Read this an tell me you still agree with VAT on school fees

[Sally20099]

DS is 3 years from finishing private school which includes 2 years in the sixth form. DD was due to start same senior school in Sept. Both went to private prep but due to talk of VAT on fees, and certainty of Labour govt for some time, we actually investigated sending DD to state secondary school. Only one in the entire city is rated outstanding but DD has got a place so we have decided to send her there. It’s very good academically but obviously hasn’t got the facilities of the private option. Currently school fees are £19,300 per year (before VAT) for DS so we have saved a reasonable sum by going to state school with DD. DS will finish at his school and we could afford DD fees (even with VAT) so we will instead put £12k a year extra in savings for DD and then spend the rest of the savings on an extra winter holiday. We would have never looked at state schools without the VAT policy and instead we have taken the place of someone at an outstanding rated school. Im not posting to annoy anyone, I wanted those who unequivocally support this to see some of the consequences. We also know a reasonable number of children in DS year who can’t afford fees with VAT and are taking their children out of private and going into state - and taking more places at the limited good schools. Its probably no surprise that most families in private schools happen to also live in good areas, meaning catchment areas tend to work out quite well when they go state.

I found out today that we won’t qualify for the fuel allowance because, although we have a very limited income and my DH has dementia, we don't claim Pension Credit because I have a very small SE income. But you know what OP? I support the Labour government in their efforts to make society fairer and in my opinion you should suck it up. If your DS has 3 years left including 6th form, why not send him to your local 6th form college after GCSEs? The staff there might even be better qualified (see another thread). There's nothing to say the 'outstanding' state school will be worse than the private one. It will be different. But that's life for most of us.

Let's be honest, you don't give a shit about the poor child who lost a place at the school your DD will now be going to.
It's also great that she will have 100k to spend when she finishes school. Maybe she can spend that on university fees and not rely on student loan which the government inevitably funds.

It does feel good! Top 5% pay 50% of all income tax receipts. It’s nice to get something back for all that money going out. I find it incredible that so many people think it’s fair to take what others have! I earn my money and happy to pay tax but others don’t have a right to it just because they earn less.

Surely you just need to value education a bit more highly, and make sacrifices? I'm told that's what distinguishes private school parents from the rest of us.

Yup - I will always fight for choice and solutions to enable choice for all. Glad to be of help!

'I earn my money and happy to pay tax but others don’t have a right to it just because they earn less.'
but that's exactly how the tax system works. Our taxes fund public services, which are sometimes used - shock/horror - by poor people.

You say you're happy to pay tax, but you really sound like you're not.

I highly doubt middle-class parents would actually be that effective at pushing through "reform and improvement of the entire state system, of all state schools".

It'd be like abolishing Bupa in an attempt to force rich patients to lobby you the goverment for a better NHS system, meanwhile by abolishing private healthcare- you've hugely increased demand on an already overstretched NHS and reduced its resources.

It's not the smoking gun that some people might think.

OP's scenario sounds like cutting off your nose to spite your face. On a wider level, it makes no difference to anyone on here whether you send both your DC to private school or not. On a personal level, it does sound like a recipe for future family resentment. Daughter resentful that her brother got a "superior" education, son resentful that his sister gets a lump sum. As neither of them are involved in the decision making process, they both have the potential to say later that they wish you had made different choices. At least if you follow the same pathway for each child they can't claim it is unfair.

Exactly - no choice for anyone about their Accident and Emergency provider. You have to dial 999. Based on this principle it should be amazing but clearly it isn’t. School system is no different. Roads are the same. Everyone has to use them and they are still rubbish etc etc

Yes, I know that, but I was talking about primary - around age 8/9, when an extra boost with reading could make a real difference. By secondary many kids have given up.

I haven’t weighed in on the private school VAT debate so far but I wondered how many ppl were aware that as part of their charitable status, most (if not all) private schools offer scholarships and bursaries to individuals and also share their facilities (think sports equipment/fields, swimming pools, drama facilities, etc) with state schools, and the public in general. If charitable status is removed then there’s a pretty good argument for private schools to offset their increased costs by becoming the commercial enterprise that they are already vilified for being….ie charge market rate for these facilities.

That rather depends on the child. Not all children in the same family go private. I suspect dd actually prefers the state option to the 'hot house' now she's had a chance to look around, otherwise OP would probably be trying to find the money for the VAT, rather than live with the guilt!

Stop stop op! You're sounding even more like a ks1 child at playtime! Ner ner ner etc.
Anyone would think you've actually enjoyed the last 14 years of 'government'.

But that is exactly what you're saying by paying for the privilege of getting a better education. Kids from poor backgrounds don't have the option to pay for this superior education and so are resigned to substandard education.

Standards in public schools are far superior to state schools and only kids from rich families have the opportunity to attend them ipso facto, rich kids get a good education, poor kids get substandard education. It's a basic fact.

Why are rich kids more deserving of a good education than poor kids? Why should access to a good quality education depend on how much money Mummy and Daddy earns?

And for what it's worth, I also don't agree with Grammar schools and I'm glad that most of the country have done away with them. Saying that, at least Grammar schools admit kids on merit rather than how much money their parents can afford to shell out

I highly doubt middle-class parents would actually be that effective at pushing through "reform and improvement of the entire state system, of all state schools".

I agree. But I think that, under the current system, they won't even try.

Though I suspect you meant something like 'silver bullet' rather than 'smoking gun'😉

laraitopbanana, oh dear where did you get a year from ??? you too don't have emotional intelligence. It is not just a year, it is a childhood 😂. Where did gender discrimination come into it 🤣😂🤣😂the OP has a DS and a DD that's why it was mentioned, but maybe you are right? Good point there! Maybe the daughter would see it as a gender thing. Depends on family dynamics and income providers 🤔. Trust me I know people who are already there and it wasn't because of Labour charging VAT, but financial circumstances 🤷. It is a thin line when treating children equally. Just look at all the posts on it on MumsNet where the root cause is being treated unfavorably to siblings. FYI my children went to public school.

See I think this is this continuing misconception all private schools provide a better education than free government schools.... they don't! Maybe the top top ones - but most are just average schools offering something different to the government system.

I have twins and my son in his free government school gets a better education than his sister in a private school. She was in a brilliant top free government school but mental health / sen needs meant we had to move her to a more nurturing environment so she could cope. She has not had a better education, she has not had better pastoral support, her grades are lower than her brother's now (previously similar when both in free government primary) - what she has had is a school with smaller class sizes so she can better manager her sensory overload - and a school that when she missed so many classes did not send me a letter like a government school that her place was at risk.

To be fair, before I experienced a private school I would have assumed it was superior to a government school....but my two private school experiences with my daughter is that her brother's free government school from an academic point of view is much much better.

If everybody paid in just a little more it would raise far more money.

Couldn’t have said it better. Maybe spare a thought for those children when you are on your extra winter holiday 😕!!!!

I think roads actually presents quite a good analogy: 1 county has lovely resurfaced roads; another county is full of crater-sized potholes. Instead of resurfacing the poor roads, let’s just go and drill up the roads in the good county - there, now everyone has craters, yay!

But private schools WILL still exist?!? This policy won’t alter that. It will just mean that they become more elite and have even less social diversity.

The whole premise of this policy (or so I thought) was that by removing the exempt status you created money to raise standards in state schools. My argument is that this is the wrong policy to do that 🤷

grammar school admission based on merit? - more so but let’s be honest, tutoring in the primary school you attended plays a big part!

It's a shame you didn't find out about state schools sooner, you could have saved so much more money and maybe spared your children from two very different school experiences.

But how does the tax payer funding dd's schooling help lift children out of poverty? Abolishing the 2 child cap would make a much bigger difference, surely? But they won't do that because they've promised not to raise income tax or VAT - and that's what people voted for.

All four of my parents and parents-in-law have said today to me that its absolutely fair that the WFP should only go to people who are struggling to pay bills.

And DS won't get a big uni fund. Do you think either of them will thank you for this unequal treatment?