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.

https://www.economist.com/europe/2015/10/30/greece-reconsiders-a-tax-on-private-education

On average. What are people in oversubscribed cities meant to do? Move?

I'm just shocked that people seem to think it's genuinely OK to bring in an immediate tax on private school fees with no thought to what a logistical nightmare it will be but also the huge emotional impact on those kids who have to leave their school friends and school at potentially very short notice.

Surely, the most fair and sensible way to introduce a tax on education (if it has to happen), would be to introduce it from the point any kids now enters the independent sector. It's hugely unfair to tax those who signed up before VAT was implemented.

Of course “people” don’t care! The amount of envy and vindictiveness in this country is unbelievable! I have lived in several countries and have never seen such an awful amount of hatred towards those who have bettered themselves and dare send their children to private schools! it is the prime reason why this country has zero aspiration.

There’s some seriously emotive language being used ‘envy’ & ‘hatred’ towards people who have ‘bettered themselves’ honestly get over yourselves!

Mostly people don’t care because they are too busy living their own lives to be concerned about yours 🤷‍♀️

Anecdotally friends with sen children have had those children either unceremoniously expelled from local private schools or they are not allowed in in the first place. The latter was for a money no object family. No local private schools would touch their autistic but academically bright son with a barge pole. In the state sector they are obliged to accommodate them. That’s why I don’t really understand the sen in private argument. Unless they are in a specialised school maybe.

Exactly! We don't care but also feel sick of this unfounded scaremongering. How many VAT topics are active now on mumsnet?
Personally we could afford private school but chose not to because it would solely depend on my husband's ability to work - my salary is not enough to cover both housing and schooling. So we live well within our means and I don't understand and don't envy people who take risky decisions and then cry about it. I'd ask them to kindly stop doing both.

And I still believe Labour tax is just the last nail in the coffin. White collars can hardly afford private education anymore.

It may impact here. There are a similar number of privates to grammars and I know families with children currently private who has already moved to get in the catchment for the best state school in case their children don’t make the grammar standard. They will give notice at the private school if VAT does get added to fees.

The grammars can’t take everyone. The result here is that the outstanding state secondaries which are already oversubscribed will shrink their catchments even further due to more applicants, with house prices in those catchment areas rocketing as wealthier families move in and further excluding less wealthy families. Children of those families then get whatever school is left; usually the nearest sink.

That HMRC aren’t likely to benefit much from the VAT given that private schools can then reclaim their capital allowance for refurbishment works seems to be overlooked.

It’s a labour election gimmick.

Didn’t Mordaunt state that 90% of all state schools are now graded good or outstanding by OFSTED but barely a post can go by without someone shrieking about ‘sink schools’ or ‘failing comps.’

I think your missing 2 issues here. First, there isn't an issue with spaces even at Outstanding primaries. There is masses of capacity across the board and will be unless birth rates go up from what they are now. Secondly, most primaries are fine. The vast, vast majority are rated Good or Outstanding and they tend not to suffer from the behavioural issues secondaries do. Yes some very motivated parents will pay for a particular primary catchment but it's unlikely that primary is doing anything special. Desirable primary catchments are really just a symptom of parents buying into decent secondary catchment areas. If it means a few families who would have got into Primary A now end up at Primary B, the impact is probably minimal.

@Euromonkey every area has the least desirable undersubscribed school. But in some areas it's the only school as well.

I do have sympathy for the individual young people who will have their education disrupted as I have seen how difficult it was for a number of friends' children when our local independent school closed. But do you know what? Despite that upset they all survived - in fact continued to thrive - because they all have massive advantages in life regardless of what school they went to. As indeed I acknowledge that my own children do.
But I am a lot more bothered about the conditions that huge numbers of children are growing up in in this country than I am about the effects of this policy on a relatively small number of relatively well off youngsters. Personally, I am not entirely convinced that there will be a significant financial benefit and I would favour a small increase in income tax, particularly at the 40% rate and above (and yes, before anyone says anything, I am a higher rate tax payer myself). But my doubts about this policy are not enough to stop me voting Labour - or more to the point, not voting Conservative - because there is far more at stake. Far more of the young people in this country stand to benefit from a change of government than stand to lose in my opinion.
And whilst I remain sympathetic because I know a lot of people who have been privately educated or are sending their children to independent schools currently and I know that most of them are perfectly decent people, the views being expressed by many of the private school parents/supporters on these threads are not winning hearts and minds. People "better themselves" by sending their children to private schools indeed!

@MrsAvocet "Personally, I am not entirely convinced that there will be a significant financial benefit and I would favour a small increase in income tax, particularly at the 40% rate and above (and yes, before anyone says anything, I am a higher rate tax payer myself)."

Personally I would prefer not to. I rent on the street where a lot of people live for free and we pay for everything. So I actually need my money more then they do because they're homeowners and I'm not that privileged.
Work should pay people who do it in the first place.

Both private and state schools are very oversubscribed. The main difference is that behaviour in the state school where knife attacks and violence crime is normalcy. I would not be prepared to send my kids to state school under these circumstances. All pack and parcel of big cities you know.

Honestly that is just ridiculous.

In over 10 years of state education in the wilds of SE London, DD has yet to come home with tales of violence or knife attacks. It would be the total opposite of normalcy.

And private school doesn't mean no issues either: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cglxlljkgyzo

@Bosstanaka maybe you should move areas if that's the norm where you live. Because you and your children will still walk the same streets and who knows.

My kids have been in state schools for 21 years (different children obviously) all been in state secondary schools. There has been no knife crime, my kids have never been involved with violence. You comment is ridiculous

https://www.kentlive.news/news/kent-news/dane-court-grammar-reassures-parents-1815778

Totally! It has become very unsafe.

It’s been explained on many threads that whilst a lot of schools say they are full, they aren’t.
They set a number of students (PAN) which works for them financially, balancing number of students with the number of teachers they need to employ.
Adding a couple of students over the PAN can end up costing the school money.
If there was a sudden influx of students it would be worth increasing the PAN. The LA can offer temporary financial support to schools to increase the PAN as well.

Unless you work in admissions you don’t actually know what space is really available.

So one event and no one was stabbed. It's also a grammar so not the usual state school. Like I said before this has not happened in our area over the 21 years my kids have been in school. It's not the norm.

https://uk.news.yahoo.com/croydon-gangs-operate-outside-school-170000727.html

Like I said before, it didn't happen in my area. 21 years my kids have been in school. No it's not the norm no matter how many articles you look up.

Both areas where I have lived. Thankfully 😅 my OH was offered a job abroad with school fees paid and a thriving economy.

We were asked for our local areas. So that is my reply.