The Edinburgh Question: Labour's tax on private schools

[Eastcoastie]

A group has popped up on FB aimed at parents in Edinburgh who are against Labour's policy of charging VAT on private school fees if they get elected in July. 25-30% of children in Edinburgh are privately educated so the policy is very likely to require big changes to education providers in Edinburgh and some areas of the Lothians.

George Watson's has announced a 9% fee increase for the coming year and according to members of the group, if the VAT policy goes through, they have been told that this will have to be passed on too, so next years fees would likely see a 20% rise plus inflation. Staff at the school are already on a pay freeze and the accounts show an operating loss.

Members of the group have also said that GWC are planning for a loss of 350 students if the policy is enacted.

Heriots parents have been told of a 6% fee increase for the coming year and the school are also likely to pass on the VAT bill next year if enacted too. Parents are being told, if they are unhappy, to leave.

Prior to the policy being announced, Edinburgh's projections for school capacity flagged 9/23 secondary schools as being at or exceeding capacity in 2023, rising to 18/23 in 2027.

How will Edinburgh/Lothians manage even minimal fall out from the private sector?

https://www.edinburgh.gov.uk/downloads/file/22448/secondary-school-roll-projections

Yeah, Dunbar Primary School. It has 1100 pupils

Tower bank must be pushing 850 or so

The blithe tone of posts like this, “Those with kids in secondary are likely to ride out the fees” really enrage me. With all due respect, how the fuck do you know that? Do you have kids at private school? Do you know how people contort themselves financially to afford school fees. I highly doubt most will be able to withstand the additional cost and the result will be chaos. But hey ho, who gives a shit if a few middle class kids get their educations fucked. It’ll make all the class warriors chuffed to bits until their child is in a class of 38 and their education suffers.

Sorry but too many kids in Edinburgh go to private schools . It's revolting. It's 5.9% on average. There's only a handful of decent state secondaries. Places like liberton should have better schools. a lobby of midfle ckasz parebts will make schoold improve.

and if liberton was a better school I’m sure those middle class parents who live in catchment would send their kids there. Catch 22

@Coughsweet im in East Lothian. Dunbar Primary has just under 1300 pupils and Law Primary in North Berwick has 800 in p1-7 and then the nursery takes 400 on the same site. Both run big class sizes very close to the limits.

@Elephantpants true but basically what constitutes a 'good school' isn't anything to do with the teaching. Its about the ability of the pupils to psss exams and get results. It's skewed. The pupils best placed to do well in a system that only values grades are middle class kids whose parents grown up in that system, you take those kids out a school will become a bad school (just on the basis of highers sat and passed).

It's not just the initial fall out that will have to be accommodated. Once those leave, some private schools will become unviable and shut leaving even more needing places.

@Eastcoastie that seems like phenomenally bad planning. To have that many children in a town the size of Dunbar can’t be usual but they surely wouldn’t normally be on one site.

@Coughsweet thats what happens when thousands of new builds are built in small towns without any thought for the infrastructure. There are 3 private primaries in East Lothian, one private high school and a good number of children who go to private schools in Edinburgh from the county too. Potentially more displaced pupils here too.

I thought there was demand for private schools in the UK from wealthy overseas families? Surely some of the places will be filled by them. The additional revenue that Labour then raise from the VAT charge will then go towards expanding school places in the state schools.

Can’t say I have an issue with it to be honest. I’ve never felt comfortable with the provision of private schools. It creates inequality between the kids whose parents can afford to provide them with the best education that money can buy, and the rest that end up in the bog standard state comprehensive. If more kids end up having to go to state schools then maybe that will create more pressure from the pushier parents to fund them better and bring up standards.

I thought there was demand for private schools in the UK from wealthy overseas families?

Not in the Edinburgh day schools @Hedgeoffressian
Which is mainly what OP is referring to here

@Eastcoastie there’s another random development somewhere closer to Edinburgh, is it on the edge of Tranent or Prestonpans? I hope school provision has been properly thought theough there and it isn’t just another “dump them down and run away” housing estate. I know East Lothian needs housing but that site just looks so disconnected.

93% of children in the UK are educated in the state system. What is so magical about private school parents that will turn state schools around? It has been said ad infinitum that state school parents work just as hard and have strong educational aspirations for their kids - surely there is power in numbers? I think PS parents being the magical key to turning around state schools is wishful thinking.....

@Hedgeoffressian as pp says, the Edinburgh day schools are of no interest whatsoever to wealthy overseas families. These families need boarding schools and will go for the traditional public schools eg. Fettes gets a lot of Chinese as i understand it. The boarding public schools are a completely different offering and cost bracket to an independent day school.

@Coughsweet thats Blindwells. I dont no that area but i heard they are in the process of building a primary school and the high school children will go to Preston Lodge. The council need to add another motorway entrance because that junction keeps backing up and its only going to get worse the more houses that go up. The end goal is for Blindwells to be its own town with shops etc but there are thousands more houses still to be built so may be some time off.

The people who say that pushy parents will improve schools have clearly not met the Edinburgh council education department. The very worst sort of bovine, computer-says-no, totally unthinking public sector workers, with no concept of running a school. A friend put in numerous complaints about the totally inept head of their primary school, only to be told that the head had free rein to run their school as they saw fit.

The there was James Gillespie HS who had run out of space. Coming out of covid the council suggested S6 continued to be taught online to save space. The parents turned around and demanded the council provided an actual school, but the fact that the council ever thought that online learning would be a good option is astounding and so out of touch!

Why is it the job of middle class parents to improve poorly performing state schools? What about the parents whose kids are there already?

YES

Or the teachers and councillors who get paid to fix it?

Why can they not fix it for the sake of the kids already there?!

I think the main issue is that Edinburgh council relies on not having to educate 25% of children in order to balance its budget. So we can expect significant budget cuts in order to accommodate the children who will now be in the state sector. And those parents will pay for tutors etc rather than improving the state school because (as a previous poster noted) the education department are useless.

I’d love to hear from teachers.

What do they see as the difference between private schools and state schools in Edinburgh.

What is needed to improve state schooling.

If state schools got the VAT from the private schools where should it be spent (and where do you think it will be spent in reality)?

Where should pushy parents direct their pushing? When I have spoken to schools about bullying there seems to be a culture of secrecy. It’s like they cannot admit that restorative conversations do not work, and they cannot admit to how many temporary exclusions they have used.

Yes…kids displaced will end up having the money previously spent on fees, spent on private tutoring instead. The cost of tutoring will soar due to simple demand and supply economics. Therefore money will be reinvested in the private sector as opposed to bettering public sector education.

Lazy politics designed to appeal to the masses to win votes rather than address the root cause of inequality. Level up education FIRST then private school parents will opt for state rather than spending ££££££ on private education.

I think part of the issue is a change in culture. 20 years ago, the teachers controlled a class through fear. That’s no longer appropriate.

Engaging with students individually takes time and resources that our state system just doesn’t have. The same goes for parenting tbh.

We just don’t (can’t) support our young people in the way they need

@Ginny98 I was at school a lot longer than 20 years ago and there wasn't a culture of fear. Teachers did work individually with children and there was respect - the difference is that I went to a state school with tiny number of pupils so my exam classes had no more than 10 pupils in each class that's the difference - we can't expect teachers to teach when they are busy doing crowd control

Class sizes are the main benefit to private that my children receive, they can’t cope in larger classes. The problem is, all children should benefit from small classes and this policy certainly isn’t going to help class size.

Blame Edinburgh city council not the parents.

If they had spent £1Billion on schools rather than trams the state schools would be much better. East Ren spends a lot of education & reaps the rewards. Edinburgh has plenty of high band council tax payers, they can afford to invest in education.

I wish people would stop misquoting the '25% of Edinburgh pupils in private schools' fake news.

Fettes has 500 boarders.
Merchiston has 300.
Cargilfield has 25.
St George's 38.
SMME 14.

That's a whole other school's worth of non Edinburgh pupils who are counted in this figure.

At primary the figure is 'only' 10% so not much above the national average.

(Which is skewed towards cities)