Whitehall “braced for private schools collapse” 4

[ICouldBeVioletSky]

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

Again, may I remind you that the initial discussion was about school children being used as spacers and unpaid "mentors", some of them having SEN themselves. Then you entered with the grand opening "wait until they are at uni and have no choice but pick up the slack of others". Then a few PP pointed out to the fact they or/and their DC never had group projects neither at uni nor at work.

I never brought up mentoring at a professional level 😁 For some DC "group work at uni" is an orchestra 😂 And no, they are not expected to either tutor their peers of the same age/level in orchestra or tolerate slackers because the resulting sound will be disastrous 🤣

I used to work in healthcare and was never ever taught at uni to tolerate slackers, it simply is dangerous. Healthcare is by no means a niche employment or limited experience.

This is awful. I am so sorry. I have heard of this so often at primary, the 1-1 support being shared when it’s not meant to be.

And again, you’re missing the point. I replied to this comment:

I know a lot of kids who don't do GCSE drama because their own grades can be negatively affected if they are grouped with weaker or lazy students.

The vast majority of students at university will not be able to avoid group projects because there is often a compulsory one to develop collaborative and communication skills.

At no point did I condone ‘tolerating slackers’, no idea where you got that notion from. In a university group you don’t have a lot of options other than to get on with it to get the project submitted and avoid being penalised.

I don't think I'm missing your point. You're saying school children should learn how to cope with group members who can't be bothered, because at uni they will have to cope with the same people dragging grades down for everyone else, which in turn will be a good preparation for the reality of work places where they will meet the same very people again and will have to do their work for them. Your point is not that difficult to understand.

But it's only your reality.

I'm actually laughing at your illusion that I am some kind of hardcore socialist and part of the deluded (presumably Socialist) masses. Your posts embody the collective bitterness and vitriol on these threads when anyone dares to question the ridiculous level of hyperbole and also doesn't fit your stereotype of uneducated, spiteful and envious sniper trying to get one over on 'posh' people. Disclaimer - I am 'posh' although that means I would never actually use that word of course.

And FWIW internet discussions are certainly not going to solve the VAT problem.

Learning to work with others, learning to work with people you don’t like, learning how to work within and manage a team, all life skills.

Yep, that’s reality for most people.

LOL I wasn't trying but looks like hit the nerve anyway 😂

You're not as posh as you think as you've displayed enough vulgarity on this thread, but you certainly look like the product of what you call "the top independent school" - or what was it, "the most elite"?.. Ironically, you're not a good testament to the value of private education so hardcore socialists probably have a point - just a different one to what they think 😁

I was replying to @CurlewKate , but thank you for your input.

Can't argue with that, but it's not relevant to the situation of (sometimes even primary) school children being used as spacers or "mentors" without volunteering. Especially in the current environment where many children have very complex needs that are not being addressed at all. "Mentoring" by their peers can do more harm than good actually. SEND children are not guinea pigs either for naice MC children who want to add "mentoring" line to their Oxbridge applications.

Agree, @Ubertomusic ; the situations with university and work aren’t relevant to the kind of in-class “mentoring” posters were talking about earlier on this thread. The examples of prefects, or “sciences mentor” in the upper years of secondary school (which are more like leadership, pastoral or subject ambassadors) aren’t the same kind of thing either.

My DD, for example, is gifted at maths, but at primary school would finish her work and ask for greater depth and extension work, but instead would regularly be asked to explain the concepts to children who were struggling, or to help other children with their own work instead of being given extra work (most especially in the run-up to SATs). This is the kind of peer teaching/mentoring that we’re talking about. There are two issues here: one that even if this is occasionally a useful task for both children, for it to be regularly a substitute for developing a child’s own work and knowledge should not be acceptable. Yet this is often practice in mixed ability (or even setted) classes in state schools, especially where a teacher either can’t or doesn’t want to provide extra or extension work for one or more outliers working beyond the average.

The second issue is that, during the time DD was at primary school, the guidelines in the primary national curriculum changed from requiring schools to give greater depth students extension work beyond that particular KS curriculum topic, to requiring them only to give extension within the relevant KS topic. This meant that once DD had been given a greater depth worksheet and had finished it, she was often then put to work explaining the topic to other pupils because the teacher simply hadn’t prepared anything more for her to do, but was also not required to give her work beyond the curriculum. So DD ended up massively frustrated and bored, and also pretty pissed off at being used as free teaching labour for the class (because even in primary kids realise perfectly well what’s going on).

None of this is actually developing a bright child, but, as a pp said, just using them as “fertiliser” for everyone else. But that is the key issue, isn’t it? Keeping the bright kids in one comprehensive system might do a bit of fertilising, but those individual kids suffer with frustration and boredom as a result. If you are looking at the system overall, you might think that’s a reasonable sacrifice. However, if you’re one of those kids, or the parent of one of those kids, you aren’t going to be that happy at being sacrificed just so everyone else does better.

Similarly, research on secondary school achievement often shows that boys do better in mixed schooling and girls in single sex. That means that if you have boys, you’re keen for the girls to be sacrificed so your boys can do well. If you’re a girl or the parent of a girl…maybe not so much. Who gets to win? Well, the fact that since the early 2000s almost all state schools have gone mixed, even if they weren’t mixed before then, suggests that someone is winning (and it might not be the girls).

In our case, we accepted the situation for DD at primary, but we weren’t happy with seeing her go through all her secondary career having the same experience over and over again. And our catchment school made it clear that they had a limited amount they could do for her.

So do you think, @CurlewKate, that DD should be frustrated and miserable in a setting that doesn’t suit her, just because that’s what suits others? I spent seven miserably unhappy years in a similar situation before I was able to escape to university, and I don’t want that for DD (who already tests out as brighter than I was, though these things are not exactly a hard and fast science).

I have also noticed it seems to be more female (child) heavy in the threads fighting to keep choice and independent schools. Mum's of girls are very aware of how damaging state schools can be and how overbearing to a quiet child who might need encouragement. Working with difficult people is one thing but constantly being overlooked and suppressing one child's education because another can shout louder is not a lesson many of us want for kids although I recognise many of the shouty ones become managers

No nerves hit. For that to be the case, I would have to care about your opinion and I couldn't care less what you think. You seem to be in a real lather though (as usual).

Just a little hint, when you tag people, it means you are replying to them. HTH.

"As usual"?.. Do you follow me? 🤔😁

I can't even remember if I was very active on these threads. But whatever makes you happy.

I was in a similar position @Araminta1003 , bored witless in school and asked to "mentor" classmates who struggled to grasp basic concepts. I still vividly remember one of my "charges", a very quiet boy, not disruptive at all but massively behind in every single subject... Both parents were alcoholics and his brain was likely damaged in utero - I don't understand what our teachers were thinking really, his was a case for a highly qualified EdPsych, not a 10yo with no interest whatsoever in teaching, "mentoring" or fake "leadership roles"!

And, as previously pointed out, I wasn’t addressing that. It was in direct response to a PP’s comment about pupils not choosing particular GSCE subjects because they didn’t want to do the group work.

What you describe was exactly my experience at (state) school: Years of stultifying boredom. Never being challenged or extended. Frequently being used to support other children. Bored to the verge of mental illness.
It's also exactly what my children were offered by state schools 30 years later, and a key reason why we opted out of the state system. I couldn't in good conscience keep them in a system that was failing them, nor could I bear to watch the slow motion car crash that unfolded during DC1's initial period in a state primary.
Recent fads in teaching ("mastery", "adaptive teaching") have made the situation worse. Organisations that should know better are spreading nonsense e.g. that differentiation is bad/unnecessary and that "greater depth" is adequate. Greater depth is literal levelling down. The G&T scheme run during the Blair/Brown years was the only time state schools have ever made a serious effort to provide for bright children in state schools. But it was underfunded and killed in it's infancy.

What you describe was exactly my experience at (state) school: Years of stultifying boredom. Never being challenged or extended. Frequently being used to support other children. Bored to the verge of mental illness.

Ah, but now you'll have been educated on this thread that it was all a cunning plan for your own good. I bet you're feeling really grateful now.

DS2 was bored rigid. He became incredibly disruptive though. It was probably him who had the quiet calm girls placed either side of him. 🤦‍♀️ We repeatedly asked for more challenging work and were refused.

We moved schools to meet his disabled brother’s needs. DS2 was given extension work and immediately his behaviour improved.

To be honest, @AirwaterfireI might just as well say “Yes, that’s exactly what I think” because whatever I say won’t change your mind!

Once again, we come to the end of a thread and still no explanation for taxing education, forcing tens of thousands of children out of their existing schools, closing down schools and limiting education options. All we have is two people who obviously feel a bit guilty and bitter about their educational choices for their children and want to force their choices on others. There must be someone who supports this policy and can articulate why!

There’s not much reasoning left because Starmer managed to lie on the ‘no evidence for closures’ pre GE.

He got it wrong and the damage is there.

And no improvements are being made in state schools as a result of the tuppence ha’penny being raised by the VAT but apparently not actually ring fenced for education.

Remember when this all started and everyone pooh-poohed the idea of taxing Universities in the same way - "it will never happen!". See Trump using Harvard as a warning that Starmer showed him; you can use education as a stick to beat people who won't vote for you with and win support from those who don't value it. It's not a great future to watch unfold.

I know the business rates aspect of Labour's attack on fee paying schools is not as interesting as VAT, but it is still part of the assault. here is an update
"The Non-Domestic Rating (Multipliers and Private Schools) Act 2025 has now received Royal Assent. The provisions relating to private schools and the removal of charity rate relief from these hereditaments has effect from 1 April 2025. Billing authorities should therefore remove charitable rate relief (with effect from 1 April) from the affected hereditaments and reissue bills accordingly.
The Act makes provision to allow for the setting of higher multipliers for hereditaments with a rateable value or £500,000 or over, effective from the 2026/27 billing year. The rate of the multiplier will be announced by the Chancellor at the Autumn Budget 2025.
The government is aware of a risk that ratepayers who occupy hereditaments with a rateable value of £500,000 and above may attempt to avoid the higher multiplier by granting multiple occupations within the building to subsidiaries or other connected parties. This could result in the hereditament being split.
If the government sees evidence of such practices and considers them to be avoidance, it may amend the law by regulation to ensure the higher multiplier remains payable. Such a regulation may ensure that where 2 or more hereditaments are occupied by connected persons and would, if occupied by one person, be a single hereditament caught in the higher multiplier, then hereditaments would be treated as single hereditament."

So you can ‘recall that I have been ‘so vulgar’ on threads on which you don’t even know if you have been active.In your terminology, thanks for the ‘LOLs’ 😂

The original purpose of the thread, started in Dec 2024, was to discuss unconfirmed rumours that whitehall had briefed the government that multiple schools would close as a result of the VAT policy.
Statements by Starmer and others pre-GE and in late 2024 that there was "no evidence" that schools would close and "very, very few" children will need to move schools turned into an admission by the government (made public by March 2025) that their own officials briefed them that 100 additional schools are likely to close as a result of the policy and 54000 students will need to move schools. Officials briefed ministers of those estimates in July 2024. Rather than admit their mistake, Starmer & co hid the truth from the electorate and doubled down until after the budget and the imposition of VAT.
This duplicity breaches the Nolan principles. So also do the incidents in which Starmer, Reeves and Phillipson accepted tens of thousands in freebies. The Nolan principles form part of the ministerial code. Starmer, Reeves and Phillipson deceived the electorate. They used their office for personal enrichment. Reeves lied about her professional experience. Starmer allowed her to remain in post, knowing that she had lied, further breaching his obligation to uphold the Nolan principles and ministerial code. They've all breached the ministerial code in multiple ways.