Urgent Help - Year 9 school places for six children required asap

[2010louises]

I'm posting on behalf of a friend who would prefer to remain anonymous, could any one help or offer her advice please ?
"Do any parents whose children are in Year 9 know of any local schools whose classes have room for 1 child (or up to 6 kids) ? My son is being forced to change schools at short notice , he is one of six kids in his year who are in the same situation, all the parents are now scrambling for a school that has spaces available. I have contacted my Local Authority (Bromley) and been told despite classes being full , not to worry as by law the local authority have to find him / them a place, so in the meantime we have to join the waiting lists "

Sorry I thought it was pervert. Blimey, those fees are astronomical! Still think it could be worth taking out a loan. My ex boyfriend had to leave private for state and it hugely affected him. He was badly bullied and had been brought up to see state as inferior and so felt his parents had let him down. He had such a chip on his shoulder about it.

You can get on the waiting list for schools without leaving your current school. It's called preparedness, something parents who send their kids privately surely ought to know more about than most (I'm ignoring the other points in your post, which are fatuous at best). There is literally no excuse for parents who find themselves without a plan at this stage.

It’s been on the cards for much longer than Labour have been in power. My husband and I were looking into private school for our son who is autistic and has ADHD - he would have really benefitted from smaller class sizes and a smaller school for secondary. This was for Sept 23, so we were looking about a year before that. My husband was very worried about managing the fees for 5 or 7 years and kept saying “when Labour get in they’ll put VAT on fees and they’ll jump 20% in one go” - so it has been a risk for quite a few years now. Granted it may not have happened, but it was a sure thing Labour were getting in this year after the past 14 years of chaos.

My son didn’t go to a private school in the end - they all turned him down - gave some stupid excuse about him needing full time 1-2-1 (never had it in his 30 class primary) and that he would struggle with moving classrooms on their “big campus” - he is managing fine in his 240 entry state school!

My experience with private schools and the amazing welcome my son’s state school gave him (they told us how excited they were to have him join them - I could have cried after all the rejections we got) has really changed my view on eduction in this country. I am supportive of the VAT on school fees, I think all education should be state run and more money invested in it.

i wish these 6 boys well in finding a place. A neighbour of mine had to move her son out of private when she split from his dad, about the same age as these boys - he’s done fantastically at the local state school and just gone off to a RG uni to do a good degree.

I do agree, this has been on the cards for years, although only heavily publicised this last year.

Many private schools, like mine, have done our bit too, knowing it was likely ahead we have increased fees more over the past 3 years than we would have, meaning we can now reduce the fees, thus reducing the VAT and therefore making it only about 10% actual increase to the parent.

Our head and bursar have held a few parents talks, the first this time last year, advising of what was likely to come.

If a place comes up after being on a waiting list, you then have to decide immediately whether or not to accept it. You can’t just keep it open. Parents do not want to move children unless it was absolutely necessary. Parents could not really start making firm plans and decisions until they knew what was happening. Many schools still haven’t announced their fee increases for January.

Contact Bromley admissions and ask which schools have in-year spaces in Year 9. There is a form you complete and then it gets sent to the schools. The schools should then contact you to get admissions meetings organised. The reality is that you'll need to do some chasing to keep everything moving as it should.

Many children in the current year 9 will have been in the private system since 2015. The possibility of VAT has only become a real possibility over the last 3 years or so. Whilst parents will have budgeted for fee increases, many wont have budgeted for high inflation (affecting fees and living costs), cost of living crisis, covid implications, plus an overnight 20% hike in fees. The 20% hike is the final straw for many families. Blaming families for finding themselves in this position is rather unpleasant.

Yes, most state schools start teaching GCS in Y9, too, ie they deliver the syllabus over 3 years, starting in Jan after options have been taken. Sep/y10 may be too late.

@Another76543 - true but before the summer term started last year it was clear it was coming in this year and the idea to start year 9 knowing you couldn’t afford year 10 or 11 rather than try to move to start year 9 in a new school seems reckless.

@2010louises

why would anyone think starting a new school in year 10 would be better than in year 9? At best they’d finish this year before the VAT charge came in and then what, try to find a school that’s offering the same gcse choices as their boy was already going for? Most schools will have made their students pick gcse options and set groups and timetables before the school year finishes in year 9, anyone joining in year 10 may only be able to have the gcse combination that have spare spaces.

anyone who had thought about it would have started moving at the end of year 8. For 6 families to make the same poor decision is surprising.

If you know you can't absorb a 20% hike - whenever it happens - you either save up a couple of terms' worth of increase when the policy looks likely to give yourself time to find a place or you take the place offered to you early on. If you can't save up 20% of 2 terms over 3 years I would wonder if you were in too precarious a position financially to send your kids private. After all, life happens doesn't it.

Sorry you must have misunderstood , it’s an extra £450 PER MONTH (not per year) . Her husband’s an electrician and already taking all the overtime his employer can offer but it’s not enough to cover the extra vat

I can’t be 100% sure but think she said she pays about £8500 per term , 3 terms in a year
means the extra vat alone is now over £5000 a year

That sounds about right for private senior school

There are a good number of parents who really scrimp and save to pay for private, often because the child has SEN requirements that are better met by the private sector

Alas children will be harmed by this policy whichever way it's applied.

She has already spoken to the school re the possibility of a bursary , unfortunately the school have been inundated with requests and they’ve had to , with regret , say sorry but no as with multiple kids being pulled out they need to start reducing bursary support not increasing . To be fair to the school, about 30% of their pupils are already on bursarys as their parents are on low income / benefits etc
this school does a lot to help local community / poorer areas , it’s a very “ordinary” school tbh , my friend always joked her old battered car never looked out of place amongst all the other parents cars as they were just as old and battered !

It is not a policy I support especially. I wish state schools had the money to support kids with SEN properly (although in my experience state schools are actually better at this I concede my experience is not all encompassing). Let's hope that changes, but yes there is a group of kids who will be affected right now. It's the parents' duty to mitigate that.

This last minute panicking is down to parents not preparing for the change properly and not the policy itself. I'm sure many parents do scrimp and save to send their kids private - many families couldn't do this if they wanted to - but if you decide to rely on a system that depends on your income when there is a state funded alternative then it is your duty to your kids to have a contingency in place. If you can't afford in a year an increase that amounts to a new boiler and a major car repair or your cat needing dental surgery then you couldn't afford to send them in the first place.

It sounds as if even without the VAT increase it must have been extremely stressful for your friend to have afforded private school for her son. Maybe this will turn out to be a blessing in disguise as they will no longer be under this huge financial pressure. I would never have considered independent education without a comfortable contingency, as you never know what life will throw at you.

What about looking at an online school like Minerva while she waits for a good state place to come up? It'll be a lot less than she pays now she'll have extra money for extracurricular activities etc.

Also, why doesn't your friend just join Mumsnet and post herself? It must be annoying for you to have to relay all these messages to her.

Yes, I did misunderstand. It's an extra £5k per term. Still, at year 9 i think it would be a good idea to take out a loan rather than move them. Or sell stuff. If you can afford £27k a year in fees, you surely have access to credit or have some bits and bobs you could sell?

£450 a month is a lot of money for many people. But if you have chosen to pay for private school I would hope that out of your monthly income you'd have at least this amount to save / gave as emergency money or have savings put away that you can use on these circumstances. It seems reckless to push yourself so close to the edge financially that funding this much for one school year that you do not have access to this amount of cash. Then it would get them to the end of this school year which is what the mum wanted.

I know the replies to this will be about £450 a month / 5 grand being loads of cash and who the hell has that spare? I'd expect someone who's chosen a luxury option rather than a standard option (ie state) to have it. Unless there are specific reasons such as SEND which there don't appear to be in this instance.

I do genuinely feel sorry for the kids. But the parents could have planned so much better than they have.

Do NOT tell your friend to sign up to online school as the Council may deem this an education (and online school incurs fees and notice periods too). Bromley Council are very clear. You have to prove you gave notice to a private school first before submitting the in-year application. For anyone else stating you can just go on a waiting list, it is incorrect. Once the children are out of school the Fair Access Protocol kicks in and the Council are legally obliged to find them a school place within a set time period. If they fail to do so, the parents will be successful on appeal.

Bromley is a very large LA, where does your friend live?

The FAP only kicks in when the children have been out of school for at least 4 weeks. There is no legal time period within which the council is obliged to find a school place. It is, however, true that parents are likely to succeed at appeal if the council hasn't offered a place by then.

So your friends are paying £25k a year and the fees have gone up to £30,500 a year, and this isn’t possible for them to find the extra £5.5k and they won’t borrow it.

can’t believe their stupidity to put their heads in the sand about this - it has been a Labour Party policy since 2017, when this child was in year 2. It’s been obvious since before this boy started secondary school that Labour would win the next election and their child would be in year 9 or at best year 10.

why would anyone sign their child up for private secondary school knowing they could only just afford it and before their child hits GCSEs, the fees will go up by 20% and they’ll have to move them anyway. And then being that foolish, once Labour did get in power, waited until they couldn’t actually afford the next terms fees before even looking into how to move them into the state sector.

had they made no plans at all? It’s such unbelievable behaviour.

Yes, it is. The government has announced that 20% VAT will be added to private school fees from 1st January 2025 and will apply to any fees paid from 29th July 2024 onwards related to the term starting in January or subsequent terms.

Try Charles Darwin School. It's a good school. I'd be surprised if there aren't any places.