Whitehall “braced for private schools collapse” 4

[ICouldBeVioletSky]

Continuing the discussion about the impact of VAT on independent schools…

I wonder when we hear the court’s conclusion on the NAO report?

There's some detail in what was said in court:

https://www.lawgazette.co.uk/news/evidence-in-school-vat-case-falls-under-parliamentary-privilege-government-argues/5123023.article

As far as I understand it, the government's / speaker's request to have the NAO report ruled inadmissible was not wholly successful. However the judges have told representatives for both sides to agree what was fact and what was opinion within the NAO report. This was expected to delay things by something like a week longer than might otherwise have been the case.
I don't think there's any clarity on when they'll issue a decision. The whole hearing in early April was fast-tracked in view of the perceived urgency and the large number of people affected, so one might hope they won't let it drag on too long.

Exactly the same happened to us. It’s a very common and appalling way to try to manage a classroom- essentially to make the quieter (usually female) children pay for the under-resourcing of specialist adult support that is needed but not provided for (usually male) classmates with disruptive additional needs.

Thus adding to anxiety and stress for children by forcing to manage the fallout from insufficient government funding for SEND. And to add insult to injury not picking up on the additional needs of the quieter children because there is only enough adult attention per classroom to cover the kids with the most disruptive externally-focused additional needs.

Similar but slightly different - DS1 was put on tables with the more ‘lively’ children so that his full-time 1:1 could keep an eye on them. That certainly wasn’t written in his EHCP. And when he was bullied by his so-called friend and picked up and thrown on the floor by another pupil, she wasn’t even there - because she was being deployed to help elsewhere in the classroom. She was absolutely wonderful, but the way the school treated my son was not.

I am not sure you can say it is the teacher or school's fault that they are trying to manage disruptive children by having a teaching assistant on the table. They are just using anything available to control the class. Ultimately there needs to better discipline in state schools. In primary school, my son's whole class had to leave the room twice due to another child refusing to behave. The individual child is becoming more important than a whole class of children. In secondary school, my son had to deal with constant disruption in lessons so much so that one of his teachers cried. I moved him to private school when I realised that his comprehensive school couldn't deal with behaviour effectively.

I am not sure you can say it is the teacher or school's fault that they are trying to manage disruptive children by having a teaching assistant on the table. They are just using anything available to control the class.

@Runemum I’m not sure if you were replying to me, but I assume you were - my son’s 1:1 INA wasn’t a teaching assistant. She was paid for by the LA to fund 1:1 support specifically for my child. Instead she was increasingly assisting other children, to the extent that for long periods she wasn’t with my son at all. The need to support other children was definitely there, but she shouldn’t have had to provide it. If my son hadn’t needed full-time 1:1 support then there’s no way the LA would have funded it. So yes I absolutely can say it was the school’s fault - because she wasn’t a teaching assistant, she was an Individual Needs Assistant.

@CatkinToadflax
I agree that your DS should not have had to deal with the awful situation of being bullied or thrown on the floor. His individual needs assistant should have been there.
In an ideal world, there would be enough discipline and enough adults to control disruptive children in schools. I don't think most state schools have the power or the staff to control behaviour and so they use any adult nearby to help. Is it their fault for using any adult they can even if that is not their role? I am not sure. Your DS would not be able to learn unless the whole class is under control even if he was sat on the other side of the room. Is it society's fault that there is no disciplinein state schools? Is it lack of discipline at home? Lack of parental support at home? Ofsted's fault?

@Runemum I do broadly agree with you. They needed more adults in the room and they didn’t have the budget.

If 1:1 is detailed, specified and quantified in F of a pupil’s EHCPs, the school shouldn’t be using it to support other pupils. If they do, it leaves the school and LA (because it is the LA who is ultimately responsible for ensuring the provision in F is provided) open to legal action. Lack of resources, staffing and funding are not lawful excuses.

Starting to think there is a good argument for single sex primary schools. It's always the girls who are used as buffers.

I was looking at a couple of local-ish comp's websites last night and one of them had a whole section on their provision for higher ability learners. Turned out to be that they set them more and harder homework and they become 'Class Learning Mentors'.

This is why people opt for private.

Clever kids who are doing well should be pushed to achieve more, or stretched sideways, not turned into unpaid Class TAs.

Is anyone else watching Trump and Harvard and wondering if this is something him and Kier have discussed? I think we need to keep an eye on Uni's being taxed here too at this rate.

Single sex is largely why we went private - the school near us is a Grammar but low performing and DD was at primary with a lot of the bullies who went there. That was the only all girl's offering for miles.

Our eldest girl being used as a buffer at local state primary was really affecting her and so year 3 moved her into a private girls only all through school. Currently year 10 and thriving.

It really is unacceptable that this happens so much.

I'm no wallflower and complained a lot - the best I got was an offer to swap for a different boy every half term, and the explanation that if they didn't do this then the entire class was unteachable.

Which would I prefer... no teaching because it was all behaviour management, fights and shouting... or the girls being used to minimise that but being poked, having pencils taken and being next to a child who constantly disturbed them.

It might state in the school sourced EP report she must be sat at the front of every class, be overtaught, scaffolded and have 1:1 learning support, but there were no resources, no time and 50% of the class were supposed to be sat at the front so who did they pick?

"Clever kids who are doing well should be pushed to achieve more, or stretched sideways, not turned into unpaid Class TAs."

This is also why we went private for DC2. We went to our local state primary open day, asked the head about provision for able kids, and he made it clear DC2 would be put to work helping the other kids with their fractions etc, and that this is what they'd done in the past for kids that came into the school well ahead. Working as unpaid Class TA is exactly what was being offered. I have also seen the phrase "used as fertiliser" to describe the approach of dispersing a small number of bright kids among a large class or year group and expecting them to raise the attainment of those surrounding them. It's exploitation. It's unethical. They're there for their own learning, and that's all that they should be responsible for. A school that uses them like this is violating their right to their own education. I don't think private schools are entirely immune to this issue, but it's all we were offered by our local state option, and going private gave us the choice to avoid it.

My children's father is a teacher who has taught in both sectors but says he would never go back to the state system as it was like being a policeman. (Our children went private from age 4 - 18 as did I)

Working as unpaid Class TA is exactly what was being offered. I have also seen the phrase "used as fertiliser" to describe the approach of dispersing a small number of bright kids among a large class or year group and expecting them to raise the attainment of those surrounding them.

Yet this is the grand vision, writ large, of those who support removal of educational choice. But in naicer language, of course.

This is interesting about girls being used as buffers for naughty boys! In my experience for my children (2 boys and a girl) across state and private, in each and every class it was the boys that were the brightest and, without exception, the naughtiest children were girls. Not to say that there weren’t challenging children from both sexes, but it has been the boys that have had to sit between the worst of the girls.

While I agree with pp that children are there to learn, and not to be used as an unpaid TA, there is something to be gained by being put in that position… leadership, calmness, ability to focus. Obviously not justifying it but there must be some positives.

As seen by PPs who want children to be assigned a school based on banding, lottery and busing kids all over the country.

Isn’t it interesting that in private schools parents consider their child being made a prefect a mark of achievement but in state schools parents are outraged if their child is a Class Learning Mentor🤣

Don’t get this point. Are you still thinking “comprehensive” means “mixed ability teaching”? I know a lot of people make that mistake.

That depends on the comprehensive in question.

Some only set for Maths and everything else is mixed ability.

Some set for Maths, English, Sciences and languages.

Some stream and then set.

If you are in the first group then it is very much mixed ability teaching. The only way you get the latter is to go with the kind of school we did with 400+ in the year group, that streams and sets and with so many sets that they can be fine tuned according to pupil ability and need (so good at maths but needs fast pace in one, good at maths but needs slower pace to learn concepts in another and so on.)

One of the reasons we avoided our Comp was that they didn't stream at all until Y9 (from memory) and then only Maths and English.
I did some research and it seems that mixed ability sets are of benefit to children who are less academic but NOT for the higher achievers and having seen DD used as an unofficial TA at Primary it was not happening again.

They are very different things though?

How on earth are they the same?

I must say I was wondering that too 🧐