Reduce or remove Staff discounts at Independent Schools.

[SchoolRunDays]

Historically staff at fee paying independent schools have received significant discounts on fees for their own children (I’ve heard ranging from 10% discount up to 85%)

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/05/26/private-schools-make-cuts-state-teachers-vat-raid-reeves/

At the independent school my daughter attends the discount for staff is 50% of the fee so if monthly fee is £2000 staff will pay £1000 if academic year costs £24000 staff will pay £12,000.

No parents ever raised an eyebrow it was never questioned until now.

The Labour introduction of 20% VAT sending panic through communities.

School have informed they cannot “absorb” this cost. Question parents are asking is “why not?” Where’s all the money going.

counting heads and realising just how many staff children are holding places (right throughout the school). Many families with multiple in attendance. Doing the math each child representing a potential 50% loss of revenue. Each child costing the school £12,000 pear year!

Are we really living in a time where there are no other staff available that we have to incentivise positions!?

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13660725/amp/Education-Secretary-Bridget-Phillipson-parents-warning-Labours-VAT-raid-private-school-fees.html

Rather than full-fee-paying families having to leave school the staff discount needs to be reduced, removed or abolished.

Independent families under a Labour government simply cannot afford such extravagant discounts.

Staff at private schools do not need to send their children to their place of work. It’s a want not a need.

#VATonfees #PrivateSchoolTax #Labour

If they want to they should understand the unprecedented current political situation and accept new contracts with revised/removed discount on fees.

They can choose to stay and pay more online with parents suffering the 20% VAT or remove their children and free up spaces so the school can generate a full revenue per place.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/labour-private-school-fees-vat-tax-when-b2583658.htmlLabour Tax

BEFORE you remove your children from independent school. Fight for them*

Labour have made it clear school must make cuts that there’s no reason for annual price hikes, no reason to pass on the VAT to parents.

No reason bar the fact they are losing hundreds of thousands of pounds offering all-staff outrageous fee discounts.

Bursaries and scholarships are earned under strict admission criteria and few and far between. Take a moment to count heads of staff kids within your school. It’s a very different situation. If they want the privilege of discount their children should apply and be tested like everyone else.

Who to complain to?

Not the school the teachers, the headteachers the finance department the very people in charge of your payments all have a conflict of interest.

If their children are in school and they’re receiving a 50% discount do you believe they will help you to remove it? No They’re protecting themselves and the school(staff) families best interests.

School parents must petition via governors, lawyers and the media to expose what is going on.

#RemoveStaffDiscount #ProtectMyOwn #NewSchoolPolicy #EqualityInFees #LabourVAT

Parents don’t need to take their children out of independent education because of the VAT. Schools need to reduce or remove all unnecessary staff discounts and absorb the cost. Not pass it on to fee paying parents. Schools need to make internal tough decisions and efficiencies

Sorry, OP, you've jumped the shark now. I'm out.

@SchoolRunDays the irony in this statement is just laughable

The greatest tragedy for any human being is going through their entire lives believing the only perspective that matters is their own.

almost everyone has given you a different opinion to yours, yet you are insistent your perspective is the only one that matters.

i feel for you kids, no amount of private education will help them if you’re modelling to throw their toys out the pram if they don’t hear the answer they want.

Hey teachers. Know your place. Private school isn't the place for your children. Time to run along now and let the proper privileged people benefit...

I volunteer to help out at disadvantaged schools.

I don’t work.

And I pay a full fee for my child.

I see charity as a voluntary act.

I choose to volunteer or give to charity but this Robin Hood situation being forced from within Independent schools needs to end.

Im sure for teachers if any discounts are means tested parents will be reassured. If the claim is genuine no staff member should protest.

Because Robin Hood was famously the baddie in the story…

OP - it is part of their salary. It’s part of the offer! The business decides that. You don’t have to take your custom to that business!!!

Does anyone else think that the OP writes a bit like Trump? A series of odd, contradictory, exclamatory superlatives with no actual substance?

"are we parents going to be subsidising 50% of their fee PLUS 50% of their VAT"

VAT is charged on actual fees. Not salary sacrifices.

The business (school) decided that in a time when they had a secure business!

Things have changed.

Government has changed.

So too school policy must change to adapt to the current situation!

Doesn't matter if a restaurant maintains a great chef if no one pays the bills! Customer is king. As we will be reminding the governors.

Please, please definitely go and use that exact phrase about the customer being ‘king’ in discussions with the head and governors. They will definitely respond positively to you and see the light. Then definitely come back into the thread and tell us all about it.

@SchoolRunDays do you even know what’s the school strategy?
Are they planning to simply increase fees by 20% or do they have other things in place and are absorbing some of it?

I’m pretty sure the school have a better grasp of their financial situation than a bunch of angry parents bitching about the downstairs people getting ideas above their station on their little WhatsApp groups.

OP is batshit

'If staff are struggling to keep their children at an independent school WITH A 50% DISCOUNT they have no reason being there.'

Honestly, I'm going to make this really easy for you.

Take the following back to your little mums' coffee morning:

You're right. They should all leave. Every member of staff is going to leave your school.

Then the governors, because that's all that will be left, will have to recruit an entire new staff body, but at vastly increased salaries to compensate for the increase in fees.

Then your fees will have to increase to cover the new salary structure.

Or, all clubs and parents' evenings and trips will be cancelled, as the staff have to leave at 3 to go and pick their kids up from the local state school.

I hope that helps you, maybe suggest it to the governors.

It’s part of the package.
It shows they believe in the school.
It keeps them at the school for years.
It makes it more of a community.

This thread really makes you sound like an arse.

I have no real experience of private schools. Is op representative of other private school parents do you think?

Doesn't matter if a restaurant maintains a great chef if no one pays the bills! Customer is king.

But if you lose the great chef it's not a good restaurant any more.

Honestly op you have no business sense at all. Have you ever been in paid employment or did you marry young and never work? Because you don't seem to understand the first thing about how salaries work, or indeed how tax works (the thing about whether VAT would need to be paid on the discounted part of the fee).

I wonder what your family thinks of this crusade of yours, whether they agree or are horribly embarrassed

She really isn't. I've worked in independent schools for many years.

Some parents can be very demanding it is true... but rarely so... befuddled?

I am a HT at a medium sized private school. To get the best teachers and staff I can (Bursar, HR, Registrar, Site Manager etc.) the offer of staff discount is made. It is part of the overall staff salary package and often means good staff will come to us and take a slightly lower salary. When they agree to this (the lower salary) that is also positive for us, as the employer, because less is paid out in employer pension contributions.
It is also convenient for staff to have their children here, and gives them a vested interest in ensuring the educational offer your child gets is as good as it can be, because this is what they want for their children too.

Therefore;
Win for the school
Win for the staff
Win for their children and
Win for you and your child

I do not think you should view your fees as you subsidising a teacher's child or children, but more as part of the whole salary package that is offered to secure them working for us.

You would never shop in John Lewis/ Next/ Sainsbury's and demand staff discount be abolished or think you are in any way subsidising staff purchases because their staff get a staff discount. Again it is part of an attractive salary package.

I do hope I don't find out you are a parent at my school as you will be asked to take your business elsewhere. This is a two way street. If you don't like the salary offer to staff (all staff) then you do not need to send your child to their current school. Likewise if I do not like you as a meddling and troublesome parent, I can also ask you to leave!

I really hope the fee-paying school you send your children to don't churn them out as nasty as you are.
"Throw other people's children (my children's peers/classmates/friends) out so I can save a few £££"

And if you don't work (fair enough, but I'm assuming it's a lifestyle choice) then why don't you? You could put your salary towards the VAT.
(Might give you something a bit more meaningful to do with your time rather than stewing in hate juice)

Yes glad you have written this

Independent school staff have delusions of grandeur they’re no different to state school staff. That’s what must be realised.

OP, we already know you're a snob.

You don't have to go so far out of your way to prove it, hun!

No, definitely not. I have never met any that think like her. I have said before about the VAT thing, that while I am not thrilled on a personal level, as long as the sums add up on a national level, I am ok with it. I am also very happy that schools attract and retain the best staff through incentives such as a reduced fee for their children.

Fuck no

I see charity as a voluntary act.

So why are you so upset at the idea of Privates losing their charitable status?

They can be charitable VOLUNTARILY, rather than just using it as an excuse to dodge VAT!!