Private Education Sector to "Loan " Teachers......

[Boobsgonesouth]

I know that this one will be such a hot potato...couldn't resist the temptation to post it

here's the article

If I was a teacher whose income depended on the private system and I was farmed out to the local state school, what would be my incentive to give a good lesson? In fact, if I was feeling particularly Machiavellian, I would ensure that I did mediocre lessons with the state kids and gave wonderful lessons at the private school.
You can lead a horse to water but you can?t make it drink.

The initiative isn't about what's fair to parents, teachers or pupils. It's about private schools proving they have a right to tax beneficial charitable status.

o, I was just posting between bits of work.

The problem is how we're going to deal with this new public benefit test for chargeable services like operas and private schools. The charged service itself will no longer be regarded as of benefit to the public which is stupid as my children are the public as much as anyone and educating them always met the traditional defintiion of charity but this is Labour and it's like the hunting issue - you can't kill a fox because that's posh but you can do what you like to poor fish because working class people fish all the time.

So given we're stuck with the new definition they're trying to consult on what satisfies it. 3 free places for the poor? Probably not. Allowing the public to buy a gym membership ticket which I think happens at one of my chidlren's schools out of school hours... possibly not because the consultation document talks about benefiting the real poor, people on benefits, not rich middle class neighbours who want a cheap gym membership.

And there will come a balance point when the benefits they want schools to give to state schools will be so expensive it's not worth the private schools keeping the charitable status so parents will pay 17.5% VAT on them. Could we not have it zero rated like children's clothes though? Tnen they could be not charities but no VAT on the fees? I wonder what EU law says on no VAT on chidlren's clothes which I think is allowed but also school fees?

If I buy a house with one more bedroom than I need, should the state be able to force me to house a homeless person, pay for all the power, water, etc they use?

One thing I do find amusing is that the schools loan or rent facilities to local commmunity groups and schools but day pupils are not allowed back onto the premises out of school hours.

They can force it because of the legal change over definition of public benefit for charitable status. I'm trying to remember what the benefits are. The schools never make profits so that's not an issue. There's VAT on school fees which is a huge issue - many parents struggle to pay £3k a term fees and to add 17.5% to that would be a massive hike and mean many would have to pull children out of school. There are some tax benefits around new buildings I think but I can't remember what those are. Not having to pay VAT on the works? But then if you're charging VAT on fees that wouldn't matter because as a school you just set it off.

Ah the Times:
"Like all charities, independent schools benefit from not having to pay income tax or stamp duty, have an 80 per cent reduction on business rates and special VAT treatment, as well as financial support from gift aid. All schools will be asked ten questions to ?explicitly demonstrate that their purposes provide public benefit?. This must be ?clear and identifiable?, must contribute to society or local communities and benefit people on low incomes. Not excluding people on low incomes does not mean providing some sort of ?token? benefit to a person or persons on a low income; it must be more than minimal or nominal benefit or benefit which occurs merely by chance,? the guidance states.
....
She promised, too, that each school would be viewed on its merits and not measured against those with large endowments, such as Eton and Harrow, which can pay out vastly higher sums than others.

?We recognise that one size doesn?t fit all and what we can expect of those with large endowments will not be the same as those who have less room to manoeuvre,? she added.

The commission accepts that public schools may argue that their benefits include educating 508,000 pupils who would be taught in the tax-funded state system" but that is not enough.

May be it should work the other way too - that private school pupils should be allowed to use state school facilities and may be sit exams there without having to pay exam entrance charges which they don't pay in the state system but do in private schools.

Are there any independent schools which don't offer/award bursaries to people on low incomes?

I can understand there being a stink if they advertise bursaries but in actual fact never offer any, or offer only a token amount which doesn't make it possible for someone to go there who couldn't otherwise.

"If I buy a house with one more bedroom than I need, should the state be able to force me to house a homeless person, pay for all the power, water, etc they use?"
LOL.

They really are stupid. The charge is that middle-class parents buy privilege: do they think that MC parents will just roll over and say, "it's a fair cop, guv"? As fast as the Govt closes one avenue, the middle class will find another!
As Xenia says, I can see this ending up with schools losing their charitable status and becoming even more the preserve of the well-to-do. Another case of the Labour Party making the rich get richer and the poor get poorer.

I might ask for my post about extra bedrooms to be deleted in case any politicians pounce on it as a great idea...

As a teacher I find this very insulting. In my opinion those in the state sector should go on loan to those in the private sector to show them how to control a class, teach to a high standard despite behaviour and special needs difficulties, deal with stroppy parents and make the best out of hardly any resources. It's like the health service, some kind of belief that just cos you pay for it it's somehow better. I know for a fact that many doctors who work for the NHS also do private work on the side - the patients are getting exactly the same doctor, just more quickly and without having to sit in a sweaty waiting room.

Yes, it's fun that Labour of all people seem to be putting out this message that private school teachers are best which I suppose many of us who pay and have had brilliant teaching there are happy to see spread by Labour. They are giving private schools free advertising in a sense... laughing as I type.

I think the consultation document does recognise some private schools have very little money and no endowments and even making one £10k a year place available free is a huge burden on not very well off parents whereas for schools which own tracts of land and stocks and shares it's not so difficult so easier say for Eton to show public benefit than a tiny private school based in someone's house.

But I don't think Labour realise there is a risk some schools will just say forget the charitable bit then and go even further away from their original roots.

Do you really think people believe that they get a better service from a doctor when they see him privately? I don't think people are that stupid tbh.

They mostly get

• better surroundings
• more time with their doctor
• higher staff:patient ratio
• better quality food
• more privacy
• better flexibility over visiting hours
• potentially a better explanation because the staff have more time to explain procedures and naswer queries

and as you say they wait less time for treatment.

But our local private hospital waiting room is hideously overcrowded and when we had DD's op done privately, I insisted it was done in the large teaching hospital, not at the private hospital with its minimum facilities (was a bit unusual circs as DD was first person here to be operated on with her condition)

I went to s selective private school followed by the local state 6th form.

I'd say that the mix of great and terrible teachers was about the same in both. The results of course were very different. There are so many reasons for that.

The private school was selective and only allwed you to do an A-level in a subject that you got a B or above in at GCSE. You couldn't do a science A-level if you had done dual award science GCSE you had to have done separates. The state 6th form on the other hand allowed anyone to do anything, there were people in my physics class who had failed maths GCSE but were permitted to take physics A-level. Obviously things like that will greatly affect the result.

The teachers had to teach at a level that included the lowest ability in the class, thus not pushing the higher ability students. I
n addition to this the private school was stricter, homework had to be done to a hight standard, they marked far more harshly than the actual exams and it was drilled into us that A was good, B was acceptable but C was fail. People worked hard and were pushed. To be honest I thnk I would have got better A levels there than I did in state because it pushed me, there were people there who were far more intelligent than me and competition was tough. In state I coasted, did the minimum and got mostly Bs come exams.

My own fault of course, it could be argued that having spent the preceeding years in private I didn't know how to push myself.

Anyway, loaning out teachers will not make a blind bit of difference, the state sector has some fantastic teachers and it is demoralising for them to be told that they are not good enough and that provate teachers need to be borrowed to make up for that. A state school in its very nature has a far greater mix of socioeconomic backgrounds and learning abilities which will all influence results.

Maybe it is about the whole charitable status thing. My old school offered assisted places off its own back after the government stopped them, it also encouraged its pupils to participate in childrens' university. Is that enough? I don't know but all this just seems to be yet another stupid government iniciative.

LOL at it all being fun

But it is quite

I don't really see why they shouldn't move away from their original roots tbh. They were given charitable status at a time when universal education was not a right or a duty and most children did not get any formal education at all and education was the preserve either of parents of charity, not of the state. Nowadays, education is mainly the preserve of the state. So the private schools with charitable status are really are out of date institutions. As are most state schools imo but that's another thread.

I am tired of people moaning about paying twice for education.

If you have no children you still pay for education. If your children left school forty years ago you still pay for education.
End of.

The attitude of some people about sharing facilities is horrible. If the facilities are not being used why not? I don't think it will be for free. Are you frightened the equipment will be contaminated or something?

When private schools break up for the summer state schools still have another 2/3 weeks to run so the facilities could be used then instead of standing idle.
In my area the facilities are already used this way. Also state and private pupils mix for some after school 'master classes' in various subjects.

The comment about private school teachers giving sub-standard lessons to state school pupils - I can't believe any one would think a decent teacher would be that unprofessional.

I think that was a joke and I don't know any teacher who would do that deliberately tbh. Many private school teachers would do it by accident though, for the reasons Miss M says - they're not trained to deal with teaching in the environment many state school teachers have to and as my friend says, wouldn't last 2 weeks.

You're right SueW, I was thinking just of appointments not of ops etc. I'm not arguing with hiring/lending out facilities if that's what the private schools want to do, but I can't say I've ever felt resentful of a posh school on my doorstep not making its swimming pool etc. available - I've never thought about it. I think Indith puts it very well. And I honestly can't see what the benefits can be of loaning out private sector teachers - it just seems like another way to bash the morale of state teachers. Why can't the government do something to make us feel good about what we do instead of constantly inferior?

Good comments from Indith. I suppose the things you describe in the private system are what I've chosen to pay for and been lucky enough to afford to pay for (and may be can afford to pay for because my parents bought me a good education in that sort of environment).

Some of the private schools around here use the facilities in the holidays. My daughter's school always ran a day summer camp in the first 2 weeks of the summer which was hugely valuable for working parents. My son's school the teachers run a summer camp for 5 weeks or so which was useful extra pay for the teachers and used the grounds. Others hire them out to companies like Barracudas to run camps in. Others have conferences and things in there in the holidays.

Most people do not want more grammar schools because most people do not get into grammar schools. What about if the bright people said, right we want to do away with all courses we don't use, the ones for thick people.
On the separate issue (though they are connected as it is all about the majority legislating for the minority) of private schools having to satisfy a public benefit test in order to keep their charitable status, I think the answer is as follows:
All parents in the independent sector should take up their "State place" that they have paid for via taxation during the longer Independent school hols. If the government refuse, then we should all take up our state place full time from the following monday, whilst still paying fees of course at the school of choice. Can you imagine the chaos? It would then give them a taste of the sort of costs truly involved in educating these people in the state system. I believe JR proceedings would follow on grounds of irrationality.

I'd thought of that taking the state place when I paid a fortune over the last 4 years to get 3 chidlren through GCSE, AS level and A2 entrance fees at private schools which they would have had free had they had a state school place.So I could have taken up the place, they skive all year, don't go in and then get the entrance exam free of charge. Perhaps we could even sell the place on to a poor child from Africa.

Oh, and I want all the free set books as well and as Xenia said the "free" exam sitting that is not free in the independent sector (why is this?).
I agree with Xenia about fox hunting being seen as posh and therfore unacceptable and fishing is OK as it is popular across the class system. In spite of scientists confirming that fish feel pain.

Keeping to the off the point point - DS1's independent school never charged for exam fees except retakes of AS modules. All text books and exercise books were supplied as well. DS2's state school again only charges for retakes, but there is a shortage of some textbooks so some sharing takes place.
I don't think the state sector has worse teachers than independent, but they do have to deal with more challenging behaviour as well as trying to teach and get students to pass exams.

I think that's so about the exams. I remember them being very expensive and now they do them at 16, 17 and 18 that's 3 years and if you've 5 children that's a lot of exams to pay for.

We could get the 500,000 UK parents who pay to register for their state school places. If those places cost £5k a year that is £2500 million cost (if that's the right number of 0s) and then we withdraw them and cause a huge mess to the local authorities.