You cannot build a system based on overreliance on a select few and then hammer them and hope for the best. It is pretty reckless to the vulnerable to be that stupid. Nobody with any money and choice is trapped in this country.

@CautiousLurker01 - I agree the IB is great for bright all rounders and fantastic preparation for university, but the issue is we have an elitist university system so in practice many kids end up treating the IB more like A level, overfocussing on their 3 Highers, panicking about the Extended Essay etc because the unis do not really recognise the additional work load properly. Everyone is in the system trying to tick the boxes for the next stage and the inherent “value” of education goes out of the window. I cannot say though that my kids had a spoon fed education in their grammar schools, because most of the kids are bright and the teachers like teaching there (apart from the Covid teacher assessed fiasco) and tend to stay long term, there is some fundamental educating going on, in its more pure sense.