Effect of VAT on admissions - any intel?

[BarqsHasBite]

We are applying for secondaries for DS, main target is an independent school but he’s also tried for a partially selective state school.

Am wondering if anyone has any intel on the effect on admissions numbers of Labour’s VAT on school fees policy?

I went to the open morning for our target school and having attended the same event last year numbers did seem down. In previous years it has been fully booked, but I’d say today the hall was 3/4 full at most. However, another nearby indy was also having an open day so that could have been a reason other than VAT.

On the state school side of the coin: my friend’s son sat the entrance exam for QE Barnet and she estimated there were 4,000 boys sitting it over two days - if so that’s up around a third on last year!

Does anyone else have any actual or anecdotal insights please?

Yep @newmum1976 I think the irony of the policy in this bit of London might be that admissions to very good state sixth forms are more dominated by the wealthy, with less places for bright students who have over achieved their schools GCSE average. However, I am not an expert on state school sixth form admissions criteria so I can't comment on this in detail. It's hardly surprising that the policy will lead to more wealthy parents using places at good state schools ...

You’re right of course that the government could hardly admit in parliament that state SEN provision is a disaster - though they could and no doubt would have a pop at the Tories about the state they got it into.

But equally (how) could they credibly argue that it’s all a rose garden and there’s really no need for any parent to send SEN child to an independent? Yes, some SEN kids are very well supported in the state system but for huge numbers that’s not the case. I really don’t know the answer.

I largely blame Labour for the amount of airtime this is getting, why aren’t they coming up with proper costed proposals which would actually make a difference to state education? It suits them well to turn it into an ideological battle between the haves and the have-nots,
means no-one is actually scrutinising their shortcomings.

We just got a mail from a very popular local girls independent school that they are increasing the fees by 20% from January because of VAT.
It was the most competitive independent school to get into in the area and had waiting list. But this time I think they still have space.

Our local private school have an £18 million wish list, new gymnasium, boarding houses etc. I wonder if this will slow it down.

They take SEN pupils from here and abroad paid for by many local education authorities. My friends son went there 7 years ago as a day pupil. Fees then were £31k. This will hurt councils.

That's a reason for the government to fix the SEN situation in state schools which it should. It is not a reason to enable independent education.

The state doesn't "enable" indy schools. If anything indy schools relieve pressure on state. Currently indy schools pay VAT on all purchases but can't re-claim it, they will now be able to do that plus will have to charge VAT to parents.

My DIL has been increasingly concerned re her DCs math progress at primary. She signed up for a maths app suitable to their ages. Spent the summer catching up because they were so far behind. Both bright children.

Last week the year threes were buddied up with year fours and set English and math tests.

My grandchild year three did the math one, helping the year four who hadn't ever seen it.

Now this year four is drowning in SEN children, TAs laid off because of 15% budget cuts in 12 months. It's a perfect storm for the teaching staff.

My advice check your child's abilities independently of the glowing reports that the school give. If necessary augment their education.

I have some intel right here OP:

The effect will be that those who can afford it will still go to private school

And their parents will continue not to give a flying crap about the majority of kids who can't.

Wow! thank you, that was very informative

This is very far from the truth. My children will remain in private school. We will find the money. However, I do care about lovely friends who might not be able to afford it. I care about the lovely staff at schools who might now be made redundant.

Also quite far from the truth here!

I’ve helped one friend with her EHCP application to get specialist state provision and I helped someone else (who I don’t even know!) prepare their secondary school appeal on SEN grounds.

I’ve also been involved in successful campaigning to expand our local secondary school as kids from where I live were being sent to a faith school a long journey away across the other side of town (no buses, no safe or easy walking route) or single sex schools (again, travel to the girls’ school is difficult and not necessarily safe). This has included lobbying councillors, our MP, petitions etc.

During the pandemic I lobbied our MP to try to get mobile phone companies to make it free to access learning websites such as BBC Bitesize and White Rose. This is because I was concerned that the only access to online learning that some families had was via mobile phones, and data charges meant it was prohibitive. The MP’s office took this up with the mobile phone companies, though it turned out there were technical reasons why it wasn’t as easy as I hoped (eg they couldn’t make BBC bite size free without giving free access to all BBC content).

My family benefits from none of this and I’m very much aiming to send my kids to independent secondary schools next year and the year after.

I’ve also volunteered to listen to kids read at our local infants school (my kids were pupils but am not sure they be benefited from me hearing other kids read), and I’ve donated a lot of clothes (mainly spare pants and socks), craft materials and huge numbers of books to the school since my kids left.

Perhaps you’d like to share what you’ve done to improve state education?

Too right @BarqsHasBite , look forward to hearing about that contribution!

I’ve also been a volunteer reading listener at our local state primary school where my children didn’t and won’t attend.

I help sixth formers with their personal statements (though that will stop now with the new policy) for university at the local comp - boys and girls at a school I have no connection with - but I do get a thrill when I get thank you cards telling me what uni they got into.

most of the private school parents I know contribute to their local school or community in some way either with their money or their time and for entirely altruistic reasons that don’t benefit them or their family. So sick of all the crap that gets flung our way!

This is abit misrepresented. What it was is that where there is not a school place available the parent/child cannot access fair access protocol if they already have a school place elsewhere. Rather than making people wait until their child had actually left the indepdent school parents were being allowed fair access protocol if they were able to prove they couldn’t afford the fees, if the la wanted to be pedantic they could just make people wait until the child was out of school completely then they’d be a delay while they had no school at all.

Under normal vat rules the vat point is the earlier of when payment is received or when an invoice is raised so not sure what tax experts are saying the opposite.

If there Sen is severe enough they should be able to get an ehcp which means the fees of a school that could meet needs would be funded in full by the la including vat if that was the named school. Trouble is the ehcp system is completely broken, it takes years and a lot of fighting by parents which can be soul destroying and incredibly stressful. Lots of parents where the child should be entitled to an ehcp choose not to fight snd instead send their child to an independent thst they self fund. To get a grant to fund the vat I’d imagine they’d have as big a fight to prove Sen as they would for an ehcp so it just wouldn’t work

If councils pay the fees with vat added they are able to reclaim the vat

Yes, I agree it wouldn’t work from an SEN assessment perspective- the above was in reply to a poster suggesting different VAT treatments by pupil.

No that's wrong. You have to give 1 term's notice to leave indy so that parent went to Bucks County to apply for state school place. She was told she had to prove that she couldn't afford the fees. That is downright discrimination and Bucks County have subsequently apologised and retracted that as it amounted to means testing.
They can't have it both ways, tax parents past point of affordability but then require proof that they can't afford the fees in order to access a state place.

She had given one terms notice but the child was still at school they hadn’t left and were without a school place. Once the child had actually left the independent school and there was no school place available then they couldn’t insist on her proving she couldn’t afford to go back to a private school before fair access protocol happened. where they went wrong was asking for her to prove affordability so as to start the process early. Strictly they could have just said come back once child is out of school then we will activate fair access protocol.

the same when people are moving house, the la won’t give you a school place in advance you actually have to have moved into the area so there can be a period of time where a child has no school to go to.

In recent yrs there has been a trend to move PE dc to a good state 6th form & birth rates are also dropping so not everything can be because of increased VAT.

The current Y7s are the last high birth rate year, it drops sharply with the current Y6s, so this will have an impact on secondary starters next year. Shouldn’t impact the 6th form position for a good few years.

Where I live there a lot of new houses have been built which seems to more than cancel out the drop in birth rate, but that is very specific to this area (and a few others no doubt). London different again with families moving out. So yes, a number of different factors at play.

Still interesting to know if state places have become much more competitive and independent places less so - or not.

Our local primary is bulging because they've built two new housing estates. There's a plan in place to extend the school in two years 🙄

The easing of school places due to decreased birth rate depends on the year group obviously.

But my DC were right smack in the midst of the "baby bulge" and there was a bit of a bunfight for school places when they started at primary. Now they're nearly at the end of secondary school, it naturally follows that the very same "baby bulge" and tight supply of school places will still apply going into higher year groups. Those children haven't magically poofed out of existence

True but I would also expect that those whose children have only one or two years left are most likely to find a way to absorb the extra costs (even if it’s as a loan) than disrupt their child’s education.

Lower down the school or pre admission is where people are more likely to consider disruption.

@TinyCarpetRake Im not sure what your point was. Drops in birth rate obviously doesn’t mean children disappear, I don’t think anyone thinks that. But the baby boom is over …