Whitehall “braced for private schools collapse” 7

[ICouldBeVioletSky]

Continuation of previous threads discussing VAT on independent school fees. The thread title is a headline from a Times article last autumn.

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/education/5237575-whitehall-braced-for-private-schools-collapse
https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/education/5242586-whitehall-braced-for-private-schools-collapse-2
https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/education/5280646-whitehall-braced-for-private-schools-collapse-3
https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/education/5301690-whitehall-braced-for-private-schools-collapse-4
https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/education/5317397-whitehall-braced-for-private-schools-collapse-5
https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/education/5337850-whitehall-braced-for-private-schools-collapse-6

That’s exactly what I thought. Bridget Phillipson has done nothing but create division with her inflammatory comments.

And she's proud of it, boasts about it

A lot depends on the ratio of state quality vs catchment house prices vs private fees still. I'm in Scotland so fees aren't horrific & state curriculum is poor plus state can't control violence - makes private still attractive.

Based on this survey, so far 5% of independent school pupils have been moved to state school (others have been moved to cheaper private schools, to schools abroad or are being homeschooled)

“One in ten affluent families ditch private school over VAT”

www.thetimes.com/article/963ea346-8852-46cd-8d9c-ff77935f1ec4?shareToken=98a5c4cb612a7c4d03686a0c08929400

OK so now we have ISC data:

Since Sept 24:

• 81 independent schools have closed which double the 'average' year

• Nearly 25,000 children have left the sector. Labour predicted 54K over 5 years. 25K leaving = 5% so max VAT income is £0.84 B and that's only this term. The more leave each term, the lower the income. They have NEVER got the predicted £1.6B

-Lower cost, small schools - not elite institutions - are paying the price

• NE schools have highest numbers leaving. Ironically this is also the area with the worst performing state schools = even more pressure on NE state schools with ex-independent DC competing for scarce resources

I still can’t comprehend the stupidity of this government and its ‘class war’. Unfortunately they have even bigger problems to deal with now. Mostly of their own making!

Girls’ schools hit hardest by VAT on fees

https://www.thetimes.com/article/ce2bbc45-d8a2-45bd-a9e6-b544476b7ce9?shareToken=8526655de6eabff9fe3a3ad7fb2fdad6

Well, according to today’s Times, the number leaving is 17,000.

And, don’t forget, you would expect 3-4k less per annum just due to demographics.

So, clearly some are leaving, but this suggests far fewer than 25,000.

The 17,000 is since September 2024. Some parents had already removed their DC before September 2024 as Labour won the election in July 2024 and it was clear that the VAT policy was going to be instroduced. The cumulative total is 25,000.

ISC new census says 25K. That 17k is prior to new data ie its the data from end July 25.

You were one who queried my 16K figure at end of July, now I've been proven right you are querying my 25K figure? And what will you do when I'm proven right on that??
Stop gaslighting people.

Exactly as we said: the children most impacted are those at small independents and in the NE, which is also the area with the lowest outcomes.

Meanwhile my DC’s private school 40 miles from London is full to capacity. Bridget Phillipson shat in her own back yard. Vile woman.

https://www.brightoncollege.org.uk/news/brighton-college-announces-three-european-schools

People will just have to go abroad for better value private education? And take their tax payments with them?

So for international education groups, the English cancelling themselves is likely good news. I read in the FT that the UK private education market is too mature aka decline. Much like everything else these days under Labour, sadly. Who would have thought it could get even worse than under the Tories.

Sad for the NE @twistyizzy - you would have thought that B Phillipson would look after her own back garden. Oh well.

@Boohoo76 - cross post! I was going to phrase it just like you originally, but then censored myself…
One just cannot help but wonder why these politicians are entirely devoid of basic common sense. I wonder when and how that exactly happens.

Well I’m a working class Northerner like Bridget. We say it how it is where I come from 🤣

And if she’s scared of public school boys, she should try having an argument with me!

By September last year, numbers had already fallen by 8,233 (1.7 per cent) compared to the previous year. When added to this year’s fall, there are now 24,929 fewer pupils in private education already compared to September 2023, its annual survey shows.

Also (predictably)
At secondary school, the worst-affected years were in the entry years of year 7 and year 12

There's much more to come, as the children part-way through their educatoon complete their exam years... and aren't replaced. Exactly as we predicted.

This policy will come at a net cost. As we predicted.

But Labour know this. This was never about raising money for state kids: they just wanted to close down private schools.

It's what happens when they put ideology above everything else.

It is one thing closing down private schools, it is an entirely different thing making the UK economically quite unattractive full stop! And the two sort of go hand in hand, such a shame they do not realise this. You want to send out full on communist signals, that is what happens to you. Doing a policy which has failed all over the world is just bonkers.

@twistyizzy ,

Gaslighting?!

I have included a link to today’s Sunday Times. I’m not plucking numbers out of the air.

And don’t forget demographics dictate that the total numbers of school children are decreasing by about 50,000 a year at the moment.

Yes gaslighting, you've done it for 18momths + by continually trying to minimise what I say.

You've tried to constantly extrapolate your narrow experience of 2 elite public schools across the whole sector.

So you keep saying.

And I am not getting into a massive argument but these tiny private schools at £9,000 a year that people keep talking about on here are the tails of the distribution.

My experiences are far closer to the median.

No, your experiences are the upper edge. Not the median. The median cost is 19K per year.
Your experiences aren't representative of most independent schools. Especially in the North

you would have thought that B Phillipson would look after her own back garden. Oh well.

Ministers, of any party, should make policy for the whole country, not their constituencies.

We need to wait for proper state and independent school census figures, published by the Dept for Education in June 2026, collected in January 2026.

Only that will give us a meaningful measure of independent and state school pupil numbers compared to the previous year.

Even then, unless the DfE publishes some new data about in/ outflows, it will be very difficult for your causal observer to say much about pupils joining or leaving the state/private sector.

Someone with access to national pupil database DfE data will eventually do the sums to show who joined and who left, and compare this to state school cohorts over the same period.

Until then it’s all complete speculation.

That's OK. Labour aren't going to change the policy regardless, so we just need the numbers by the run-up to the next general election, so that in debates and interviews they can be asked to publicly justify why they spent taxpayer money to harm children.

I actually almost hope Starmer, Reeves and Phillipson are still in office then in order to watch them squirm.

Using our taxpayer money. To harm our own kids.