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.”

"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."

@Araminta1003 does this apply to just state school DC or private school ones too?

@HelsinkiSummer - I don’t know because most of my friends sent their DC to state schools.

So state school DC then. Some would argue that the picture is quite different from DC from well known private schools.

In what way it's different? Parents profiles in those top privates are very similar to the ones Araminta is talking about - highly educated, driven and very invested in kids education, huge cultural capital. Ok, they don't always do Atom with kids, PS can do this, but otherwise it's the same type of families. You add extremely tight selection and you get population of super bright kids supported by invested parents in all top privates.

Out of interest, you might want to speak with Westminster school - they aim for kids with CATs of 138+ and openly say that if there are not enough candidates to meet their criteria, then they have places not filled, but won't drop the min requirements.

So "thick poshos" term is used by very specific demographics to describe these kids.

No matter how much hate these kids attract from lefties, it's a huge loss for the country to push them away. And I can absolutely reassure you that parents won't put them to sink schools, VAT or not - they will home educate, move house or emigrate

It's different because some private school parents would say that their DC are being passed over for Oxbridge places because they are from the private sector. Surely you know this?

You are preaching to the wrong person here. My DC both scored 141 in CATs and also went on to highly selective schools. Not sure what all your "thick poshos" talk is! Think you are possibly pigeonholing me in the wrong pigeonhole.

@HelsinkiSummer please accept my apology, I misunderstood your post. My DC is at one those schools as well and I do know this issue first hands.

I'm really fed up with all these cries about PS kids from people who have no idea

Having just looked at the Westminster School leavers list for 2023 though I think Oxford and Cambridge have already backtracked because there are 65 to Oxbridge that year from Westminster alone. Could it be the pandemic grade inflation that may have caused some of this - in that many more students achieved straight A stars so those with contextual factors as well just got in for those years? (Pushing out some clever private school DCs?)

And now the trend is reversing back? I can’t find anything on the Eton website regarding Oxbridge stats (my colleagues assure me that it is challenging to get into Eton as well).
These kind of anomalies only continue for a few years and if the tutors do in fact realise that some of the incoming students aren’t thriving, the university then changes its approach? At the end of the day unis are also private in many respects. Their own survival/reputation and their own staff will be their foremost concern and political pressure will be cleverly navigated.

@Marchesman

The paper concludes...

without discussing the effect of school type

Why do you think that is, and why doesn't it figure in Samoylova and Hall's conclusions?

It wasn’t a paper specifically designed to look at the effect of school type. It was quite explicit in its aim of investigating the attainment gap identified for ethnic and disability groups by considering a number of factors. It concluded that the most significant factors were attainment in the first year and course of study.

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

Around 70% from all school types get a first or 2:1 according to the FOI table, so 30% are achieving other classifications.

I suppose it also depends whether your sole criterion of success is achieving a first and regarding anything less than that as poor performance.

You have to be living near a super selective grammar school to be able to get in.
Oh yes Labour eradicated most of them. They didn't want the smart kids to from poor backgrounds to be able to climb the social ladder. They wanted to keep everyone dumbed down to guarantee future Labour supporters.

@SabrinaThwaite

It wasn’t a paper specifically designed to look at the effect of school type. It was quite explicit in its aim of investigating the attainment gap identified for ethnic and disability groups by considering a number of factors

Indeed. They even went so far as to consider a number of factors that were not amenable to quantitative analysis - study behaviour/self confidence/peer group effects/educational content/assessment types.

Included in their analysis were a number of factors that were quantifiable - yr 1 outcome/course/gender/no. of A levels/A level score/month of birth/age gp/UCAS tariff and school type.

Which of those remained significant in the multivariate analysis for both* firsts and examination marks? The answer is course, ethnicity, A level score, and school type - disability did not, and nor did attainment in the first year of the course. However, in their conclusion they discuss all of these factors except* school type. This was only possible because it was an internal document, failing to discuss school type would not survive peer review.

Around 70% from all school types get a first or 2:1 according to the FOI table, so 30% are achieving other classifications.

No, the majority of the thirty percent or so were unclassified, only 10% received a classification below an upper second.

You haven't explained your issue with the relative significances of the state education effect and cognitive and learning disabilities.

They sa

And abolished Direct Grants and Assisted Places. And are then "really surprised" when that was terrific for independent schools (and increasing fees).

I just want good schools, and that means schools that are right for people - as far as possible. People being willing to pay their own way is part of that. The "nothing but comprehensives" has been the obsession of the psychos on the left of the Labour Party for years, and this education tax is just another step in that direction.

If they were serious about levelling up state schools, they'd do almost anything else.

• if it was about money, get serious money from income tax by getting wealthier people in the state system to pay more, and giving them support if they would agree to go private
• learn from schools like Michaela and also Independent Grammar School Durham which gets by on a pittance
• implement vouchers and empower parents to choose and top-up where they want; make vouchers more generous in deprived areas where topping-up impossible.

I think the problem is that the comprehensive idea only works within reason.

So it would work better, if, for example:

• the bottom 10-15% ability got additional attention and smaller classes full stop; (and if you are good at most subjects but bad at Maths, then it would apply to your Maths)
• only low level needs SEN were included, identified and then supported fully; higher need in a specialist unit onsite (or offsite for smaller schools)
• top 5-10% were acknowledged as higher learning need and again given some extra attention and extra subjects/extensions
• all traumatised kids, violent, big behavioural needs again special unit and attention on site - proper input from services coming in

Add in loads of funding and great teaching and it could actually work.

In reality, we have none of the above except in naice middle class schools that have essentially selected via expensive catchment/or schools that have obfuscated with complicated banding tests and admissions or have obfuscated with stringent religious criteria which require organised parents too.
So the whole thing is one big lie. But they are not going to admit the shortcomings and deal with it because there is such buy in that it should work in its current form and it is cheap in its current form. And they would much rather spend on the NHS and the bottomless pit that it is. Rather than investing in the future of the country. Because by the time we see the results, they will all be long gone. So they simply just do not care about education, but just pretend that they do. Because they have to be seen to be doing “something” about the problem (the issues with SEN/attendance/teacher recruitment crisis and behaviour problems cannot be denied). NHS is essentially “maintenance” of revenue, education is long term “investment”.

@Marchesman

Let’s see.

The two factors that had the most significance on the univariate analysis were Year 1 attainment and course type. That seems pretty indisputable.

They even went so far as to consider a number of factors that were not amenable to quantitative analysis - study behaviour/self confidence/peer group effects/educational content/assessment types.

Indeed they did - by saying these factors will have impacts that are not possible to quantify in this study. Again, that’s hardly contentious.

You haven't explained your issue with the relative significances of the state education effect and cognitive and learning disabilities.

If you can’t see my issue with stating ‘the state education effect is as significant as that of cognitive and learning disabilities’ then I can’t help you with that one.

HTH

Whilst it is true that they are 'private' (in some senses at least) they are also regulated by the office for students and have to agree access and participation plans as part of that. Here is Cambridge https://www.undergraduate.study.cam.ac.uk/files/publications/university_of_cambridge_app_2020-2025_including_2023-24_variation.pdf
and here is Oxford https://www.ox.ac.uk/sites/files/oxford/University%20of%20Oxford%20Access%20and%20participation%20plan%202020-21.pdf

That does limit their freedom BUT it's quite clear from those plans that they're not looking at crude state/private split but looking at much more specific indicators.

@SabrinaThwaite

If you insist on cherry-picking statistics I certainly will not help you.

I wish you success in finding someone with enough patience to explain it to you.

I’m just following your lead - maybe you should be flattered?

Exactly right. The hardest bit is at the bottom end. The term is "reverse grammar schools". Birbalsingh is showing the way....parents love her, kids are happy, she teaches them ambition, manners and self-discipline.

Can't possibly have that.

I do have a lot of respect for Birbalsingh, she is one brave and feisty lady, despite so many people (and the press) being out to get her. Her passion, love and loyalty towards those disadvantaged children in her care is quite inspirational. I have watched several interviews with her and she speaks a lot of sense, in many ways. She is a bit of a victim of her own success, no different to eg JK Rowling. How dare these women have their own opinions. You live dangerously if you are anti woke these days.

Sadly my own spoilt children would not have lasted five minutes in a school with such discipline. They are more of the backchatty/opinionated nature and they have from toddlerhood not accepted to be treated differently from adults. We do have high academic expectations of them, but not as regards discipline. It is just not at all how we have parented, nor any of our friends. The “privileged” state schools my DCs have attended never had stringent behaviour policies. High academic and extracurricular expectations, yes. Very stringent uniform and behaviour and phone policies, no. That is why the privileged parent seeks the privileged school. The ethos/value system can be different and adjusted to that cohort.

I think a lot of posters on MN would do well to consider their attitude to and their low expectations of state schools and those educated in them, particularly in disadvantaged areas and what seems to be a widely echoed belief that richer parents necessarily means better behaved children and better state schools. As Birbalsingh has repeatedly said, low expectations are a massive disservice to students, particularly those with very little safety net in terms of broader familial/community cultural or financial capital. Note that Michaela is non-selective.

@quantmum - you are right to some extent. However, I also have friends who are academics who have taken their very bright children out of highly disciplined state academies because their Boden/floppy haired very academic kids could not cope with the environment of turn your back and get a detention. It was incredibly anxiety inducing for their DC because they have simply not been parented that way and they will get straight 9s anyway. Those kids have read books since 3 years old and went to a primary where they could call their teachers by their first name and grown up intellectually and freely. So boot camp academy is not going to work for them.

Thanks and as somebody who has been critical of SOME state schools and hopefully been clear that SOME are excellent, I'll respond as follows.

I don't think it's about rich parents. I think it's about

• good schools and as many people as possible getting good schools.
• diversity and recognising that children's needs vary widely, whether that be (1) extremely highly-capable children who society badly needs to go to a grammar, direct-grant or assisted-place school that no longer exists, or (2) children as you rightly describe who just need a place with discipline and expectations or (3) special needs of all sorts that the state has struggled to meet or (4) specialist art or music schools that are the best in the world
• economics and the very significant tax contributions made by higher-earners and the schools themselves
• displaced responsibility and the idea it's 100% independent school families' job to fix issues in the state sector, rather than the job of government to "level-up" state schools and also the job of wealthier state school families to contribute to the cost of the service they use.

All of which points to not taxing education and to the tremendous harm the real advocates of this policy want to do. If you look carefully the unseen architects of this WANT to force migration of pupils and WANT to close private schools because they're very open about the ambition for everyone to go to a comprehensive.

I'm not saying the Michaela approach suits everyone, and it sounds like your friends provide a very big safety net for their kids if they're both academics.

I meant that there seems to be a fairly widespread belief on MN about wealthier people necessarily improving schools for everyone, and poorer children lowering standards, making it sound like even the supporters of the Michaela way expect far less of children that may have less of a safety net due to their class or family finances. It's a prime example of the 'othering' that Birbalsingh is so against.

I could not agree more and it makes me think that, with this agenda, they surely would have wanted to go further than just adding VAT and might have been more than pleased to go all the way to outlawing private education.

What has Boden and floppy hair got to do with anything? Are your academic friends not even slightly concerned that their children are not being prepared for adult life? You can't explain everything away with they will get straight 9s anyway. It takes a lot more to be successful in life than just being clever. Respecting boundaries and resilience are also pretty key in many professional areas. It is a bit concerning if an everyday school environment is anxiety-inducing.

“It is a bit concerning if an everyday school environment is anxiety-inducing.”

@HelsinkiSummer my friends moved their DC to another school where they are absolutely fine and happy. The first one was not an “everyday” school - it was one of those academies with incredibly strict and petty behaviour policies (forget a coloured pen get a detention type and miss the going home bus). We do not bring our children up to follow petty rules blindly. It’s dangerous for democracy. Our children will not stand for this.