How oversubscribed are your local schools? Will they be able to take on students who are currently privately-educated?

[Macaroons]

One of the headline Starmer kept talking about is charging VAT for private schools. This would make private school fees unaffordable for many who are not mega-rich, pushing more students back to the state education system. Would the state schools be able to take in the extra students? Many schools are already over-subscribed, are there enough schools, classrooms and teachers to take in the extra students? My fear is that the extra VAT they get is not going to be enough to provide education for more students under the state system, as well as the additional 6500 teachers they claim they can provide.

My local schools are over subscribed in mainstream, grammar is full and special educational need schools. I think it's due to the over development of the area. They keep building houses and not allowing for school provision. It's been the same for years.

As for the local grammar they have a huge waiting list of candidates that have passed. Special need schools are full and parents I know are having to go to appeal panels. I guess the good thing in this plan is it won't impact the home educated (will it?)

If this is the plan I'm unsure wheee they will build more classrooms where I live. They don't have the room. It's been mentioned before by the primaries and secondary.

Or maybe they can just take over the private school?

I do know friends whose children go to private but have scholarships. They aren't middle class, they are working class and this increase will impact them. I also have a couple of friends who have sent children that have SEN due to not having the right provision in the area.

I do think if anything more SEN schools need to be provided as it would mean they have more space in mainstream. Some children are being taught in separate classrooms in my DD's mainstream as they can't manage the day to day classes/schedule:movement etc.

If 10% leaving causes the school in question to fold, that's £0 received in VAT, and £6,000,000 cost to educate the thousand DC

We have no idea whether schools would fold. But a precipitate drop of 10% could cause significant difficulty to some. And it would be the result of a tipping point, which would not necessarily be 10% (I'm using that only as an example as it was where the previous worked examples cease)

But I agree with the premise of other posters that it's not an outflow in the immediate aftermath that will be the issue. It will be those who decide to withdraw their DC at the next natural break point, or not enter the private system at all. So the full impact will take 3-5 years from introduction to be seen (period between natural break points)

Those parents will be entering the admissions rounds at the normal times, and will have had the time to work out the system, and genuinely move house.

The demographic changes on which the rhetoric of "there will be enough places" does not fall evenly across the country, and the cities most likely to be affected are also those where there just isn't the space to build more classrooms (at all, let alone in the timeframe that matches)

It's going to be bumpy, and in places where there is low demographic decline and a high proportion in private school, it's going to be a difficult time - including for state school parents who will be displaced from the school they might otherwise have expected had distances offered not been affected by higher number of applications and people deliberately moving as close to the school they want as possible. It is quite likely this would start to happen as soon as the next admissions rounds.

It's not as straightforward as if a school folds no VAT is raised. Very location dependent, but for instance Alton recently folded most of the pupils were accommodated in other independent schools. I'm sure some went to state. Obviously some areas there us just one independent school.

There's much more pupils in faith schools in the UK than in private schools, but nothing will be done about it. And local kids have no chances to get into the good ones at secondary level.

So it's hypocritical of Rachel Reeves to say that they're going to fight segregation but not mention faith schools.

https://ffteducationdatalab.org.uk/2022/07/faith-schools-and-academisation/

That's because the state doesn't own VA schools.

They are essentially church schools currently running in co-operation with the state system (which so many of them pre-dated). They're not national assets being allowed a faith character. It's the other way round.

The country simply doesn't have the money available to impose a compulsory purchase scheme at fair market value, or to buy land and build other schools so it could then withdraw from the current arrangements with enough places in other schools.

There's much more pupils in faith schools in the UK than in private schools, but nothing will be done about it.

Because they are state run just as comprehensive schools? How do you imagine taxing state schools :))?

And local kids have no chances to get into the good ones at secondary level.

In the same was as many local kids have no chances to get to superselective state grammar schools

Well nobody stops them from learning day and night to pass 11+ or becoming Catholic

Nobody stops kids to get to the top performing comprehensive schools. Well or maybe property market does

There are other variables than fath schools: grammar, property prices. All of that are the reason for segregation

Faith schools are a blight on society. They definitely perpetuate inequality and should not be allowed. Would be great if Labour could turn their attention that way.

Remember that the state does not own faith VA schools.

I don't think there is either the money or the political will to impose a buy out.

I wonder why people are no equally pissed off at country grammars or the property prices around top comprehensive

Apart from that there was a cap of 50% on all new faith schools. Now it is lifted because the disadvantages of it were greater than advantages

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/government-to-lift-cap-on-faith-school-places#:~:text=The%2050%25%20faith%20cap%20means,to%20faith%2Dbased%20admissions%20criteria.

I’ve been pissed off at grammars and faith schools for many years if that helps? And have made my feelings clear on various MN threads on the subject for years. I actually lost a RL friend over my stance on grammar schools.

At the time we were first applying to primary school we had literally no local options as the only school near enough for us to get into was a faith one that wouldn’t admit us. So the kids near us were all scattered far and wide. It wasn’t even the faith one that all the local people wanted to get into but filled up as second choice of the unlucky ones.

I’ve been pissed off at grammars and faith schools for many years if that helps?

what about those who move to the catchment next to an excellent school? Isn't that cheating? Driving the property market up the roof??

Well, I am showing that it is not all about faith schools

I wouldn’t know. My local area has a catchment system and each covers a wide range of housing stock, so pretty much anyone can move into any catchment. I used to live somewhere with a school that people were fighting to get near in inner London but there was a mix of housing stock there too, and also, you know, other schools that were perfectly good if you looked beyond the fetishisation of that one particular school. The constant threat on these endless threads that all the private school parents will just buy up houses close to the ‘best’ schools to show state school parents just sounds unbearably entitled to me. And I don’t throw that word around lightly.

Maybe if the state school parents on these threads had the decency to admit it’s a pretty rubbish deal for PE parents having to fork out even more money, rather than the usual “serves you right for having more money than we do” rhetoric, this slinging match would never have started! You see none of this behaviour in other countries towards people who choose to pay for PE. Instead here you are vilified while saving the state ££££ off your own back!

Thanks @CalamitiousJoan I doff my cap to you.

Of course state school parents recognise you aren’t going to be pleased to be paying more but acting like you are doing us a favour by privately educating your children is a stretch! You are paying by choice.

If you wouldn't know I will explain; The housing in front of top performing 100 free comprehensive schools has astronomical value. And just outside of catchment much lower. People move just to get to school and then move out. How is that better than faith schools? No, it is not. Equally entitled

@Seasaltlady

You see none of this behaviour in other countries towards people who choose to pay for PE.
You are idealising " other countries". I know for sure, I am bilingual and follow other forums .

That exist in every country. People are people everywhere. Scarcity is an issue everywhere.

They probably won't get into ours. All the kids in my dad's year who ended up going private did so because they lived outside of the catchment for the good oversubscribed state schools and were offered the below par ones so it's not a case of the schools won't be able to cope. The schools will be fine but the private school kids will get sent to the below par schools. Maybe if some of the money they pay on school fees went into the schools however then they wouldn't be below par. I know it's not as simple as that but the argument that the schools will be oversubscribed doesn't stack. Admission y based on where people live among other factors and the private school kids don't want to live near the oversubscribed state schools so risk getting sent wherever there is space which will be further away and crap.

Article from the Times - The property penalty for sending your child to an ‘outstanding’ state school

https://www.thetimes.com/article/ae11b2d5-aed0-4166-bcb1-b59fcb817989?shareToken=7f38f251235e947ae8c18fcaf7bfe2af

There will be knock-on impacts in certain areas …

That article is inaccurate in places. Anyone would think that The Times wants you to vote Tory....

Why do they perpetuate inequality?

I just looked up 3 bedroomed houses in my city on Rightmove, and out of the 20 cheapest houses, 6 of them (including the third cheapest house in the city) were in catchment for outstanding secondary schools.

That is EXACTLY what keep saying here but some people are in denial

Find that for Orlean Park School in Richmond

and private schools are of a lesser inequality? Or county grammars destroying local comprehensives?

It is very likely that Labour is going to win this election, so I doubt this article is going to sway how people are going to vote, but what I worry is whether they have considered the knock-on impact properly.

Making private education more expensive means it will be less affordable/ unaffordable for those who are only just managing right now, and push more students to the state schools. This may not be an issue for some areas but it would be an issue for some areas. So the government is likely to have to educate more students, which is around 7k per student per year. This would offset the extra tax they hope to raise.

I just felt there are more pressing issues for the next government to solve, eg crime, NHS, and changing legislation to charge private schools VAT may not be the best thing to do.