Guest Post: "Education is about partnership – and we owe it to all our children to work together in their best interests" - Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson MP's back to school message for parents

[SophiaCMumsnet]

I love back to school week. Sending my children off to school on their first day back, I’m always sad (and maybe a little relieved!) to see them go, but I think forward with such excitement to what the new school year will bring for them. New friends, new experiences, new opportunities.

You all know that familiar mix of feelings as they walk through the school gates once again – nervous, excited, hopeful. If you’re anything like me though, overall, you just want them to do well and be happy.

As parents, we all want the best for our children, both in school and beyond. We want them to grow up happy and healthy, to get a good job, and to be able to buy a nice house.

I understand those aspirations – I share them for my own children and, as Education Secretary, for yours. That’s why this job is the greatest privilege of my life. I want to make sure each and every child gets the best start in life, to ensure that where you’re from doesn’t determine where you end up. By breaking the link between background and future success, we can break down barriers to opportunity and give all children the skills they need to thrive.

Education lies at the heart of this change we all want to see. And education means more than maths or English or science, as important as they are. An excellent, whole-childhood education journey builds a lifelong love of learning, nurtures a sense of belonging, and creates connections that last for years to come. A good education gives our children strong foundations and sets them up for work and for life.

High and rising standards in all of our schools is at the heart of our plan. My offer to you is this: I’ll support your children taking their first steps into learning. I’ll put 6,500 new expert teachers in classrooms across the country. I’ll introduce free breakfast clubs in all primary schools. I’ll improve professional careers advice and work experience. I’ll expand support for families by rolling out funded childcare. I’ll review the curriculum, making it richer and broader, setting all children up to thrive now and in the future. I’ll boost mental health support across our schools and reform provision for children with special educational needs and disabilities.

I’m ambitious for our children and for our country. But government can’t achieve all this in isolation. I want to work in partnership with you to deliver the very best life chances for our children. We all have responsibilities – you as parents, us as government, and schools do too. I want to reset these relationships, rebuild trust and work together for the benefit of all our children.

I need all parents to play their part too. Every child is different and you know your child best. I know that every child has different needs, but one thing that can have the biggest positive impact for children is making sure they go to school. When things are working well and children have the right support, ambition, opportunities, belonging, all come from being in school. However excellent our teachers, they can’t teach children who aren’t there. As I put in place measures to drive high and rising standards in schools, children who are absent won’t feel the benefit of them.

Attendance from day one really matters. Children who miss a day at the beginning of a new term are much more likely to be persistently absent for the rest of the school year. So my ask of you for this back to school week is simple, but crucial. If you make sure your children are where they belong - in school - schools are there by your side to support you in this, and so is government.

Education is about partnership – and we owe it to all our children to work together in their best interests. As a new September rolls round, let’s use this moment to fix our foundations, begin the work of rebuilding Britain. Happy back to school week!

By applying VAT on private school fees you are affecting every child in education across the country. Children will be leaving private school for state schools, putting more pressure on classrooms and the tax payer. This policy makes private schools more elite and creating an even bigger divide in society with no thought about the impact this will have on the children. A lot of these children have already had their education impacted by Covid, without a possible change of school mid academic year!

I need all parents to play their part too. Every child is different and you know your child best. I know that every child has different needs, but one thing that can have the biggest positive impact for children is making sure they go to school.

I take playing my part very seriously. So I decided to home educate.

Education is about the children.

Let’s start by having some means testing for children already in private and independent schools. No child should have to move schools due to this VAT policy.

If Covid taught us one thing, it’s that family time is so so important, trouble is, holidays in term time are extortionate, also booking time off work during these times can be problematic. Mental health is so so important too, everyone needs a holiday. Drilling attendance and fines isn’t the answer, children need to experience the world. Don’t make giving these life experiences a crime.

To get the best results sometimes there needs to be balance.A happy and healthy child, who is ready and keen to learn, isn’t that what it should be about ?

A refresher implies she’d been aware of the concept at some point in her life and from what we’ve seen so far she seems to run on hatred, disdain and atrocious amounts of personal bias against all things private/independent.

This is awful to read, I'm so sorry. My heart breaks for the people who have already felt there's no choice but to move their children, or risk losing a state school space. It's the cruellest policy.

What hurts for me is how the VAT feels like an enormous slap in the face.

I grew up on a council estate, was thrown out at 16 and put myself through university twice and achieved a 1st and distinction in my degrees, all while working 30 hours a week.

I’ve had a to move around a lot to achieve this and so my social circle is pretty much non existent. I’m 38 and have lived in about 20 houses.

I was lucky to land a decent job after finishing my masters and have grown in the role. I don’t get support from the state or from family to care for my son.

I’m finally in a stable position, my own home, son in school, things ticking along nicely, after what was an extremely hard 20 years of hard slog, getting an education and working hard in a corporate environment to further my life.

Im seriously stretching myself to send him to an independent school that offers the wrap around care to allow me to continue to work. With the VAT, the termly fees have now gone up 31.5% since I signed the registration forms 2 years ago (school passing on 16%).

Rumours that the autumn budget will involve reduced pension tax breaks and potentially other horrors. What has all this hard work been for? For life to come crumbling down in front of my eyes.

Do I change my son’s school, which will have to involve moving house as I live in an area with seriously underperforming schools. Do we move abroad with work?

it doesn’t feel like working hard will get you anywhere any more.

I’m curious that the Labour plan to improve nhs waiting lists involved asking nhs staff to work overtime to mop up the backlog of appointments. I have read many comments about nhs staff having to move their children to state schools as a result of the VAT policy and having to reduce working hours or leave their jobs as a result of a reduction in wraparound childcare in state compared to that provided by independent schools. Will the government be providing extra evening and weekend childcare in state schools to enable nhs staff to work this overtime? I certainly wouldn’t be volunteering to do extra hours for a government that has treated me and my DC so unfairly!

Clearly Phillipson doesn’t realise that private school, much like home education, has become a safety net for families whose children are unable to access the one-size-fits-all, narrow, outdated, pressured, toxic state education system with ever increasing draconian rules (no shade to teachers, they are often doing their best under the circumstances).

When will someone in govt begin to address the root causes of the issues?!

And labour do not realise this is who they are hurting. They want everyone to believe that private schools only contain children of the landed gentry.

My MIL was a cleaner and FIL a manual worker (various jobs). They managed to get my dh into a private school on an assisted place and scholarship. So it was free. He went to Oxbridge and now works in a good job, paying loads of tax and we put our kids through private school (one with SEN).

Labour also abolished assisted places in the late 90s. They year after dh finished. Labour don’t really want social mobility. They just want a mob “rich are bastards” mentality.

@SophiaCMumsnet

Bridget Philipson clearly thinks Mumsnet is an important enough platform to try to reach-will she be coming back to respond to any of the views of those of us on here?

Or is it just a generic order to parents to make sure school attendance is 100%, no matter how awful things are?

Teachers are unhappy, children are unhappy and parents are unhappy. The government need to find out why and do something about it,

Introducing VAT on school fees is just the politics of envy of a left wing government. Educating children in the independent sector SAVES the state money!! Parents are paying from already taxed money!! They should be getting a tax break for paying to educate their children. And to then introduce this ridiculous policy mid way through a school year is plain malicious. How about putting VAT on gambling? Why would you put VAT on education (although not universities of course!) and not private medical? There is no logical or business reason for doing what you are doing, it is a drop in the ocean from a financial point of view and will actually end up costing you money as more and more people turn to the state sector to educate their children in the coming years. We have taken the decision if this policy comes in to leave the country and educate our children in the independent sector abroad where they see sense and don’t have VAT on fees. So that’s two working parents tax you won’t be getting for many years to come. Wake up and smell the coffee Labour!! We won’t be the first and we won’t be the last!!

Yes this is what we're considering for the first time and like @EmJ3 I worked hard to get into this position and feel it is just a way of limiting aspirations because the v wealthy won't be affected. I think it'd be fairer to increase the additional rate tax (and that would still affect me) as that would include very wealthy people who are using state education.

I also think that you can throw as much money at the problem as you like and that won't fix the problem. Teachers are leaving because they're so unhappy - and who can blame them given some of the abuse they're experiencing in the classroom these days. When I was a kid (in a v working class area) we had respect for teachers and would never have behaved in the way some of my teacher friends describe.

Teachers are leaving because they're so unhappy

For me, this is the hugest problem. If you do nothing to change this, you’re just p*sing in the wind.

Fine-reform Ofsted so that it has a ‘robust spotlight on inclusion’. Just because you make something a priority, if there’s no funding and no teachers, there’s nothing left to inspect. I have non intention to still be in role for another inspection-I won’t be held accountable for this mess.

Just wondering if this tone of post, complete with exclamation mark, would be posted on a site with a predominantly male audience?

I read this and I find myself so angry. The impact of this on the families who will no longer be able to afford to send their children to private school is unbelievable. You and the Labour Party do not give a shit about these children, their mental health or the impact when they can’t get a school place due to no places.

It doesn’t matter about that though does it, you’ve convinced people that we’re somehow avoiding paying tax and that this policy is going to miraculously fix the broken state system. The hatred and contempt shown to private school children and their families is astonishing.
I hope this comes back and bites you and the Labour Party on the arse.

I have given up work, so significantly less money going to the government through my taxes and less that will be spent In the shops.

This makes me so mad and is exactly who this ugly tax will disadvantage. The very top echelons won't bat an eye, but they're, as I understand it, about 10% of the independent schools' population in this country. The rest are people like you, people like me, and the parents at our school. Normal, working people who are already saving the state about £4bn in not having their children's education funded by the state.

Did you really say that we need to put up and shut up? I won’t call you what you deserve because the comment will get deleted. This country is gone to the pits with people like you and Angela Rayner in positions of so much responsibility.

My daughter will have to move school and face bullying, no friends, and no teacher rapport due to the cruel tax hike enforced by this woman and her cronies. Her mental health is through the roof with worry. But obviously Bridget doesn’t care as she keeps hiding/deleting Facebook posts

There is absolutely no partnership here when it comes to my child who is autistic. Absolutely everything he has needed has come from us paying for it. He could barely manage to attend his state school as the noisy, busy, large classes caused so much trauma. Because he is bright and capable he wouldn’t get an EHCP or a specialist place. We were getting to the point where he could no longer attend school so we made the decision to take him out of school and fund his education ourselves that we have done by making incredibly big sacrifices and saving every penny we have. He is now a different child and thriving rather than barely surviving. Please tell me where the partnership was when you have decided to tax us for trying
provide an education for our son who if he wasn’t at his current school would be out of education altogether by now??? Could you also tell me how you will work with us and help my son if we can’t pay his fees??

@Ek1981 whether you request an EHCNA or not is obviously your choice, but “Because he is bright and capable he wouldn’t get an EHCP” isn’t true. Academically able DC can have EHCPs. There are some academically able DC in SS too, although there aren’t as many schools who cater to academically able DC.

Yes agree … the trouble would be proving the need as he masks in school but falls apart before and after… 😢.and also the specialist ones near us only offer English and Maths GCSEs.

@Ek1981 you might have to appeal and seek an independent assessment(s) but you can get EHCPs for DC who mask too.

Whilst I understand the theory that getting the rich to pay more sounds like a good idea, this idea really hasn’t been thought through. Please think of the reality. Most independent school users are not rich enough that they wouldn’t miss an extra 20%. A lot will not be able to find it. Their children will be forced to move to a new school leaving friends , stability etc. On the other side, state schools will experience an influx of new children, swelling the class size even more. The government will not make the billions they would like as they will lose the tax, plus gain the cost of additional children.
A high proportion of independent school children have additional needs, which would add even more costs to the state sector. Then factor in transport costs if the children have to travel for a school place.
I honestly don’t understand, even if the money added up, how if you imagine the country and the behaviours you would like, that you could think that widening the gap between rich and poor is a good idea. Taking away the aspiration of the middle classes . How discouraging education is thought of as a good idea. Education is not a luxury. How about increasing taxes on gambling, drinking etc to discourage unwanted behaviours??
parents at independent schools are already taking the ‘load’ off the state by paying taxes but by not using state places . They then pay again for an independent school place, in many cases they also pay for SEN help. How can our government think it’s ok to punish those prioritising education ( sometimes over houses and holidays etc) .
everyone loses in this scenario all because Labour have an incorrect ideology that everyone must be rich and deserves to be punished at independent schools. Think again !

Whilst its good to vent on Mumsnet, if we want to make ourselves heard on this topic, we should take advantage of the consultation which ends on the 15th September:

If you would like to comment on the draft VAT legislation or respond to the questions in the technical note, please contact: [email protected] by 15 September.

100% it’s not effecting the people that they think they’re impacting but the contempt is evident. In the lords debate the response was, privately schools have already increased their fees and there hasn’t been a drop in attendance, so they can obviously handle it, no problem.