No exodus to state sector after VAT added to private school fees, say English councils.

[FruitPolos]

Article in today's Guardian. Interesting to note the comments from Surrey in particular given the discussion on Mumsnet about this particular area.

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2025/mar/10/no-exodus-to-state-sector-after-vat-added-to-private-school-fees-say-english-councils

"Surrey, which has large numbers of children in private education, recorded a dip in the proportion of families getting their first pick of schools for September. But Clare Curran, the county council’s cabinet member for children, families and lifelong learning, said: “Surrey has not seen a significant rise in the number of applications for a year 7 state school place for children currently in the independent sector compared to last year.“For September 2025, 664 on-time applications were received from Surrey residents with children in the independent sector, compared with 608 for September 2024, a rise of 56.“While the percentage of applicants offered their first preference school has decreased for September 2025 [80.6%] compared with 2024 [83.1%], the 2025 figure is not dissimilar to the 2023 figure of 81.3%.”

“The college can easily absorb any increase in number of private school students enrolling.”

Are they going to be fully funded if numbers are greater than expected? Read the schools week article I linked above.

And I thought there was a trend for PE pupils to move to a state 6th form anyway as some think it's more favourable for uni applications. The 6th form at our school gets a big influx of PE pupils.

There were 10K fewer in independent schools in Sept 24 than Sept 23 and double applications ie state + private won't wash through until Sept 25.

“The total number of applications made for secondary school places in London this year was 87,512, a decrease of 3.1% compared to last year.”

There were 10K fewer in independent schools in Sept 24 than Sept 23 and double applications ie state + private won't wash through until Sept 25.

But how can you say this is due to VAT alone?

I know how many dc signed up for the 11+ test at my school and numbers were actually in line with previous years.

Honest to God I swear the arguments on here are getting more desperate with each thread. I’m not sure which key indicator we are on now but every time something turns out not to have been an issue after all that isn’t the important factor it’s something else.

Agree, there is no room for reasoned debate!

You can't say it isn't due to VAT, that's part of the problem of Labour refusing to gather data. They could very easily gather it but refuse.
To say VAT has no impact is ridiculous though and parents are making choices at natural break/entry points so choosing not to start in Yrs R/1/7/9/12.

Reasoned debate? I have yet to hear 1 coherent argument in favour of VAT other than "tax the wealthy" which is quite easily refuted.

@strappyshoe - what type of school does your DC attend? Is it a private with a massive brand or a state grammar?

Using Surrey as an example is hardly going to paint an accurate picture of what’s happening across the country as a whole. It is one of the wealthiest areas in the countries and less likely to be affected. The figures there still show that there has been a 9-10% increase in the numbers applying for state places from the private sector, in a year where the birth rate is lower than previous years.

If there is no exodus- how much money will the policy make? Presumably the cash made was going to be used to fund of the new teachers Labour promised? Where we are based in Bromley, most parents are planning to drop private school at the latter stage, if in prep, they are now aiming for grammar, if at secondary aiming for state 6th form. Do the numbers stack up and will state schools receive the funding they were promised? I suspect not, which is why so many have called this a policy of envy rather than one that will fix anything.

But don’t forget, not all the children from schools that close will be moving to state, many will be going to other privates.

You can't say it isn't due to VAT, that's part of the problem of Labour refusing to gather data. They could very easily gather it but refuse. To say VAT has no impact is ridiculous though and parents are making choices at natural break/entry points so choosing not to start in Yrs R/1/7/9/12.

I haven't said VAT won't have an impact but I don't believe it's the only impact & I don't think it will have a massive impact. As I already said there has been a trend in recent yrs for dc to move to state 6th forms.

Reasoned debate? I have yet to hear 1 coherent argument in favour of VAT other than "tax the wealthy" which is quite easily refuted.

I'm not particularly in favour of it & haven't ruled out private myself but I haven't seen much reasoned debate on here. Real life I have thankfully.

@Araminta1003 state

In our area it's sixth form places that are going to be a very big issue this year. There was already a bun fight last August when the GCSE results came out, loads of private school kids had applied and got the grades, but not enough places, so the schools simply raised the bar on their grade demands! This year will be chaos. We have a situation of lots of private schools in the County plus a grammar school system for the state schools - the Vat has caused a perfect storm.

loads of private school kids had applied and got the grades, but not enough places, so the schools simply raised the bar on their grade demands

That’s exactly what lots have been warning of! Where schools are measured on exam results for league table purposes, of course they’ll try to attract the students more likely to get higher grades. When demand increases, they will push up the 6th form entry requirements. For those who are convinced they won’t be affected as current students may get priority for spaces, they might be in for a shock when the grade requirements are increased and current pupils don’t necessarily meet those requirements.

@strappyshoe - entirely anecdotal and my DC got their preferred state grammar for Year 7 September 25 entry, but judging by the rest of our state primary class, there were definitely some anomalies this year. As I have 3 older DC and have been witnessing this for years, at least for us, state grammar entry this year has been more competitive. There were plenty of prep kids at the grammar offer holder event, it remains to be seen if as many as usual drop out and go private instead, or take up grammar. Even if they just end up holding onto their state grammar place for as long as possible, it impacts everyone in the state school food chain. For every child eventually offered a higher preference choice, no matter how late, there is usually another child moving, possibly having bought uniform. The uncertainty is not great, for anyone.

So that's the point, when the bar gets set higher who is more likely to achieve those higher grades? Potentially the state school pupils end up disadvantaged in their own school!

The rise between years in applications from private school pupils means nothing without the context of the overall number of applications.

In 2024 there were 12,241 applications in Surrey - so 606 was 5% of all applications.

The indicator as to whether there is an issue is what the percentage of private pupils applying this year is compared to the total number - if it has reduced from 12,241 or stayed the same or risen less than 5%, then it is indicative of a rise in applications from the private school sector.

If the overall number has increased by 5% or more, the it indicates that there has been no change or a reduction.

Interestingly there was a 4.4% reduction in the overall number of applications between 2023 and 2024 in Surrey, so it looks like they've passed through their bulge year, so I suspect it will either have stayed the same or fallen which would then indicate an increase - proportionately.

The other factor is how many mid-year admission applications there have been - but unfortunately that data is not available.

Mathematically speaking it would depend on the sample sizes. Either way, if the birth rate is falling I can’t see that trying to place an extra 2 classes of kids being a huge problem across an entire county. Which is probably borne out by there not being a massive drop in the numbers of first choices issued.

In our area we have several amazing state sixth forms and yes there has always been a huge fight for places with plenty of private schooled kids applying. Why? Because many of these private parents believe it will be 'easier' for their kids to get into Oxbridge etc.

Exactly. Whatever the reasons, and whether or not it’s “fair”, private school pupils, on the whole, tend to get higher GCSE grades so are more likely to be able to meet higher grades boundaries. There are no winners from this policy.

www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/gap-gcse-results-ofqual-vat-children-b2600154.html

Also weren’t there campaigns for parents to apply for state spaces they didn’t want to prove a point?

Copied courtesy of another thread:

There's another recent thread with 3 parents who had scholarship offers from independents and were waiting to see if they got a sought after state comprehensive. They were all successful last Monday.
Two of the three have now accepted the state place over the indie plus scholarship, and the third was mulling their decision.
That is just one mumsnet thread. If that is happening all over, we won't know the outcome until September.

All conveniently ignoring the fact that according to some data on another thread the big spike in school closures seems to have occured in the 12 months after Truss crashed the economy. As expected.

What the?

A 20% tax on any sector will force closures in that sector. As is happening.

Talk about ignoring the blatant.

private school parents have always applied to state

Agree this isn't unusual.