If the government bought out all the private school…

[Tiredalwaystired]

inspired by the thread where a parent was incredulous when they investigated their local state school and really liked it after sending their kid to private school until now without having investigated state at all.

Imagine a world where we decided there was no more private/state school divide.

Imagine the government bought out all the private schools exactly as they are - same teachers, class sizes etc.

But instead of being exclusive anyone could now apply and they had the same admission requirements as any other school.

Would you be happy with this arrangement? Would you have any concerns?

Same for us!

Are you saying that those that currently go to state schools are being brainwashed?

No, not at all. It's an "if government bought out" question so hypothetical? Just saying if there wasn't choices and everything was state run and state controlled we start losing choices. It's never young to happen so just throwing comments in.

@Unexpecteddrivinginstructor With the exception of a handful of private most faith schools are state schools.The gov could easly convert all faith schools to comprehensives if they wanted. Instead they open new state faith schools. So it is not about affordability

I'd love it. There should be different types of schools. Steiner, forest, montessori, engineering types schools.

Yes I'd love this. State schools are nasty, awful places.

Well with respect I don't think that anyone in your fortunate position of having a good State option should be lecturing those of us who didn't.
I was told to try and find an alternative for DD by teachers at the only State option we had.
Of course we are fortunate too that we were able to pay for an alternative but I find it a bit rich when people who are anti Private schools criticise from a place of having good State provision available. DH was Anti Private, didn't see the need - until we visited the options available to us for DD, he quickly changed his mind

@Hoppinggreen - I agree with you. I am so grateful that we have access to great state schools and don’t have to sacrifice eg holidays and savings just to educate our DCs. Every child deserves a great state education. Sadly, it’s a massive postcode lottery (or postcode management system…).

Let’s be honest, any former private schools that fall into state hands will be sold off to developers and used to meet house building targets.

Not only very high earners. I'm a very middle-earner.

DS has two years left at school. Half fees mean I will pay £21k including 5 terms VAT at 20%. I'm in my 60s. It means I need to work another 20 months.

If I didn't need to pay his fees, I'd stop work now.

Yes - im probably middle too depending on your view - and we have two DC at private school at the moment so it's a very real thought as to what we do in the future!!

If Labour want to buy the indi in my village with 100 acres of land and make it the same criteria to get in then yes as I live right next door.

However OP do you live near a private SEN school? Fancy swopping your NT for my disabled child to get a nice small class size, better than adverage GCSEs passes, a life of past trauma in state? The possibility you won't sit many gcses if any and if your asked to leave your next option is the PRU?

If state bought indi schools they would brown field the surrounding land. Why keep class sizes of 8? States great init at 30 kids so why would want the perks of a system you hate?

The posts just stink of jealousy. I repeat that I could never offord indi. But I'm not bitter or rubbing my hands in glee.

So much hate for private yet longing for to get these kids and parents into local schools.

When / if the flashy village school goes bust, under charity rules it couldn't have been split up and sold for profit. It could now. The offending leafy fields can be a new housing estate. 100 acres of it. Lovely. Brown field in the green belt to.

No lecturing. Mine was the initial question. If all the private schools could (forget realities like funding etc) be made state with the same facilities but everyone able to access them, would you be in favour? The only difference is they are open to all. I’m guessing yes from your answer.

I fail to see any of what you’ve said reflected in my initial question. You're projecting massively here and filling in gaps where I have t said anything.

Also interesting that you make assumptions about my connection with SEN. I am very well acquainted with our local SEN state secondary. Not my child but my nephew who has profound autism.

Of course, I doubt any decent person would have an issue with that.
However, it will never happen unfortunately and a lot of children will continue to not get the education they deserve here in The UK and VAT on fees will price out a lot of Middle earners and become more elite

In my city there are 2 extremely old established well known private (part boarding and lots of international) schools and a GDST.
The two old schools won't close. The fees are already ludicrous and the international element will keep them going.
The GDST won't close as it's propped up by the network.

However, considering the relatively large area that all three take day kids from, even if they all closed and the kids joined state- there would be spaces in the city state system.
It's not like all the private kids live in the same catchment so it's relatively small numbers we are talking about per state school.
We definitely woudnt need another state school.

Wouldn’t high earners reducing their hours mean more people are employed overall? Seems like a good thing.

@Changed18 - I don’t think so because the highest paid sectors IT, banking, commercial law, large business owners - the highest paid there all work at least 4 days a week. You can’t really cut hours in those top jobs. You have to move down on the career ladder. There are no top paid jobs without lots of hours and responsibility.

If the employers can’t get the workforce here and they are international businesses, they take the whole business abroad. No business wants to hire 3 employees to do one job, it’s inefficient and loses them money.
So limiting highly skilled IT workers from eg India that Rachel Reeves has already proposed is very short sighted and will harm the economy. Of course we should be training our own, but we are not doing it fast enough.
This country is full of big ideas but always lacks implementation and full planning and analysis. So it will decline further. The private school VAT is a prime example of this.

Not in many types of jobs - I have done my job full time and part time (well, 4 days). Nobody else is employed to cover that extra day.

But if lots of people are working four days then there could well be the capacity to employ someone else for their own four days.

As a freelancer, rather than kill myself by taking on everything I’m offered, I’ve often suggested clients use more people, and I’ve sometimes suggested possible people from my network. Then everyone gets to work more relaxed hours - if they want to - albeit earning slightly less. It gave me the flexibility to work from home and choose my hours during the primary school years, pre-Covid as well as during covid. I don’t see why that couldn’t happen in employment as well.

I can see that in some industries but i really think it depends on the role and if you're CEO or director of finance etc they don't recruit someone else to cover your one day.

Presumably CEOs/CFOs find it less easy to cut their hours anyway. But if they did, they might employ someone further down the ladder they can delegate to. Would be a bit cheaper and open up a new opportunity - perhaps also part-time - for someone looking for their next step.

Not so much these days - it's much more common. If they do that then the person further down the chain is likely to be paying less tax. But in reality a few higher earners at the top of the triangle reducing to 4 days isn't going to result in more people being recruited. That's just my experience but I expect it is different in different industries.

@SwordToFlamethrower
State schools are nasty, awful places.

Labeling all state schools the same way is an utter nonsense.

Imagine state school has 15K budget per annum per pupil....

I thought private schools spend a lot of that 15k on building and ground maintenance and extra curricular? How much more do they actually spend on academic teaching in the key subjects? The class sizes are smaller but they aren’t spending that much more there than state schools?