Private schools should be taxed at 25% to fund teachers for Blackpool says Lord Adonis

[noblegiraffe]

Private schools should be taxed at 25% to fund extra pay for teachers in hard-to-recruit areas like Grimsby or Blackpool says Lord Adonis. This £2.5 billion fund could also be used to fund tuition for those in danger of failing maths and English. I'm sure some people on here might have opinions on that?

And he doesn't think pupils should be expelled unless they've broken the law (not sure what he thinks they are currently expelled for but even breaking the law is often overlooked).

"He said whole towns and cities are affected, referring to reports of how doctors in Blackpool use the "Shit Life Syndrome" description.

"Deep poverty, pervasive drugs, obesity, anti-depressants and mental illness in a large isolated town exhibiting alarming signs of disintegration – including the largest encampment in Britain of children expelled from school.

"...For Blackpool today, read also Hull, Grimsby, large parts of the North and the Midlands, and large towns in the South, including Hastings, Dover and Folkestone.""

www.tes.com/news/school-news/breaking-news/lord-adonis-calls-ban-expelling-pupils-unless-they-break-law

Careful what you wish for Punny.

These ambitious, switched on parents are likely to advocate for more setting, more streaming, and higher standards for their children and people like them. It would create a push for education to focus more on the top and segregate more.

But that will just force more children into the state sector driving up costs most likely making any pay increase impossible. Maybe they should means test access to state education and charge high earning parents for the privilege instead so that middle class parents who take advantage of gramnar schools to fund ski trips no longer get a free ride?

I hate this idea that somehow people who privately educate their children are somehow doing us all a favour and saving us loadsamoney.

Doesn't matter why they're doing it. The fact is that they ARE saving the country a huge amount of money. That's what matters, not their motives.

@VeryPunny, I would just hire a private tutor for my sons or just leave Britain altogether. The motivating factor for us to stay as the excellent private schools. My parents came from the USSR-I'm not naive enough to think that you get better services from state monopolies by just demanding them.

Oh punny, do you really think those parents currently paying but then priced out would be rushing to Blackpool and Grimsby to improve the local schools?

No, they'll be pricing established families out of catchment excellent outstanding schools in leafy suburbs and well-heeled city neighborhoods around England. Hundreds of miles from Grimsby, Blackpool and the like.

out of catchment for excellent, outstanding schools

I would love to have switched-on parents demanding higher standards from state education for their children. It might mean that the DfE would finally have to address the teacher crisis and put some more money into the system. Those issues don't just affect Grimsby.

It isn’t just money that helps with good teaching. It is how the job is structured and the job satisfaction that can be derived from teaching if it is managed well. Undoubtedly good teachers are in short supply in the areas mentioned but more money isn’t the answer. For what exactly? A two tier profession? Who would want to live in some of these areas? Don’t forget most teachers want good schools for their children so where they live is crucial to them. I suspect Blackpool and Ckacton are not high on the list.

Employing more excellent teachers is key to enable smaller classes so improving the ability to teach well. Introducing incentives to live in an area, especially for those without children, may help too. Throwing money at a problem rarely cures it though and there is no reason to think it is likely to cure all the ills of these schools.

Adonis did kick start academies and greater choice for parents. Many academies are poor and he should be asked why his great experiment has not worked for many. There are not enough high quality Head teachers, specialist stem or MFL teachers or provision for Sen children. However there are not enough resources for problem families, addicts, alcoholics etc etc etc. It is the whole picture that needs to be tackled. Then you might get more talented people willing to live and Work in our more deprived areas. Brexit will make things worse of course because there is now a lack of focus on any of this yet it’s these areas that wanted Brexit most.

I agree with Phil in that flooding out already leafy areas with children who would have gone Private will never solve this problem. It’s just Labour attackjng those they perceive to be better off as usual. A sound bite!

And yet somehow London with fairly significant areas of local deprivation has some excellent education results. Oh look, each child gets about £1k a year more than our local authority hands out for education.

Of course sharp elbowed parents aren’t going to be moving to Grimsby. But if you can make it an attractive place for teachers, then they might move. And I expect the Government to do what it can to achieve good education outcomes for all children, in spite of the sharp elbowed parents who don’t give a shit about other kids, and would really much prefer the social exclusion of grammar schools or private education.

It's a good point about London being different.

Because the number of DC in private preps is anomalously high in the capital. I think people would be priced out (London is expensive enough, and there won't be much 'give') so where would those DC go? They're all day pupils, not overseas boarders. I wouldn't want to have DC in school in either sector in the years around time of introduction of such a charge. Secondaries would be hit as well, but there could be significant difficulty in primaries.

Remember the National Teaching Service that was supposed to parachute 1500 excellent teachers into deprived coastal schools and sort them out? Abandoned because only 54 teachers were actually recruited.

www.tes.com/news/school-news/breaking-news/exclusive-dfe-abandons-national-teaching-service

Teachers don't want to move to Blackpool.
I did see an interesting suggestion, can't remember where, that top universities should open satellite campuses in more remote areas, bringing excellent education to the area instead of trying to get pupils from those areas to leave home to go to excellent universities.

Yes, but leaving Home is part of education because you are around thousands of like minded students and you have a myriad of courses to choose from. There would be a handful accessing university in some areas so how could there be a variety of courses? It would be virtually impossible to do this effectively and it should not be a second class offering.

The reason the children in London get more per pupil is sheer weight of under privileged numbers. Despite what people think, it’s a fact. It’s not a pocket of deprivation, it’s a city. The cost of living is high, which drives up cost of living adjustments for teachers. Schools get more money because of this which comes out as more per child.

There are reasons why teachers still want to work in London though. Schools are better led, immigrant children and others want to achieve and there is a fantastic cultural offering that trumps social ills.

leaving Home is part of education

Not having to leave home to receive an excellent university education (and save money) is an advantage that many already privileged children enjoy.

I wouldn't see living at home as an advantage during university years.

The very rich buy flats for their privileged DC to live in during term time. They don't keep them at home (except perhaps Londoners)

he should be asked why his great experiment has not worked for many

It WAS working for many. It still is working for many. But as mentioned earlier, what is happening now is NOT what he tried to establish - it's been twisted for political/ideological purposes.

I don’t know many privileged children living at home during higher education years.

Academisation under Labour was about turning around failing schools. The current mess we are in is more a result of Tory ideology in wanting to get rid of Local Authorities.
That said, Adonis can be blamed for not putting a cap on CEO pay.

Abra I certainly teach plenty of students who apply for the local (good) university on the basis that they can still live at home and save a lot of money on living costs.

"I'm not naive enough to think that you get better services from state monopolies by just demanding them."
Couldn't agree more. How many people are demanding better services from our financially overstretched NHS? Is it making any difference? Of course its not.
Putting VAT on school fees will only affect the "squeezed middle" the wealthy will just carry on paying regardless.
With regard to the CCF in 2014 apparently it cost the government £26 million to fund 200 CCFs, 260 schools received funding 60 in the state sector. It was estimated that if independent schools lost this funding it would cost parents an extra £150 a year, again only the "squeezed middle" will be affected. Thus perpetrating the divide between those who have serious money and the rest of us. Is that the sort of society we want to create?

I also agree with EdithWeston that being able to afford to leave home and go to university is actually an advantage. I positively discouraged either of my children from looking at "local" universities because I wanted them experience all university has to offer and that included leaving home looking after themselves and living in university accommodation. But of course it is costly, for one just travelling back and forward to university costs what many would see as a significant amount. And I know from listening to my some of my work colleagues who are on low wages that many either don't want their children to go to university because of the costs or want them to attend local universities so that they can live at home.

London is different, and it is entirely down to the money pumped in, which is way more than just £1k p.a. more per pupil! Look how many academies and free schools there are, etc. Millions and millions have been spent to drag London schools up from where they were, at the expense of the education system in the rest of England.

Raising the costs of private educaton by as much as that would very likely mean many current families would switch to state schools: would the state school places actually be available? People would seek to move next to the most oversubscribed/popular state schools.

being able to afford to leave home and go to university is actually an advantage

But if you can't afford to leave home, then having an excellent local university is also an advantage.

In these deprived coastal towns, they are not only disadvantaged by not being able to shell out to go to KCL or whatever, but by not having any decent local option.
The debate about whether you should shell out for your kid to move to Durham or stay and go to Bath down the road is not one that parents in some areas are burdened with.

"I certainly teach plenty of students who apply for the local (good) university on the basis that they can still live at home and save a lot of money on living costs."

I'd see that as more likely to be describing choices for the stretched middle, not the affluent/privileged.

If the university in the back of beyond was good, then the privileged will travel to it anyhow. If people are stretched middle or poor, unless you have universities offering all courses nigh on everywhere (pipe dream) you cannot solve affordability issues fairly or predictably like that.

The type of pupil in London is diverse. There is less diversity in the coastal areas where white working class are a much bigger proportion. Any study of London shows that the immigrant community have been more interested in good educational results and have higher expectations. Bringing a university nearer to the white working class boys won’t help them. I rather suspect it is the risk averse and lower middle class whose children stay at home but it is poor advice to go local if you could get to Oxbridge (or similar).

I think Labour might have wanted to improve failing schools but all schools can be academy converters out of choice. And they chose this route. None of the Grammars around me were forced to be academies! They chose to be but the standard of education was maintained and the LA still provides services which are paid for. It’s just a different model. It feels a very long time ago in this Conservative Shire County that control was exercised over any school! We just don’t work like that any more.

If academies have failed it is down to the individual academy or mat. They don’t have a monopoly on failure however. Many schools have failed irrespective of whether they are academies or not. They key features for success are the children, the parents, the teachers and the SLT. If Blackpool was full of Chinese immigrants there would be different outcomes, one suspects, and teachers who wanted to teach the children might be available, as in London. The culture of learning needs to change and Adonis should think about this rather than punish fee paying parents.