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 Guardian article is nonsense.

Many families who go private have always applied to state schools, too, as a plan B.

The real question is not if there have been more applications, but how much waiting lists will move between March and September, and if they will move less than in other years if more families accept a state place instead of going private.

The private with the best reputation near us is talking about greater applications while the 2 indies that achieve similar (slightly better than the grammars) grades are reporting fewer applicants. I strongly suspect those two will close and the higher achieving school will flourish. The 11+ scores for the county nose dived this year possibly because the brightest are applying for the much higher achieving private while the rest just go to the grammars. The state sink schools are jammed with some having to put in extra classes for Y7 here. So here it looks like it has just increased the divide from the richest and highest achievers.

It seems to be more about sticking to big brand institutions/names and the smaller independents are most at risk as parents worry about numbers and continuity. Choice is what is lost all round.

We're not speaking about maths though, it's about people's lives not numbers.

Personally, I don't care if it's 10% or 100% and won't be bending over backwards to convince myself or others either way. People's lives have been significantly disrupted and this is very real.

I actually enjoy people saying unabashedly "we hate you and your children and we're happy to suffer ourselves if it hurts you filthy rich bast@rds", all this to mere NHS workers, accountants and the like. It shows how huge the class divide and hatred actually are, and teaches an important lesson in life.

What goes round comes around anyway.

Also interesting data facts:

In 2019-20 6.5% of all pupils nationally were in independent schools. In Surrey the figure was 19.8%.

In 2023-24 the figure nationally was still 6.5% but Surrey had risen slightly to 20%.

Between the two years, the total number of pupils had increased by 2.3%, state school pupils by 2.2% and private school pupils by 2.9% nationally.

In Surrey the total number of pupils had increased by 3.2%, state school pupils by 2.8% and private school pupils by 4.5%.

In 2018/19 there were 1,102,643 unfilled places in schools nationally - 12.5%, in 2022/23 there were 1,042,852 - 11.6%.

In Surrey there were 18,429 unfilled places in schools - 11.0%, in 2022/23 there were 14,360- 8.5%.

Of the 400 schools in Surrey, 377 (94%) are good or outstanding compared with 90% nationally.

34.8% of current private school pupils would need to return to state to wipe out Surrey's capacity - and in the unlikely event that did happen - the majority of schools they could end up in are good or outstanding - so not massive risks of them ending up in crap schools.

The Guardian is too keen to whitewash Labour policies :)

It depends on the area.

Anecdotally, we're seeing an unusually high number of offers from top-20 schools in the country as well as unusually generous scholarships from the second tier schools. Also parents who previously wouldn't consider grammars now mulling over grammar vs private with scholarship offers. The dust hasn't settled yet and the Guardian article is a joke :)

Came here to say this. Home counties London commuter belt is not representative of the whole country. A 9% increase seems pretty high to me in a wealthy area.

My child is a day pupil at one of the highest fee boarding schools nationally. Most pupils are therefore not local, because they board and travel from out of area or overseas. They would not be reflected in local state applications even if their parents are planning to pull them out.

A 9% increase in applications for children already in the independent sector seems pretty significant to me!

Given that many children (usually) move into the independent sector for secondary only...

And it's less impact to choose not to join the independent sector than to leave it...

A 9% increase in applications for children already in the independent sector seems pretty significant to me!

Given that many children (usually) move into the independent sector for secondary only...

And it's less impact to choose not to join the independent sector than to leave it...

I think there will be an increasing trickle of children going to state, not a flood though. I don’t think this will be a big issue for state schools in many areas as it only a tiny percentage of the population. Especially if you factor in international students (who will go to international schools in other countries, if they leave) and that around 58% of independent schools are special schools.

The variety in quality in the state sector is what people should really be thinking about because that affects about 95% of the population.

“Anecdotally, we're seeing an unusually high number of offers from top-20 schools in the country as well as unusually generous scholarships from the second tier schools. Also parents who previously wouldn't consider grammars now mulling over grammar vs private with scholarship offers. The dust hasn't settled yet and the Guardian article is a joke :)”

@Ubertomusic - reflects my London experience too and I think the top tier schools passing on the full 20% VAT whack are dreaming if they think they can continue to be undercut by the competition. Parents are definitely price sensitive now, across the board. DS knows lots of musical kids all offered 50% academic and music scholarship including to some quite well known schools. This was not the case even last year, they were offering token scholarships. The competition amongst the independents for the top students - it is a buyers’ market.

I think the smart independent schools are offering the academic students a minimum of 20% off to bypass the VAT factor.

This article doesn’t really tell anyone anything.

• 10% increase in the NUMBER of students applying to move from independent to state - this doesn’t factor in that number of pupils overall dropped in this year group.
• What about students that would have entered independent at secondary from a state primary. These are often people that can’t afford independent all the way through and are more likely to be impacted by VAT
• In independents the prep (primary) school goes until year 8, end of year 6 isn’t a standard movement year. It would be interesting to know what the movement numbers look like for entry into year 9.
• As others say, every year parents apply to both state and independent, then turn down the one they don’t need. The true indicator will be in September when we know about this movement.

Because of unknown independent school stability, fee increases, and the iffy economic climate. I suspect a lot of parents will keep hold of their state place until right at the last moment just to cover their backs and it’ll be mid September before we truly know.

Either way, birth rates are going down. So even if less are going into year 7 independent school from now on, the LA are likely to have enough space for them. The real impact is on an individual school level, where the more desirable schools will have more applicants meaning less ‘state-through’ children get into them.

I think the smart independent schools are offering the academic students a minimum of 20% off to bypass the VAT factor.

That's interesting, 2 of my friends dc didn't get grammar places but have been given very generous bursary/scholarship discount so are off to 2 well known private schools. I was surprised at how generous the discount was.

So high-status private schools who can afford it are actually offering MORE generous bursaries / scholarships to desirable pupils, while lower status, poorer private schools do not have money to offer even the bursaries they previously did?

So the overall effect of the policy could be a ‘struggle for survival’ for a more limited pupil pool within the private sector, and equally a move of students who might once have been candidates for the less prestigious private schools into state (who will generally, over the coming years of declining cohort size, manage to accommodate them, with some pressure points in places where population expansion has exceeded school
capacity building).

However, none of this will solve chronic shortages of staff, funding and SEN provision for the vast majority, who use the state sector.

That’s an 8% rise in Surrey. It’s not exactly negligible. It’s definitely had an impact where I am - all of the schools have tightened their areas. The school we originally moved into the area for as a backup (1 mile away) only offered up to 0.8 mile this year. This is reflected across the county. I suspect, like most things, it’ll affect some areas more badly than others.

So the overall effect of the policy could be a ‘struggle for survival’ for a more limited pupil pool within the private sector,

I think this has been happening for some time already tbh.

The real impact is on an individual school level, where the more desirable schools will have more applicants meaning less ‘state-through’ children get into them.

So will house prices in certain catchments go up?

@Moglet4 how did you find out the below?

only offered up to 0.8 mile this year.

I'm was interested in my local schools bit nothing has been published & the school won't say as it will likely move out.

In independents the prep (primary) school goes until year 8, end of year 6 isn’t a standard movement year. It would be interesting to know what the movement numbers look like for entry into year 9.

Not sure of the exact balance, but an awful lot of private primaries now finish at 11 rather than 13, or see many children exit at 11 if they have the choice to go to secondary at that point.

@SheilaFentiman

That’s interesting. I assumed it was the same everywhere as locally they all go to 13.

However our small prep school has just paired with a larger ‘all through’ school. I wonder if part of the plan is to eventually stop the prep at year 6 and move anyone that wants to stay at independent to the ‘all through’ school they’ve paired with.

Many state Sixth Forms give priority to existing students for places.

As mentioned above though, some sixth forms are already increasing their grade requirements, meaning that existing students may find it harder to get a place.

The council publishes all of them

The movement numbers at Y9 will probably be low, on account of the fact that there are no places in Y9 in many schools, so pupils aren’t able to move! My MP and LEA have confirmed that they know there are no places within many miles for any Y9 student wishing to transfer to state at Y9 in our area.

In London, the standard exit is 11. Actually, I don't know any school that would go till 13 for girls.