Flooding of state schools by ex indie students fails to materialise

[zaxxon]

An interesting story, given all the doomsaying we saw on here last year following the VAT policy change. It's great news that more families received their first choice of school this year.

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2025/mar/10/no-exodus-to-state-sector-after-vat-added-to-private-school-fees-say-english-councils?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other

Out of interest, @FixItFi , are you on glue?

Oh you’re being sarcastic, FixItFi. 🤣

Had me there. Tbf, there are some very extreme views on schools threads.

Love this!! Sums up the current government's attitude to education perfectly
Shocked more posters haven't sensed the sarcasm😂

The outstanding rated school we applied for went from a 5 mile catchment in 2023 to 3 miles in 2024 to 1 mile this year. The birth rate also fell. Stating "ex indie students fail to materialise" makes no sense based on this data.

Not sure which states schools kids going to independent schools applied in 2023 and 2024 but the 2025 data makes no sense if there isn't a private school exodus.

The outstanding rated school we applied for went from a 5 mile catchment in 2023 to 3 miles in 2024 to 1 mile this year. The birth rate also fell. Stating "ex indie students fail to materialise" makes no sense based on this data.

But was the 5 mile radius after places from the waiting list had been allocated, though? Because that won't have happened yet.

The 5 miles was based on first round offers because I checked the data in March of each year. The document on the council website providing offer details wasn't updated after March each of the years.

can you really conclude on causality from one data point though @roses2 ?

Round here the furthest offer varies hugely year on year. A primary school near us has an 8x further furthest distance this year compared with a few years ago. There's a lovely little private school round the corner too. Something like a less favourable Ofsted in a nearby school can massively change application numbers. One year they had over 50% siblings and a couple of pairs of twins. All sorts of reasons.

can you really conclude on causality from one data point though ?

What are the other plausible possibilities for an outstanding school to have a shrinking catchment year on year despite falling birth rates? It's either private school fees or new builds being built in the area which just happen to have a lot of kids born in 2013-2014. The first one is much more likely.

Interesting that yours bucked the trend, I'd love to know why. Have you heard anything anecdotally from parents? Maybe the rival independent school has made some unpopular decisions on top of the higher fees.

Don't forget parents with children deliberately moving into the area because the school is outstanding.

There's lots reasons a school catchment can shrink quickly. If there were eg three decent state schools in an area and one (A) gets a bad ofsted and one (B) has an ok one whilst one (C) is outstanding, application preferences switch.
Suddenly the outstanding one gets all the first preferences
Or another school A or B reduces PAN due to low numbers and people have the apply to C
Or a bus route stops so people can't get to school B / A and same applies.
Or council stops free bus passes
Or A / B has poor exam results year and C becomes more popular
The 5 mile thing could be a red herring too.
Maybe 99% lived within a mile but school not full then one child was further out and got a place.

Is that you Bridget…?

But if it's too expensive how can they afford it?

They simply don't have the data yet to make this claim.

Pre-2025 it was perfectly normal for every family intending or considering private to put in simultaneous applications to both indie and state schools, and then decide in April before the acceptance deadlines. When a family decides to go with their indie offer the state place is released and there's a second round of state allocations

All this article is saying is that there's no more applications to state than normal for the main-transition-point yeargroups. That's entirely to be expected. The "exodus", if it happens, will manifest in a few weeks time with a massive increase of families accepting their state offer rather than releasing it for 2nd-round applications.

It's far too early days to know this!! Most families with kids in independent schools I know (including me!) are waiting for an opportune moment such as change in school year, not sending younger siblings to independent school (us) or starting state sixth form in September rather that stay on. I suspect it will take a good year or 2 before the effects kick in.

There will definitely be a squeeze on school places in our area - they have been over subscribed already (not new) and lots of house building in our area too (several estates) so unless the government can create a lot more school places quickly, it will affect everyone.

Our area has some good state sixth forms nearby - my DC and most of his peers are moving to one of those now.

I think both my DC independent schools are feeling it... for example, one has decided after hundreds of years as an esteemed single sex school, to suddenly go co-ed - that is obviously not the school's line but it's obvious.

Once a private school has closed, that will be it. No one will open one in this climate - my children all attended one a few years ago that was closed, there are a lot of schools closing down.

You don't see the government squeezing out private hospitals or healthcare?!! Oh no, they are using private hospitals to reduce waiting times!!

Don't you think it doesn't matter if these families accept state school places or not as long as there's enough secondary school places for everyone?
I'm looking at last distance offered for a number of massively oversubscribed state secondaries (London) and it didn't change for 2025/2026 in comparison to 2 previous years.

There are a few different issues at play.

Whether there will be enough school places is one of those, and thanks to a drop in birth rate it may turn out that overall there are enough (though there may be localised issues/shortages).

However, we can’t tell anything at the moment because the overwhelming majority of private school applicants have always also applied to state schools. So no one was really expecting a massive upturn in application numbers at this stage.

As per PP any “crunch” will come in relation to the acceptance rate, if there is a shift from applicants using state school as a backup to using independent school as a backup and now accepting state school places in greater numbers.

If this happens it won’t be apparent until the first round of continuing interest at the earliest. But really it will take years for the effect to come through as some parents try to keep their kids in private schools until a natural exit point, while others who would have sent their kids private at 4+, 7+, 11+, 13+ or 6th form now no longer do so.

“There might be enough school places” also isn’t an answer for the massive disruption that this will cause to those families who do have to pull their kids out of indies, especially those halfway through exam courses and those with SEND.

Nor does it support the (ha ha) rationale for this policy of raising funds to improve state education. Every child that moves to state (or who doesn’t go to indie after all) ends up costing the public purse. Any SEND kids moving over will cause already very thin SEND provision to be stretched even further.

So the policy could end up causing a net drain on public finances. But we may struggle to find out as for some reason the government is not attempting to collect the relevant data…🧐

@ICouldBeVioletSky there will be no "crunch" if we are talking about natural entry points - even in popular school areas catchment didn't shrink.

VAT also didn't make impact on % of British pupils allicated their 1st choice for 25/26.

Genuinely not meaning to sound rude but you still seem to be missing the point.

Catchment areas/ first choice allocations staying the same on national offer day tells us nothing either way, because indie applications have always applied for state as well as private. The application behaviour won’t have changed this year so of course the NOD stats you have mentioned won’t have changed either.

There may or may not be a “crunch” - but at the moment there is no way to tell.

FWIW I think there will be a relatively small effect overall. No particularly noticeable effect in most places (thanks in part to falling birth rate) but a few hotspots where it is more apparent (fewer places coming up on continuing interest so catchments not growing from NOD/fewer ultimately getting first choice of school). Not the disaster predicted by some posters, but not “no effect” either.

@ICouldBeVioletSky it looks more like wishful thinking - again.

The application behaviour won’t have changed this year so of course the NOD stats you have mentioned won’t have changed either.

I don't agree with this. Surely if 2 years ago someone had a private school offer then they would have applied to any old state school as they were obliged to submit a state application whereas this year if someone who previously would have considered private but now are going state, they would be more targeted in their approach and apply to the better performing state schools.

The school I mentioned above where catchment shrank from 2 miles to 1 mile also had 531 applicants in 2024 vs 630 in 2025.

Sometimes school catchment shrinks because another school has rating downgraded or loses good reputation (see Holland Park sch and Fortismere).
Or school gains reputation due to good exam results etc.
Increase in # of applications to a particular school doesn't necessarily mean increase in # of applicants in the area.
I know at least 3 schools with catchment shrinking from year to year even before VAT and private pupils wouldn't even look at their direction even now.

No-one is obliged to apply for state schools. However, it has long been common for parents to apply for a place at a state school even though they intend to use an independent school. And no, they wouldn't apply to any old state school. They would apply to the better performing ones. Remember that they have to apply by the end of October for secondary schools, at which stage they may not know whether they've managed to get a place at an independent school. And, even if it is just a backup against something unexpected, they want a proper backup. They don't want their child to end up in a sink school if they can't go to the independent school.

Eh…I’m not so sure about this. We’re in the middle of applying to 3 Sixth Forms. Saw some ex-private kids we know (the year above DC), who are clearly now state pupils, giving tours at the state school open evenings.

As far as applications go…
School 1 sent us a letter after the application deadline closed, stating that they had a record number of applicants this year, and asked us to send in further evidence of DC’s attainment—previous school reports and mock results (presumably to further whittle down the pool of applicants).
School 2 sent us a letter after the application deadline closed, stating that they too have had a record number of applicants this year, and they are sorry, but they are not considering us for admission, and wish us the best of luck. I was surprised by this, because DC’s mock results significantly surpassed their entry requirements.
School 3 - haven’t heard anything yet.

I know a quite some people who will hold onto their state school place - local comps or grammars - until their DCs actually join the independent senior school of their choice in September. Usually for those stretching a lot for school fees and are not comfortable with higher fees with VAT or the current economic climate. They feel victimised too. Not great morally but I understand the sentiment.