Labour’s plans for VAT on Private Schools

[Busydadof2]

The Labour Party has proposed introduction of VAT on private schools.

In the scheme of things the money they will bring in from this is tiny compared with total expenditure on state schools, while it will drive more burden on the state system as some parents leave private schools. I think this is a populist ploy to get traditional Labour voters to vote for what is in any other sense a centrist party.

Have you considered signing this petition to make sure the policy gets scrutinised and the weight of public sentiment against it is known?

Change.org petition: Stop Labour from adding 20% VAT to private school fees and forcing kids to change schools

www.change.org/p/stop-labour-from-adding-20-vat-to-private-school-fees-and-forcing-kids-to-change-schools

Various perspectives from the signatories of this vote come to mind and resonate with our own situation, including this: “I work in a state school with over 30 in a class and oversubscribed. My 2 kids went or go to private schools and we have sacrificed loads to do this. We are NOT wealthy, many of the kids at the school I work at live in bigger houses and have much more disposable income than we do. We chose to send our kids to private school rather than live in a bigger house instead of our semi detached on a main road. We holiday in the UK every year and I work full time. I buy my clothes on the high street or in charity shops. Many parents at the school my kids attend are in exactly the same situation. I agree there are some very wealthy parents there too and the addition of VAT will not even make an impact on them, they will pay it without batting an eyelid. All this will do is push the kids like ours back into an already oversubscribed state system, increase class sizes even more and create a bigger divide as private education will become truly elitist.”

So in fact you prove the point again that school environment does matter and hence looking at results contextually is important. That was exactly my point and one that you seemed to initially refute.

Ive just finished reading 'Mania' by Lionel Shriver and between that and some of the comments on these threads I am now feeling very scared!

Thanks for this. Interesting to see that 1st year exams are the strongest predictor, though presumably that's also potentially affected (perhaps even more so) by prior educational expeience etc. Will have a closer look at how they did the analysis. It's a very interesting issue, though not really on the topic of the thread so don't want to de-rail.

"no other country but NZ which offsets the VAT with a direct per-pupil subsidy, while also co-investing in private schools' fixed costs."

Your implication was that state funding towards private schools’ costs other than the per pupil subsidy was a regular occurrence. The article you used to support this claim explicitly referred to a controversial loan / grant from a post Covid construction budget and did not form part of any regular government private education funding programme.

BTW, I don’t think ‘private schools are evil’.

No @HelsinkiSummer - I did not prove your point. I said if we did not happen to have access to a superselective grammar school, I would have probably had to home school to meet that DCs needs. In any event, having to sit GCSEs full stop did not meet his needs. He would have been far better off in a school for the truly gifted like they do in the US with AP programs at whatever age they are ready for them. GCSEs are very dull for gifted children. I don’t know what Westminster School is like but I can only presume that if there are lots of gifted children there that they are challenged in intellectual clubs and with extra curricular like music/fencing type stuff.

In any event, this DC has refused to go for Oxbridge and is going to ETH in Zurich where my brother happens to live (they are now staying long term) and then will do an exchange programme with MIT. DC already focussed on funding further down the line and seems to have convinced themselves that this will be a better option. Thankfully we also have close family in the US. Other DC is doing law with the year abroad programme too. Unfortunately none of them see any future here at the moment. We are not super rich, all they have is their intellect and talents and they want to look elsewhere and explore the world. It would be nice for us if at least 2 stayed here, but I doubt it.

@Araminta1003 what you are talking about are the specifics of a SEN case. This is a weak example where we are talking about general contextualisation of acheivements. Of course school context matters for most children when they are applying for elite universities and it should be taken into account.

@HelsinkiSummer - how do they contextualise for home and online schooling seeing that that is now a big trend? Are we going to be pushing a number of private school parents that way? What about the effect on tax revenues?

https://www.kings.cam.ac.uk/study/undergraduate/applying-to-kings/home-educated-applicants

It is incredibly rigid for gifted children. Nothing wrong with doing A level Maths at 15 if you can! And then doing lots of other stuff and only Further Maths in Year 13. They simply do not cater for anyone doing stuff slightly differently whereas many other foreign unis will spot the exceptional. DC has met kids who have already been taken under the wing of Space X for example. As a country we are losing out with this type of rigid thinking and tick boxing and all the anti elite rhetoric. It is quite worrying really.

You mean like independent schools?

Schooling is not as relevant as it used to be! In our state primary, the motivated parents have been on Atom Learning for years now and the new one is Synthesis. More and more sites are springing up to engage DCs and those working from home can oversee it. All you need to do is purchase a dedicated educational iPad, ban all non relevant sites/social media on it and put your DCs on it. People are actually doing this now to compensate for inadequate teaching. There is a whole AI world out there more than willing to teach your kids Science, Maths, Languages and apparently Synthesis is team work and Strategy (we are going to do a trial with the youngest this summer). There is no way any uni is going to second guess what activity my DC has done online.

So what is the big deal with VAT on private school fees then? Surely if schooling is not as relevant as it used to be, take the DC out and put them in front of Atom Learning and Synthesis all day? I couldn't agree less personally. Intelligence is only one factor in success in life. Social skills and emotional intelligence are just as important, if not more so. Does Atom Learning have a program for that?

Due to SEN my DH will leave his job and home school our kids. There is no way this VAT would be enough to properly fund state schools, the damage from the Tories is so hideous, it will take decades to repair.

So no we can't afford 20% rise on top of the recent rises, it was a major privilege for my kids to go to a school that got the best from them and great whilst it lasted. No shade at the state school, they don't have a penny left after basic provision.

“So what is the big deal with VAT on private school fees then?”

It is a big deal because it is crazy to tax a whole sector in an anomalous way with no plan for state education! Where we are it will cause huge issues because tons of kids in London go to private secondary schools. So my youngest will likely not get into the state school we wanted her to go to. It is also a big deal because most of the people I work with and pay huge taxes will alter their behaviour. And last time I checked, the rest of the country relies on those taxes. So it will lead to a worse outcome in state education because there is no plan, there will be less taxes and UK will become an even less desirable place to live. Pretty sure most successful people who stay here are not staying for the high taxes or the NHS, they have stayed for the culture, lifestyle and education and what was a free country. Not sure this kind of dogma inspires a feeling of freedom, free choice or free will either. Start removing that more and more, there won’t be anything left.
Brain drain UK. Race to the bottom. But do not worry, nobody will admit who is leaving the country in droves. The emphasis will all be on how many are coming in.

@SabrinaThwaite
"I know Marchesman has previously tried to use the Samoylova and Hall paper to show that the state education effect is as significant as that of cognitive and learning disabilities."

According to the statistics provided by Samoylova and Hall it is. In what respect do you take issue with that?

"Worth noting that when you read the Samoylova and Hall paper..."

that they are not writing from an unbiased position.

Interestingly, although Marchesman only showed the part of the table referring to the multivariate model for first class degrees, when the results for good honours degrees (first class and upper second) are shown, comprehensive schools are no longer statistically significant.

Inevitably, given the addition of upper seconds to the analysis when so few students achieve less.

The paper concludes...

without discussing the effect of school type, despite the real-world effect evident in the FOI table of results. For years Cambridge University was open about their results by school type and now they are not. Why do you think that is, and why doesn't it figure in Samoylova and Hall's conclusions?

If anyone thinks that this is irrelevant to the thread, they are being naive because it will certainly influence families weighing up the pros and cons of private education in the light of VAT on fees, and it has broader effects on perceptions:

How Britain’s private schools lost their grip on Oxbridge. FT July 2 2021

https://www.ft.com/content/bbb7fe58-0908-4f8e-bb1a-081a42a045b7

https://www.helsinkitimes.fi/finland/finland-news/domestic/24581-finland-s-pisa-results-continue-to-decline-sparking-concern.html

Oxbridge, Finnish model, comp vs grammar, private schools - it is all relevant!
We must resist falling for too much dogma of the day.
We know for a fact that there are too many kids taken out of state schools today, we know for a fact SEN children are being failed EN MASSE, we know for a fact gifted children are also being failed. So what is the plan? Tax private education - how dare they as a group be allowed to deal with some of those failures. Let’s punish them and offer parents even less choice.
The trouble is that our whole country is set up to get the top 10-20 per cent of earners to finance the rest of the show and those people want choice (and have choice to alter their behaviour markedly). What could possibly go wrong?

If anything perhaps we need to admit that the current model is not working and why that may be. And yes, online alternatives again are very relevant. It is not a coincidence that the top public schools are following the educational iPad model (and no other stuff on there). Tech is most relevant in this century and using it in the right way is even more relevant. We can’t expect state schools to have huge IT departments, but we can teach parents what to do.

I was simply playing devil's advocate on the basis of your assertion that schooling is not as relevant as it used to be. For most children, it is totally relevant and hence a school environment should be taken into account when looking at grades achieved in context. Surely by your argument, it doesn't matter what school your DD ends up at as she has such a gifted, educated and motivated mother?

@HelsinkiSummer - my DD is the youngest of 4 and desperate to be like her siblings (always has had a “try and keep up with” personality). So the school matters from that perspective, because she will be very disappointed if she is not given the same opportunities on paper. It is more socially relevant than educationally. I would make sure that she is not disadvantaged educationally, in any event. If anything, if I were desperate for her to go to eg Oxford as well I would probably be placing her in a lower achieving school overall (but one where there is strong setting).

If your DD has Oxbridge potential why wouldn't she be able to get into a super selective grammar? In my experience that part is quite linear and not too difficult for a naturally very able DC. Oxbridge places always have an element of the lottery to them unless a DC is in Oxbridge's top 10% bracket.

Probably because not many parts of the country have grammar schools.

That doesn't change the fact that it is harder to win an Oxbridge place than win a place in a super selective grammar. If a child is not of the calibre of getting a place (I would add, with light or no tutoring), they are extremely unlikely to get an Oxbridge offer down the line.

We do have grammars nearby, but DD has not done any prep yet and is in Year 5. We got away with virtually no prep with the older 3, but required scores have gone up massively (especially this year).
Youngest DD has 2 x ABRSM Grade 7 exams in the coming weeks and is more passionate about that than the 11 plus. 11 plus is quite repetitive and dull. She could just go to the local school and then the Brit in Croydon from Year 10 if she still loves music. Or she could try for one of the music aptitude places in the comprehensives further afield. She is worried though that she won’t have enough time to practise/for orchestras if her commute is too long. She has never had anything other than a Distinction in her music exams so she is very passionate about that (for now). School say she is very able and I have never really worried about her because she is so driven (to keep up with her siblings). There are more girls like her at the superselective grammar than the local school so she would be happier there. She is a little over ambitious for a normal school. It has been an issue in the past in primary school. I can’t tone her down, it is who she is. ----

@HelsinkiSummer “That doesn't change the fact that it is harder to win an Oxbridge place than win a place in a super selective grammar.”

I am not sure that is true. As we are in London, there have been plenty of other parents who have tutored upper average children relentlessly from Year 3 and been successful at getting into quite competitive grammars. And they get great grades further down the line as well. None of them are British born by the way. They are all Indian, Russian, Chinese, Nigerian etc, they have a different view on how much is acceptable in terms of pushing their DCs and many believe it is discipline and hard work that gets you there.

So much of all of this is down to outlook/views/dogma/opinions.

So are you saying that if you get a super selective grammar school place in London, you are going to get an Oxbridge offer if you apply? That is just not true. The latter is more difficult (with more left to chance) than the former. Fact.

This is absolutely brilliant summary, completely spot on.

To build on this point (and sorry, can't link it) - this was in news a few weeks ago about a state school in a very deprived area of London which partnered with US unis so three exceptionally clever girls got full sponsorships to study STEM in Harvard and MIT. All of them got Oxbridge offers and rejected them as not good enough. All three wanted to move abroad for better prospects. These were incredibly intelligent and driven young people who could make a lot of contribution to this country.

The same is happening en masse with top privates in London who select the most clever kids (think CATs 135+) - they are fed up with barriers to top unis and just leave. And before you start celebrating this exodus of "poshos" - it's heart breaking brain drain from a country which used to be a symbol of a great education.

When you can't improve the entire lot, or whilst you are trying to do this, why not let those ones who do well on their own without your input to continue doing so? why drag them down so hard?

“So are you saying that if you get a super selective grammar school place in London, you are going to get an Oxbridge offer if you apply? That is just not true. The latter is more difficult (with more left to chance) than the former. Fact.”

I was only talking about the superselective grammar, not Oxbridge. DH went to Oxford, I went to Cambridge. Most of our uni friends have intelligent children. Pretty much all who wanted to go, applied and did get a place (regardless of what type of school they attended). Quite a few do not want to apply. Amongst them is my own very gifted DC. My other DC are bright, but not exceptionally so. Older two got in. So from my circle of friends, it seems that who your parents are is much more relevant than what type of school you went to. It seems to me that being top 1-5%, ambitious, knows how to play the game, good grades etc, tick tick tick, gets you a place.