Play date with mum who agrees with education tax

[BonnuitMy]

Please let me know if I’m overreacting. I recently overheard a new mum at school talking about a local private school closing down due to the education tax and how this is somehow a good thing. She’s now invited my DD for a play date, would you accept?

Why do you keep conflating disagreement with private schooling and dislike for children who are privately schooled? Nobody has expressed the latter. It’s in your head.

And education per se is mandatory under UK law from ages 4-18. To dictate exactly how it has to happen is very controlling.

She is not conflating @cardibach - if you wish to potentially disrupt the lives of thousands of privately educated children you wish harm upon them, by implication. Do not forget that many of these children already experienced the disruption of Covid. We have current Year 11s who did not even get a proper transition to secondary school caught up in all of this.

Like I said, this and Brexit has made me realise that despite my British father and grandparents and great grandparents and despite living here for more than 30 years now (and born with a British passport only), I am never going to understand the political system and class system here and thus it will be better for me and my family to go and find a country where I can be part of it and know what the heck is going on. At least politically speaking. It is all just far too confusing now for my little brain.

Erm - you don't have to agree with every single thing the EU did to consider it was generally A Good Thing. We all vote for one or another political party despite maybe not agreeing 100% with every single little thing in their manifesto.

VAT was introduced by the EU (or EEC as it was called back then) as a tax on luxuries. Of course there were some slightly strange decisions as to what was and still is considered a luxury, but I'm sure you are 100% in agreement that VAT should be paid in menstrual products such as tampons & period pads.

Even if that were true, and I’d argue that it isn’t (moving schools isn’t necessarily negative, everyone was disrupted by covid so not sure why it’s relevant - and private schools generally had the resources to provide online schooling, while the school I worked at couldn’t because the children didn’t all have WiFi at home) that doesn’t equate to ‘hating’ these children - or show any evidence of ‘talking about them in this way’ which is what I responded to. Nobody has talked in a negative way about private school children.
In essence you are presenting the same argument that is used to try to stop teachers changing jobs - if you go now the children will be disrupted mid exam course - but change is inevitable. It doesn’t have to be negative. And you can’t, in any case, protect everyone from the effects of it.

Lucky it’s not being dictated then. You are able to use state, private or home school. You’ll just have to pay VAT if you choose the private route.

Don't forget there's also some choice in the state schooling too - quoting from .gov.uk below...

• community schools, which are sometimes called local authority maintained schools - they are not influenced by business or religious groups and follow the national curriculum
• foundation schools and voluntary schools, which are funded by the local authority but have more freedom to change the way they do things - sometimes they are supported by representatives from religious groups
• academies and free schools, which are run by not-for-profit academy trusts, are independent from the local authority - they have more freedom to change how they run things and can follow a different curriculum
• grammar schools, which can be run by the local authority, a foundation body or an academy trust - they select their pupils based on academic ability and there is a test to get in

Only one of the above types isn't free to anyone (grammar schools).

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None of my children had to change schools at secondary (state) level until Sixth Form and that is if they wanted to. They would have hated having to change schools and I can see how it is huge pressure on their parents etc and tied up with a lot of guilt and anger. It is evident from all these threads.
Of course, sometimes state school kids also move house and we have to change their schools, but personally I have tried to avoid this. I would also never move my kids schooling in Years 9-11. I think clearly the privilege is having stability in the first place.
I do not think it is right that a Government ambushed a whole lot of parents. VAT should only have applied to new joiners or at natural transition points of 11 or 16 plus. The way they have gone about this against the Covid backdrop is as bad as what the Tories did calling the Brexit referendum. There is no sugarcoating it.

Are Labour going to let us keep grammar and academies? I wouldn’t be so sure.

@BonnuitMy - I do not think they can get rid of a grammar school but they could abolish selection going forward but it won’t impact my DC anymore as they are already starting into a selective intake in Year 7. However, again, I doubt it would be great for the schools because the whole school is set up to teach academic subjects in a certain way and again, the teachers have chosen to teach that type of cohort.

In any event, with the huge boom in tutoring, the academic advantage for those who want to pay for it privately is there anyway and nought they can ever do about people logging into online tutoring.

Academies are terrible. Should never have been brought in in the first place. I don’t think there are any plans to get rid, but there really should be.

Oh for goodness sake! As bad as Brexit? That’s utter nonsense and you must know it. If private schools were all closed down and banned it would affect 7% of children - not sure what that is as a percentage of the population as a whole, but tiny. Not all of the. Would be negatively affected by it. Brexit negatively affects every single person in the country.

Edit: no ambush happened. It was all in the manifesto. They got elected. Accept that many people either agree or don’t care with the change - enough to lead to a massive house majority (and yes, I know not a majority of votes but that almost never happens in FPTP anyway - the manifesto had broad support across the country)

There are DBS checks before someone is allowed to work in a school, but nice try.

Definitely as bad as Brexit for the individual children and families negatively affected by a direct Government target on their backs leading to disruption for them.

Eh? I’m not understanding how that relates to anything in my post. I didn’t say anything about staffing or safeguarding. What bit of it do you think relates to DBS?

Nope. Not even close. There’s literally no comparison. What target is this? Nobody is targeting children or their families. Your hyperbole is world class.

You really don't have a clue what I do or don't understand. All you and your cronies on this thread have done on this thread is cast slurs on people who disagree with you.

A gentle reminder.
It was the Eton boys that damaged this country terminally with Brexit. Cameron and Johnson both archetypal products of a morally bankrupt and corrupt system, making stupid decisions that have massively damaged our economy and the UK's standing in the world.

I have absolutely no idea why you think there is a connection between supporting Brexit and being opposed to private education. I've always been strongly remain. Brexit was a policy of the right wing, private schooling is generally supported by right wing leaning people.
And stop talking complete bollocks about wishing harm on private school pupils. I haven't accused you of wishing harm on the 93% of children who don't have a choice.
I wish class was dead in this country too - you can pretend all you like and say 'look at me I'm above all of this' - but it doesn't make it true
Since you have mentioned 'othering' I'll offer you this from 2022.

www.thelondoneconomic.com/news/out-of-control-eton-students-slammed-for-bullying-state-schoolgirls-339094/

I knew you’d say that. Independent schools, academies and grammar should all go right? The Government should remove all education choice? They know best what is right for our children after all, don’t they comrade?

This. Some children have to go to a new school. That’s it.

Here we go again. The big tribal hatred/probably mixed with faux admiration of the Eton boys, yet again. What a bloody cliche!
You do all realise they most likely do not give a damn what you think. Nor are they going to be much impacted by this pointless VAT. For which you are throwing thousands of other kids under the bus, but apparently they do not matter, nor do their families. As long as you get a last hoorah (or not) against the Eton boys.

What are going to do IF Prince George is going to Eton? Are you going to abolish the monarchy?

@BonnuitMy - the funniest part is that they do not believe that our own kids are in state schools!
I think you should go on this play date and see if this other mother is as nutty as some of the posters on this thread.