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

UK independent school in UK is now almost equal to state school.

One you pay £20,000 a year for +++

The other is free.

I suspect SchoolRunDays is a bot, or a malicious agent. The same weird links and copy text is posted on multiple threads, creating an odd straw man argument for a problem that doesn't exist except in its hallucination. Ignore and move on.

Every parent should petition the governors for transparency and the financial records. That is all.

If there’s nothing to hide schools will graciously explain where all funds are being allocated. Very simple.

📌

There are plenty of gifted rich kids and gifted kids of teachers too! In fact, more than plenty in the latter category.

Poor gifted kids can be crowd funded too. @SchoolRunDays - PEPF if they feel so passionate and you too - go crowd fund all those poor gifted kids on the internet rather than wasting time. If you feel so strongly!

In the mean time, there are plenty of gifted kids in my DCs grammar school and educated cheaply there by the State. Let’s open some more state schools for gifted kids then!

Personally, I do not agree with means tested bursaries anyway. Let’s take the most expensive schools at 60k a year. Why spend 60k on one child when you could use the same endowment funds of 60k on multiple children keeping them in the state sector and extending them that way via holiday classes or Oxbridge extension or teacher input online. If the schools have funds to help they should help more widely anyway. Why would one random kid be deserving of 60k when the same money could reach more children all equally deserving.

@SelmaSilver - suspect you are right. Also very naive “petition the governors” - as if they mostly are not just random volunteers trying to do their best on their own free time!

Yes, I think you're right too @SelmaSilver . Definitely weird posting style and responding to itself, and barely replying to the points made. Depressing that this is convincingly like some of the anti-private posters.

Shall we play?

The real problem @SchoolRunDays is that private schools have banned ice cream from the canteen in the name of "wellbeing." It's not about health; it's about middle-class pretension dressed up as virtue, where every harmless pleasure must be replaced with a lecture and a quinoa salad. The same people who preach resilience panic at the sight of a chocolate flake. Schools once taught maths, literature, and science; now they police desserts with missionary zeal. If joy is forbidden alongside junk food, what comes next? When education mistakes control for wisdom, it isn't just ice cream that's melting away—it's the very purpose of schooling.

researchers have literally developed ice cream to improve nutrition in vulnerable hospital patients—proof that frozen dairy can have genuine benefits when used sensibly. See the NHS N-ICE CREAM study: N-ICE CREAM Study. If ice cream is good enough to help patients recover, it's good enough for a Tuesday lunch. Enough of this joyless, aspirational nonsense. Sign a petition, write to your MP, and tell the government to stop turning schools into dessert-free monasteries before they freeze every last scrap of fun out of education.

shall we see what it does?

In theory, I see your point.

I wonder how often they actually turn down a full-fee-paying student in order to give that bursary - and so would actually have that £60k to spend if they didn't give the bursary? In practice, I suspect most schools will have an idea of how far down their 'ranking' of applicants they'd like to go. Of course that will change based on demand, but they'll try to keep it consistent year on year.

So in practice, it's probably only the marginal cost of an extra student, which will be much lower. They may well judge that the value of the education is worth more than the interventions which could be funded by instead donating that marginal cost elsewhere. They (perhaps rightly) believe they are better than others at providing education!

And they do get some benefit themselves for that - they generally offer to someone who they believe will improve the life of the school. That's not quantifiable, but it matters. These things aren't purely altruistic - and why should they be?

Recommend reporting any concerns. We’re going to need a new thread soon given this influx of posting..

Yes, we need a new thread. I followed this one a year ago, and it looks like the predictions are now coming to pass. There's an uptick in closures being announced. Our London prep, which I thought was "safe" might be under threat too, from financial headwinds. I won't be surprised if the owners sell up within a couple of years at most. So sad and depressing.

@strawberrybubblegum that was entertaining 😂wonder if it will bite.

Wealthy families have options. Middle class not wanting families to sacrifice more than they already are seeking an outstanding state + tutoring and outside clubs.

Whats left cannot afford to pay.

When there’s no money the quality, standards cannot be met. UK independent schools are spreading themselves too thin and it shows.

To survive and not become an international joke with an entirely outdated and inadequate provision they have to do as the government advised BEFORE the VAT was brought in and “tighten THEIR belts”

Under no circumstance is there place for non means tested blanket discounts and perks for children of all staff. Unsustainable. Under no circumstance should any family on fee remissions then be going and accessing ADDITIONAL “support funds” to wipe their VAT obligations. At that point the burden on the school and FULL fee paying families is too great. Schools must, moving forward have difficult internal conversations to explain further cross subsidisation is not affordable.

It may take some time but if staff leave because their children cannot stay so be it. Places can be filled with those not looking for Fee remission at all or set to sign employment contract under the 2026 terms and rate (A minimal fee remission) representing the reality of what is affordable to each particular school.

Wealthy parents aren’t paying for austerity and cut backs. Those paying are paying in full and of course they are demanding results, full schedules of co curricular and no cuts or rationing from their investment into their own child.

What schools must recognise with the amount of closures and mergers is that wealthy families seek the best and they’re not desperate. They have options.

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https://fromtheschoolgates.co.uk/why-more-families-and-teachers-are-leaving-uk-schools-and-what-the-departures-reveal-about-the-state-of-independent-schools/

Hehe, no surprise that teachers get the blame. Exactly like in the state sector! Apparently they are responsible for all social problems and all political shenanigans and all NHS failures and social services failures too.

All families are aware of this.

Talk within homes enters the school yard.

Any middle class family going without to cross subsidised families (going on holidays, sending kids to expensive sports clubs they cannot afford) that talk amongst parents is spilling over into resentment amongst pupils.

A toxic environment.

Any family at an independent school should follow the token complains process as a tick box activity. Then contact the governors directly. The conflict of interest within Independent school finance is rife. They’re all in receipt of the costly perks!

Petition all schools for strictly means tested fee remissions and restricted, transparent, temporary “support funds”

Any parent has the right to question where their fee payment is going. It’s a right. Contractual obligations and service standards must be met.

Independent schools tightening their belts is not as easy as the government or their supporters on this thread seem to think. Yes, all enterprises waste money (and that includes state schools, the NHS, etc.). But identifying that waste and eliminating it is much harder than some people seem to think. Some schools have been able to absorb the cost, but using that to say that all schools should be able to do so is unrealistic.

If all schools were able to tighten their belts to the extent that they didn't have to raise their fees in response to the introduction of VAT, the amount raised by the government would be about £300M below that predicted. The government's own prediction of the amount of tax it would raise was predicated on schools being unable to tighten their belts. The argument that there should be no impact on parents because schools could tighten their belts is, therefore, fundamentally dishonest.

Of course, in predicting the amount of tax this would raise, the government also assumed that introduction of VAT would have no effect on the number of parents using independent schools or the number of such schools. That assumption was never going to survive contact with reality.

The fact that Bridget Phillipson continues to deny reality, alleging there has been on exodus from independent schools when in fact numbers are down by over 30,000, the biggest percentage drop since records began, is frightening.

Those supporting the policy will say that the schools that are closing would have closed anyway. It is, of course, true that the first to fall are those that were already in a weak situation. But it is by no means certain that they would all have closed had it not been for this government's concerted attack on this sector of the economy.

📌 FAO Full Fee Paying Families.

„The fact that Bridget Phillipson continues to deny reality, alleging there has been on exodus from independent schools when in fact numbers are down by over 30,000, the biggest percentage drop since records began, is frightening.“

Bridget Phillipson like a lot of politicians is just lying to try and keep her job. Hardly surprising. Apparently she is also calling for free 30 hour nursery places for parents out of work so that more full time workers can pay for childcare through their noses and subsidise those who don’t care. Those families already get 15 hours and contact with the system if they want to progress their children and learn about education.
The summary of Bridget Phillipson is student union protest politics for the sake of it with no substance. If she were serious about educational values for benefits families she would work with schools in deprived areas and give them more funding. She would put qualified teachers into early years across the whole country. She cannot be serious about education itself - just about point scoring for herself. That is why she is unpopular in both state and private education.

Omfg please stop quoting your own posts!!!

Why are you so upset about teachers getting free/discounted fees? Does it directly affect you?

And are you equally as cross at train and tube drivers getting free/discounted train travel? After all, anyone who catches a train is subsidising that, and goodness only knows the public transport system could use all the cash it can get 🤷‍♀️

Honestly, if I were you I would take your children out and put them into state schools. My thoughts would be that you are either a) very precious about your own children ‘losing out’ to staff children, b) working on Phase 2 of Labour’s plan to close as many independent schools as possible, this time by removing the last benefit for staff (who usually get paid less and have ‘worse’ pensions than the state school teachers) in the hope they all abandon ship or c) worryingly paranoid about the level of plotting done by private school teachers (who, quite frankly, don’t have the time to speak to their own colleagues, let alone those in other schools).

Either way, let’s leave it to market forces. If enough parents care that staff children receive a discount, they can leave. If enough parents leave citing this as a concern, the school will change its policy or close. Of course, if you remove your children now, you would remove the stress it is quite clearly causing you.

@SchoolRunDays certainly does seem rather intent on making teaching in a private school look unappealing to any good teacher. Financial instability, resulting job insecurity, fewer financial benefits, no benefit to family life, hostile parents - might as well try the state sector alongside their own kids.

@SchoolRunDays I am interested to know if you object to state schools having children of staff as part of their oversubscription criteria?

The private school teachers who leave private schools often go abroad if young or into alternative careers or into tutoring or edtech. Plenty don’t go into state. So they are just more lost teachers.