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.

We had a private school locally they converted to state and everything continued as normal staff and facilities stayed the same I daresay some private schools will just fo this rather than close

Same here! Our local primaries have loads and loads of space - some of them have banners outside advertising trying to drum up custom! All good or outstanding with excellent reputations.

Secondary is more full however so I guess many students will have to travel further afield to find spaces, there are less popular schools but for obvious reasons they tend to be the less successful schools. Might be good to inject some new blood in them!

Plenty of space here. If you don’t mind a run down comp.

the catchment one is oversubscribed but the next few are not and also good schools so yes, it’s fine.

Just checked the primaries within a couple of miles radius and one has 70 places, another 30, two about 15, and the rest have a few places. The junior classes will be able to take a couple of extras over 30 too. Plenty of room 🤗 .

1 out of the 3 local secondaries were over subscribed in my area (albeit I last looked about 3 years ago). The infant & junior schools are having to consider reducing or amalgamating classes due to a low birth rate so I imagine that where I am at least, long term they'd be glad of any extra pupils.

School is 13 years. A 20% increase in fees may mean some have to go 20% less (ie miss a few years at the beginning or end). It will be fine.

At primary and secondary level, local schools could probably absorb all the local privately educated children, and they won't all move to state. Some of the primary schools (nice village schools) are undersubscribed for demographic reasons and would actively welcome extra children.

At sixth form level there is already a shortage of places, but that is a seperate issue.

I've seen estimates that this would price about 10% of parents out of private schools which is about 2 additional children per school in the UK. This genuinely wouldn't even be noticed in any school I've worked in.

The fearmongering doesn't make sense when you look at the actual numbers involved.

Quite a few assumptions there.

We live in a poor inner city area and our local school is undersubscribed as it's terrible.

Our daughter goes to private school but is on a bursary+scholarship and we make up the difference. So it really is a problem for us.

The other thing is that if local schools are genuinely so oversubscribed they can't accommodate another child (rare), then the school will not be forced to accommodate additional children, they'll be sent to undersubscribed schools further away. That's inconvenient for the parents and the children but not for the schools.

Many undersubscribed primary schools are desperate for additional children, so it would actually be a positive for some schools!

Locally our system secondary schools would welcome a few extra pupils as it would secure their numbers. Those pupils are more likely to have pushy parents, so it may actually help raise standards. Sounds like a great idea to me.

The influx of motivated students with their engaged and supportive parents will make a massive difference to those struggling, undersubscribed, requires improvement schools! Parents make such a difference to schools. I wouldn’t be surprised if they outperform the oversubscribed local schools when this happens, which will be excellent for equality.

Absolutely looking forward to welcoming a more mixed intake into our low performing school and hoping some kids with aspiring parents it will be good role models and help improve behaviours.

Plenty of room and Welcome all!

I don't think so. Class size could always be smaller of course. I don't believe it will have much of an impact around here anyway.

People are saying there’s loads of spare school places which there are
but unless there in the right location there useless 20 places in Scotland are no good to 20 pupils in London
also if the school has space in year 10 and the pupils are year 11 again it’s useless

Why is it the job of parents to improve schools?

Never said it was.

"Kids with aspiring parents"

Good job there are plenty of other schools not too far away from Edinburgh that gave space then. All that money saved on fees, they can afford a bit of a commute.

Every single secondary school in my city is full. The only spaces are 10+ miles away and, of course, in inadequate schools.

Most private school educated kids would not last 5 minutes in the state schools that are undersubscribed and will have places, so I think they will all find the money one way or another! None of them will want to be the talk of the tennis club with Tarquin going to the local comp.
I know I’ve used massive stereotypes and I don’t care. Private education is unachievable for most, the ones that can afford it WILL find away, even if they have to downgrade from Waitrose to Lidl.

JFC. I'm sick and tired of private school parents complaining that things aren't fair.

Yes! They're not! Join the rest of the world. What a shame that you are no longer going to be able to afford to buy privilege.

OP, if you are going to struggle have you checked with your local state primary? If you’re lucky your kids might get a place.

There will be no problem where I live.

Looking forward to you all joining the PTA. 😜

It's such a relief that this can finally get done airtime.