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?

Do your colleagues live in Bristol? Bristol uni offers contextual offers in their access to Bristol scheme for local kids doing a levels in state schools no matter where that state school is in the Bristol area. But I don’t know of other universities that do this, I don’t think it normally works like this.

Bristol has a list of ‘aspiring’ schools that qualify for a contextual offer. The list has decreased significantly for the 2025 admissions cycle - down to 23 pages from 32 last year for England - and some of the anomalies like Peter Symonds and BHASVIC have gone.

No, nowhere near Bristol. I can’t remember exactly what he said as the conversation was at least 6 months ago. He said his son had got a contextual offer, I must have looked a bit surprised (as above I’m pretty sure they’d meet none of the Polar4 type criteria) and he said it was because his son’s school was deemed to be either low achieving or having a disadvantaged intake overall.

Ah, this must be it - thanks.

Bristol even managed to include a school that didn’t have a sixth form last year. I’m not surprised that its list has been somewhat trimmed for this year.

13,000 according to this news article which is 2% of the total no of kids in private school

https://inews.co.uk/news/education/13000-pupils-leaving-private-schools-vat-fees-3307218

It will become clearer next year how many people with kids at the entry point now (Reception Age or Year 7) are going state instead of private as I suspect that is when most people will.make the switch rather than part way through their schooling.

Ok so I’m a random internet stranger repeating what’s been said elsewhere by a random internet stranger:

Latymer [allegedly] went from c.2400 11+ applicants last year to 3285 this year. 😮

Thanks @roses2 some really good analysis in that article including trying to separate out the effect of falling birth rates from numbers falling for other reasons (mainly VAT, presumably, but could be other things too).

This stat doesn’t take that into account but is an early quantification of the expected effects - this is for current year 7s presumably so for next year’s intake it’s likely to be much more stark.

“key “intake” years are seeing the biggest reductions – with a 4.6 per cent drop in numbers in Year 7, the secondary transition year; a fall of 3.7 per cent for reception and a 2.4 per cent drop in Year 3 as some independent prep schools start at age seven.

I won't be surprised if applicants are up for the top performing private schools and down considerably for the average performing private schools (the ones that achieve similar academic results to state). When people are paying more they expect better output.

Yes I’m sure there will be some movement in that direction.

But interestingly that article suggested that a sizeable number of parents were looking at moving their children from more expensive to cheaper private schools - perhaps because many feel there are no decent/ sufficiently local state schools available to them.

Obviously expensive doesn’t automatically equate to higher performing, but overall I suspect there is a correlation (and that the very top performing schools feel they can charge a premium). So maybe there is movement both ways across the sector.

The implementation of VAT on private school fees could make it harder for parents with children in mid-ranked private schools—those not in the top tier and whose results aren't particularly strong. Paying up to 20% more without seeing a corresponding level of academic rigor makes the value proposition less appealing.
In contrast, the demand for top private schools, which consistently deliver strong academic outcomes, is expected to remain high, though they may still lose some of their brightest students. Each year, some private school students successfully apply to grammar schools, but traditionally, only a small fraction actually move. With rising costs, however, a larger percentage of those qualifying might take up the offer to switch to grammar schools, although the overall numbers making this switch are likely to remain small. This is largely because gaining admission to grammar schools remains very challenging, and hence the overall impact of this shift will probably be limited.

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2024/oct/05/doubts-grow-over-labours-vat-plan-for-private-schools?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other

Some plonker on TV yesterday said they'd spend the vat on 6500 more teachers, well umm teachers leave the profession how will they tempt them back?

Well who'd a thunk it. They really are in lala land pushing for January.

Absolutely - all this analysis about this year’s figures vs last year’s year’s figures is rather meaningless if they don’t factor into the calculations the decline in pupil numbers due to a falling birth rate.

I was coming to post the same article.
Interesting on many fronts, including that for the first time The Guardian (hardly a paper you can accuse of favouring private education) outlining the lack of readiness but also the rather significant point that no impact assessment has been released. This last point is rather significant as policy changes of this nature always always always assessed in terms of the impact, including on specific groups - so either the work has not been done (which would go against the rules of good policy making) or it has been done but not released (which would lead to questioning what is in it that does not fit the Reeves' narrative).

It wasn't done until last minute because Labour were so arrogant to believe they could just introduce it without one. So one was hastily commissioned but no answer yet as to the content. The Treasury has already told them to end Nom Dom scheme.
I mean you could say that it looks like Labour hadn't thought through any of their manifesto promises that they had years in opposition to do......I wouldn't like to say!:

Neither would I... but as mentioned above, either not properly done or done and not released as not palatable for the narrative of this ideologically (rather than evidence) based policy. Which is interesting in itself as Ms Reeves presents herself as the voice of economic rationale (including mentioning always her stint aa a junior at the Bank of England and obviating her work at HBOS during not precisely glorious times for the company). Rather "will tell you what suits", who would have thought?