Private schools to go bust in the coming recession

[ampletime]

The mother of all recessions is coming in my view. The world economy is pushing towards a large scale and deep debt crises. This follows the explosion of government deficits, borrowing, and leverage in recent decades and now that debt is growing due to high interests. Governments are in eye watering debt, individuals are in debt and so are private schools.
In the last 5 years private schools have been on spending sprees with new builds and new facilities mostly for marketing appeal rather than need. But it’s all been funded on debt. I work for a building service solution company and the number of private schools in the last 5 years have exploded on our books all funded by debt.

I know of one boarding school now in trouble and they have sold off their build and it will be converted to flats.

Be careful folks out there. Times are not as good as these schools portray.

Sibling category is also out of catchment because there is a sibling in catchment category. I don't think any of the primary looks to be full at all.

Academies outcomes are still monitored through inspection by Ofsted and must reach national floor targets

Are you also against private healthcare?

@Occasional2023

I live in a grammar school county but with some very good comprehensives too

How is that possible? Usually if there are several grammar in the county the top 25 percent is going there. It impacts the results of comprehensives

In any case, the argument that there would not be enough school places if private schools closed is a misleading argument of those on the right who wish to preserve anachronistic British traditions.

5.9 percent of UK pupils go private. ( This number is for UK residents and doesn't include overseas pupils).

How do you imagine that they will not be affected by VAT? I know many families who already hesitated if they wish to send private or not. The additional tax will make the price higher and they will not send private. There will be a huge demand for state schools.

Btw, Lib Dem voter here and not a person who would " preserve anachronistic British traditions". Simply what you say doesn't make sense

Schools simply will not magically convert. The building, assets are privately owned. The gov will have to pay to private owners to buy it. Huge investment. More demand for state places.

It has happened in my town, private school closed down, lots of new building attracting young families and council bought the school and it has reopened as a state primary. I assume they get govt funding for this but it was possibly cheaper than acquiring a suitable site and building a school.

Due to where the school is situated and style of buildings I can't imagine it was terribly attractive to other buyers.

and that happens at times. But with 10 perc increase Councils will need far more money than the gov gains with 10% vat to buy buildings for new schools

But maybe a geopolitical situation mentioned by Cass 505 will impact the pricing of the school buildings. With Russian and Chinese pupils leaving UK many schools will bankrupt and there will be a lot of school buildings on sale- driving the price of school properties down

This doesn’t really stack up. Lots of preps are in the countryside where school places are not necessarily under stress. There won’t be a glut and LAs who are responsible for planning school places won’t want them in an old prep “stately home” miles from anywhere.

The Academies have also expanded near me. Especially CofE . They have taken excess dc snd become primary schools instead of infant schools. LAs plan where schools are needed and of course it’s where new houses are. Not the middle of nowhere.

I live in a LA grammar school county. The non grammars are secondary schools and by definition are not comprehensive. Although they will take all abilities. The pass rate varies within the county from 19% to 42%. Some areas have more bright DC than others. The secondaries can have 30% plus high achievers as they do not all pass the selection test. It’s a mixed bag and of course there’s overlaps in ability between the schools as testing at 11 (10 for most!) is not an exact science,

I'm not sure where the 10% comes from. I thought VAT was 20% but maybe I'm behind the times.

you are correct @Iwasafool .sorry

@TizerorFizz But there are regions where all secondary schools are oversubscribed. The grammars here accept less than 0.01percent and are super super selective.
Because of good state comprehensive results with 70 -85 perc of kids passing GCSE at 5+ a lot of people want to move to this area. There are frequent threads here where to move in our area exactly for best catchment. My house is now 3x the value what I paid in 2009 because of that.

Some areas will have a problem and already have with not enough spaces in state schools

Totally people are living in lala land. The level of disrepair of current school buildings is off the scale. Support teachers are being laid off all over and budgets are overdrawn in deficit. State system needs 15 billion plus just to try and stabilise, not 1 billion AND there are no school places except in shite areas so it means again the ones who can afford to move will get the places. Most money goes into schools already in shite areas so it is nothing to do with the school, it's the home conditions, upbringing, lack of care about schooling, social issues. brain challenged Brits prefer to just look at a headline and nod like birds. They are unable to consider the truth of what they are hearing. Adding vat to fees for schools to take on, is not going to make a dent. All it does is make the have-nots smile for moments- until they realise that nothing will change in their lives. The children are not failing because of the school, nor the teachers, the children are failing, their parents are failing because of reasons out of the control of any school.

Exactly. I believe that adding VAT is counterproductive. While it may generate some revenue, the government will need to invest significantly more in opening new state schools to accommodate children in oversubscribed areas. Creating more shit problems.

It won’t if birth rate continues to fall. Schools will amalgamate.

I get your valid point but there is also a variable of refugees coming to UK.

nonsense, it isn't falling as much as you make out. There are still A LOT of people in Britain and a LOT of kids all cramming into small classrooms. I assure you! All with varying needs that need 15 billion not 1 billion.

It is known are going to be large numbers of unallocated school places, the birth rate is down a marked amount.

Again not as much as you think- maybe a few mixed classes in the next few years. The most popular schools sitting in nice areas are still over subscribed. Those who can afford, will move to those schools. Rest assured!!!

A few mixed classes??

I understood the number of births had dropped by 100,000 in just over ten years, where are you getting your figures from?

From working in state school and understanding the boroughs situation - you?

🙄 how predictable

@StolenCookie

Why so you believe that private schools shouldn't exist?
I understand the claim that they should be subject to Ofsted control for safeguarding and meeting expectations of a basics of national curriculum but I would you say they should not exist? Private schools are easing up the state financial burden as gov would need to open ans maintain more schools and are often providing specialist teaching.

I would say that grammar schools in so called grammar counties have more adverse effect on the performance of local comprehensives. And either you have grammar of comprehensive with poor or not so great results.

The catchment areas will be changed if necessary. When planning school provision birth rate is critical. Schools won’t expand to take more dc when others have spare capacity. So schools might be popular but dc will not get in. School place provision isn’t easy but a falling birth rate (1.4 we are heading towards) is clearly low for the uk. Who can afford to keep schools open when amalgamation is required. Lots of schools amalgamated in the past. Hardly a new concept!

From reading government stats.

The numbers are not disputed, you are just taking a personal view.