Another private school in Suffolk announced closure by the end of the summer term

[twinsyang]

Not only students have to find another school, but also teachers, employees. Eg cook, gardeners, support staff all have to look for jobs. :p
i feel sorry for the families affected.

Yes the VAT was in Labour’s manifesto. But so was their claim that the money raised would be used to fund improvements to state schools.

I don’t understand why the fees are so much higher than inflation. Yeah okay VAT, but that was a one time hike.

It’s a stupid policy by Labour, they don’t gain anything by ‘breaking even’ on the gain in tax vs the additional costs of those entering state schools.

The biggest issue is that as these private school close, there needs to be potentially hundreds of additional state school places found in the local area by the next term…they won’t be building classrooms and staffing them that quickly.

It’s nothing more than politics of envy, if it costs on average £8k a year from 5-16 for a state education…anyone who sends their child private is SAVING the government £88k a year. Now Labour is taxing education, just because some people opt not to use the free provision.

Add to this, the REASON many people go private, isn’t about snobbery…it’s because the state system is failing their children, how
often do we see posts on here from parents concerned that their is a violent child in class, that their concerns aren’t being dealt with etc. State schools have lost control, the children are now in charge, if a disruptive child has a ‘good week’, they will get a certificate and treat…whereas the child that behaves well all the time gets overlooked both in rewards and attention.

The parents are also part of the problem, at private schools the parents support school rules and have high expectations of their child, at state schools the parents side with their child that they should be allowed their nose pieced and be allowed to leave class to go to the toilet and they shouldn’t be getting a detention for not doing their homework etc. Until there is a top-down change in mentality,
that teachers should be respected, and it not be acceptable, as an example, for kids to shout and swear at teachers on a daily basis with no consequence, across the whole education sector…then it will never improve. Having worked in a state secondary…I can well understand why a parent may scrimp and save to put their child into a private school.

To take your child out of a school that is failing them, at great cost to yourself, which as a by-product saves the government money…to then be taxed by the same government, making the barely affordable cross the line into unaffordable…makes no sense at all.

The government should be looking into the REASONS people prefer a private education, and trying to find ways to level up state school, rather than an attack meant to drag children out of those well-performing schools into a lesser alternative.

Noted. But I do not believe that any replacement to Starmer will change the policy, partly because it was in the manifesto, partly because they may well personally support it and partly because it isn’t an unpopular policy with the wider electorate.

Who said they would?

Rachel Thieves wants it used for benefits and is hoping these teachers and support staff have 10 children - all potential Labour voters. Private Schools are a little too Tory for her liking. ‘I wouldn’t send my children to private school. I want them to see the world as it is’... Dystopian, taxed to the hilt, on benefits (which you clearly don't need an education for.) Later, Rachel will claim that she has saved you money and you are now better off.

@TygerBreadSpot on. The break-even rate for children transferring from private to state schools should be less than 10–15% on a cumulative basis ( over next 5-10 years) .

This cost- benefit is only based on assumptions that the remaining private students’s VAT would subsidise the ones transferred to state, it isn't even considering the detrimental effect on employees who lose their jobs (as they will have to claim unemployment benefits) and the subsequent loss in National Insurance (NI) contributions

. I'm just curious: how many new teachers have actually been hired, or how much has funding increased, because of the VAT.

You are conflating losing private schools with everyone getting a good education.

those are non sequiturs

If anyone has any interest in a non AI generated balanced view on how VAT has actually affected private school pupil numbers and closures this is worth a listen (it’s the first bit of the More or Less Radio 4 programme that was broadcast on Friday:

www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p0nr0w9w

I don’t see it as wrong to have additional systems. The state system is there to provide for a basic need that will suffice for the majority, it doesn’t mean that people should be forced to use if they prefer not to. That’s like saying if the government provides a free bus, no-one should be allowed to pay for a taxi because of personal preference. We actually have 3 systems when you include home education as an alternate, and the government don’t help with that at all either.

If you were to take away the ability to chose not to use state system, for education, healthcare etc…and everyone gets the same…you start to lose some of the incentive to earn more to provide more for your own family (which means less income tax being paid). You would also get the most capable earners in society leaving the UK in search of better state/private systems available to them in other countries.

The genuinely bad/sad thing about the attack on the private school system, is that some parents have chosen it becuase their child has been bullied, suffered violence, lacked SEN/learning support, or had mental health issues triggered by the state school environment. Close down the local private school,,.and those parents are now faced with having no other option but to put their child back into a school that has already failed their child.

What the government fails to acknowledge is that state schools are often not good environments and don’t get the best out of every student. I’ve seen children at the end of 11 years of state funded education (mainstream), sit their GCSEs becuase their parents get billed for missed exams, and all they do is write their name on the front and don’t even open the question paper. I’ve also seen a child walking around waving a knife and not even get suspended becuase they are in the care in the care system and they can’t suspend them, there needs to be an alternative provision made and there isn’t one available. In an inner-city state secondary…there are things happening on a daily basis that if it was a workplace with adults…the police would be called. Schools have a general policy of not calling police, as that creates a negative news story….meaning the public don’t know the reality of how bad some of these schools really are.

Until the government can honestly claim that state schools are safe, that people are treated with respect and that teaching hours are used for teaching, and are not constantly disrupted for behaviour management…the state system is not something they should be trying to force on people who want to self-fund an alternative.

Yes they do
Theres Nothing stopping state being a great education… that’s got nothing to do with private schools
The only thing that’s stopping it is lack of money and investment

so
back to my comment. When all kids leave private there will be no VAT income
so no more money from it and more costs to state

Exactly !

Labour need to be careful or they’ll have no private schools to send their own children to.

Which current Labour MPs do this, do you know?

Diane Abbott?

It always was an absolutely stupid policy and it's now costing the taxpayer on top of all the other problems it's caused.

State schools closing / dropping PAN too. Redundancies in some state schools.

Any current MPs with school age children?

Does it even matter? 😞

A poster asked where Labour MPs would send their kids if a lot of private schools closed. I was asking if any current Labour MPs were using private schools at the moment, which I thought was a reasonable question. You replied Diane Abbott, but that was back in 2003.

The top few very academic ones tend to do that because no one can argue with the results. The vast majority of private schools require QTS. You find that out very rapidly if you try to find a job in one.

This is all very true yet I doubt anyone who supports the tax will be along to debate you.

The idea that the VAT can be used to level up the state system was always nonsense.

The 6500 additional teachers promised equated to 0.5 teachers per school. So far I think there are 1900 FEWER teachers in post since Labour took office.

But hey, breakfast clubs…

The information isn’t available as it’s not subject to public declaration by MPs.

I recall listening to Diane Abbott, Emily Thornberry and Shami Chakrabarti all squirming in interviews about how they are publicly on the record saying private schools are a problem, yet for their kids it was different because, well, I can’t honestly remember the feeble excuses. Hypocrites of the highest order.

This is changing; the white paper due to be published in September states that from September 2027 all teachers will be required to hold, or be working towards, QTS. There are a small number of exemptions

I genuinely don’t understand how people cheering on Labour and cheering on the VAT don’t question why none of it is being spent on their promised school improvements.