School Fees - how worried are you now

[Lifeiseveryday]

So when the VAT came in, I wasn’t too worried about school fees….maybe I had my head in the sand!
However, for next year, a number of schools near us have hiked both the fees recently, alongside the VAT.
I’m feeling much more nervous now about where the fees are going to end up and the impact this will have on children. School is affordable for us but I am not sure if it is ‘value for money’ anymore.
I know there have been lots of threads on VAT but I am more worried now, than when the policy came out. So as a temperature check, how is everyone else feeling? I have 8 more years of fees…

I haven’t actually done that.

What I actually said was “Parents don’t have to force their child to attend school if that isn’t appropriate. It is possible to successfully appeal without doing that.”

And that parents can taken enforcement action to force the LA to provide s19 provision and that they don’t have to accept LAs acting unlawfully.

I specifically said if you have to appeal all 3 stages of the EHCP that can take a couple of years. Although JR for failure or providing s19 provision doesn’t take years.

And back to my original statement: forcing them into an environment that is distressing and inappropriate for months / years

if you have a child that can’t cope with state mainstream, but also can’t be educated effectively at home, how exactly is the above not true?

As I have previously posted more than once, parents don’t have to force DC to attend school if it is inappropriate. Parents can choose to make your own arrangements whilst pursing an EHCP or they could choose to pursue s19 provision for provision outside of the home.

And, of course, they could decide to make their own arrangements and not pursue an EHCP, but I didn’t mention that in my pp because you original comment was in relation to SENDIST so the third option wouldn’t be relevant.

I feel like I am being gas lit.

My whole original post on the topic was that people opt out via private or home ed because they don’t want to spend years in limbo with an unsupported child, which you seemed to challenge. Now we are back to acknowledging that it IS hard and takes years.

let’s just leave it there and leave the thread to its original purpose…

DS1 has had an EHCP (or Statement, as it was then) since he was 4 years old and before ever stepping into a school. It didn’t get him suitable state provision for several years, though, because there wasn’t any.

@Labraradabrador It’s bloody tough, isn’t it.

Yes, and I commented on the part of your post saying going to SENDIST involved forcing their DC to attend an inappropriate setting for years. My whole point was it is possible to successfully appeal without doing that (whether one decides to go private or not).

I am not gaslighting you!

Absolutely nowhere have I ever said it was easy or quick.

Neither did I say there was state provision that met all DC’s needs.

When I say state provision I mean state school, not provision made by the state outside of the state sector.

What exactly is the difference though? In my area, the best SEND specialist school is state funded, but they will only take children with complex physical needs as well, because they have a pool etc.
There are also specialist schools run privately, which will take children without more complex physical needs. Their focus is on social and emotional needs etc.

The State has failed to build and plan enough specialist state places so the private sector had to step in against that backdrop of State failure. It is all even more expensive because the Council is having to transport kids at their cost as well to places far off, which again, is in nobody’s interest.
Councils are virtually going bankrupt over these failings and Labour have come up with a solution of pricing those who were paying out of their pocket out? You literally could not make this stuff up. It is hugely embarrassing for us as a country.
And let’s face the truth that Covid was terrible for DCs with SEND and it was just 5 years ago.

@Araminta1003 co you mean what is the difference between a state school and provision made by the state outside of the state sector? I am not sure if that is what you mean, but if it is, the difference is some DC are educated outside of state schools in independent settings (like you say), NMSS and otherwise than at/in school but funded by the state. So the state is still making the provision rather than the parents making their own arrangements but the DC aren’t in the state sector.

*do you mean…

@StrivingForSleep - what I meant is that parents who are paying on the side to intervene early, that is a good thing.
I have one older autistic and highly gifted DS. We were overall lucky with state schools, but we did intervene with private therapies from an early age, SALT, child psychologist etc to give him the tools to cope. We also had access to grammar schools were he was fine and he has ended up fine overall.

Had we had terrible state schools locally, no funds to intervene early, I may have well had to give up my job completely, fight the LA etc etc and it could have cost the taxpayer hundreds of thousands, literally, both in lost taxation from us and in schooling him.
So what I am saying is that if there are some parents who are intervening early with private schooling or private therapies or whatever they are doing, to make sure they can continue to work AND to stop their kids deteriorating, that is a win win for both society and the taxpayer. So I frankly do not understand one bit why against a backdrop of SEND failure across the board, the Labour Party are putting VAT on private schools. It is complete madness to do this, when many parents paid up privately to stop their DCs failing completely.

@Araminta1003 oh I don’t agree with VAT and don’t believe parents can’t fund provision themselves if that is what they choose to do, so I agree with you on that point.

Very- we are looking to move ours now into state. With the rise of cost of living and this we just can’t do it. I mean well done labour and thank you for paying for my kids through state education . So many in our area are doing the same. It’s just not doable.

The real wealthy paid the fees before July last year and paid upfront. It’s the middle class who have a set salary each month and can’t pluck extra money out of nowhere that are effected. Which is most of the private school demographic.

Araminta1003 I agree with every word of your post. I am horrified to have seen the government lawyers in the high court yesterday lying barefaced, saying there is ‘universally accessible’ state education for all children. Terrifyingly, they said that the alternative to that is home education.While slapping 20% extra on the school fees we already struggle to pay. Home Ed is great for those who choose it. That doesn’t mean it’s good or even safe to be enforcing it on everyone.

Meanwhile this government is not putting extra money into state schools and is also planning (we are being told) to change the law to make it harder for parents to enforce the existing SEND law for our kids. Not because our kids don’t need it but because it’s now too expensive apparently to educate them if they can’t go to a mainstream state school like everyone else.

So not only are we being told that the state won’t take on its longstanding legal responsibility to educate children doesn’t seem to apply any more (if they have a disability), and that also the government will make small classes financially inaccessible for the luckiest who have managed to pay this far, ( but also that we are all going to be expected to become teachers at home, like it or not.

Regardless of our other job commitments, our wishes, DC needs, DC abilities, sibling needs, other family member commitments, home circumstances, financial situation, health needs, mental health needs, social support needs, not to mention the obvious need to work to maintain current finances and home, future finances I could go on and on but it’s just too grim. I’m so disgusted at what this government is doing

They also said this: that they thought about exempting all SEN kids from VAT but then it wouldn't raise enough money! So SEN kids are now cash cows...

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14564465/amp/Labour-admit-considered-exempting-children-special-needs-VAT.html

We had a letter yesterday saying ours are going up 3.5%. It is the lowest rise we have had since 2020.

I had made peace with the fact that if they had gone up 6% or more, we would have handed in our notice. I did cry a little with relief.

I recently joined MumsNet specifically to see how other people are feeling about the VAT and school fees issue and private schools in general. I am a full-time single parent (and full-time working mum) of 2 children at an independent school that I chose for valid reasons as the best option for my children. They were fortunate enough to be offered generous bursaries (means-tested, and not covering 100% of the fees) and grandparents (not rich) who have assisted with school fees. I have nothing at all against state schools (my two went to a state school until year 7) and it's a shame that the two systems are often pitted against each other.
I have become increasing concerned about the accusations of "unfair privilege" because I see such a broad spectrum of families, from different socio-economic backgrounds at the private schools I now find myself involved with. All us parents and our children are being tainted with the "posh and privileged" brush; the kids even get taunted by strangers on their way to and from school. Of course there are some very wealthy families at elite independent schools, but I can find no robust research data that suggests we are all super-wealthy. We are not. Many of us choose to make personal and financial sacrifices in order to send our children to the local schools that we feel will suit them best, for numerous reasons and despite being far from wealthy.
A small group of parents have become so concerned about misinformation, biases and unpleasant and unfair targeting of our schools and families that we have set up the Association for Families of Independent Schools. We are all volunteers, who are committed to doing something proactive to counteract the antagonism and misperceptions and contribute to informed, evidence-based, balanced debate. We will be commissioning independent research that will analyse the profile of our families to provide robust, objective data.

I'm sorry if this sounds like an advert. It isn't meant to be. I just want to let other parents who share our concerns know they are far from alone and that someone is trying to create a collaborative platform that will give parents a unified voice that has been lacking, not just in relation to the VAT issue.