Yr10 DD's school closing - please help me think it through.

[TheCheeseTax]

My girl is Y10 at an independent school. It's sadly closing at the end of the academic year.

DD has autism, diagnosed, but does well. She's academic, strong, stubborn. She loves hard and has friends. She is quirky, can come across as aloof.

We are considering school, both private and state. But here's the thing - we can't find anywhere which matches her current subject's boards exactly.

The school we'd like to send her to has her friends there and more will likely
join. But none, not one, of the subjects match the current board.

Our boys' school matches the subject spec for only 1 bit at least she'd have 2 friends there and her brothers (but she might not ever see those friends).

There's another school which matches the specs (not sure if all, but a lot of them) but she knows no one there at all.

There's a school which would be v diff to anything she's known which can match all but one and we'd have to take her through somehow (but we could make it work).

Does anyone have any insight on how damaging it can be for a Y10 to move schools and have to start her subjects again for the new boards? The schools are all confident (save for the last one) that they can manage her (and whoever joins her in the move) and they have the space, time and man-power to do so.

Help, please. I am so sorry for my lovely girl. She's putting on a brave front but the thought of moving schools is eating her up.

Thanks guy x

It would be good if there was a group of you moving en bloc to negotiate exactly how they will support with the trickier subjects

This is a really good idea and we actually did something similar, in our case the closing school facilitated it.

I think it's well worth organising a meeting of the year 10 parents, and trying to talk to the other schools as a group. There's a difference between how a school might handle one or two year elevens who haven't covered the same topics, and how they might handle it if there are 15-20 or more. They'd probably need to be putting on an extra class for most subjects, and that class could then follow a scheme of work tailored to what they've done. Maths/science are the same material, so it's only order of teaching that matters. For English it might just be a case of them doing different set texts. They might even be prepared to consider teaching them their current board if there's not enough overlap.
If you're really lucky, when they look at employing additional staff to cope with their increased numbers (which presumably won't just be in year 11), they might look at taking on the odd teacher from the closing school - especially if that solves the problem of a classful of year 11s who are halfway through a syllabus they don't know.

I know two private schools that have closed down and another one is closing at the end of this term. It is very sad for the children and the staff. We are the only country in Europe that taxes education.

A malicious and incredibly spiteful policy aimed at the children of people they don’t like for ideological reasons. Luckily they are obviously a one term government and any of the likely successor governments have vowed to scrap it. It’s too late for a lot of children but hopefully lots of schools and families can hang on in there for three more years.

Why does everyone blame the VAT as the ONLY reason schools are closing? In reality smaller private schools have been closing or amalgamating for the last 20 years. I can think of two private schools in my county that have been in the brink for at least the last 10 years. One closed last year, the other thought they'd be saved by joining a group but in reality is being asset stripped and will close in its current form in the next few years. I just wish people would accept that VAT or not, some private schools would have gone to the wall anyway.

Why does everyone blame the VAT as the ONLY reason schools are closing? In reality smaller private schools have been closing or amalgamating for the last 20 years. I can think of two private schools in my county that have been in the brink for at least the last 10 years. One closed last year, the other thought they'd be saved by joining a group but in reality is being asset stripped and will close in its current form in the next few years. I just wish people would accept that VAT or not, some private schools would have gone to the wall anyway.

If Tax is the reason for closure, what was the reason for all the schools that closed over the last two decades?. The reality is that smaller stand alone private schools have been amalgamating with others or closing for the last two decades at least. Particularly in the primary sector. People do not send their sons to boarding prep schools in anything like the same numbers as they once did. That market has shrunk dramatically. Likewise the girls schools that the likes of Diana Princess of Wales attended are all gone as parents prefer schools with a higher academic standard or co-ed. This is the reality.

Nobody says it’s the only reason, it’s just obviously the major reason.

Just to be clear, are you arguing that the education tax isn’t responsible for closing lots of schools because schools closed in the past?

I think tax is one reason and one parents will be more sympathetic to. However there are small schools that will fail in any political or economic climate. Take one school near me, its a Grammar school county so parents whose children fail 11+ and dont like the non selective schools would send their children to a smaller private school. The six form was pitifully small because the brighter children chose to transfer to the six forms of the Gramnar schools and the parents were spared the cost of two years fees. The school was propped up financially by a reasonable.sized cohort of military barders and other overseas students. As soon as covid came, all the overseas students went home and none returned afterwards. Also with Brexit the number of Military serving overseas reduced dramatically ie the entire garrison in Germany closed. These factors led the school to be enviable and it closed. Absolutely nothing to do with VAT.

Where do you live? I know some schools (GDST) which allows girls to pick whichever GSCE they want

It’s caused a10% shrink in the sector with obvious damaging results. The evidence is that it is a net loss to the tax payer. The same people who introduced the policy voted to ban independent schools under Corbyn. The aim of the policy was to disrupt the education of a group of children because of their parents. With all the evidence, I really don’t accept that anyone genuinely thinks this wouldn’t result in school closures and disruption to children. It is pure spite and I know you know that, so please stop with the false naivety.

Sorry to hear this op, such a bad policy.

The examples I have given are London co-ed, mixed ability, secondary day schools and one prep school. They aren't particularly prestigious, they don't send pupils to Oxbridge. They cater for international students, SEND students who struggle to cope in large state schools but not on EHCPs and are happier in a smaller gentler environment, summer born students that want to repeat a year, students who want a quieter less rigid environment than state schools can provide, children who want to do the 11+ /13+ curriculum, children who want to do more sport or drama etc.

The thing with small businesses is that they are vulnerable to all sorts of changes. They start by having to make redundancies and then if too many things go against them, they can't last through the bad times and have to close. Not good for children, jobs or the economy.

The prestigious private schools are the ones that people hate because they envy their success. They are unaffected as they still have plenty of customers. A lot of them are boarding and have very international cohorts, so if they ever have to shut down in the UK, their customers will head abroad and take their money with them. Some countries even offer permanent residency if you pay for private education in that country for a certain number of years.

I think I would go with the school where she has friends as depending on the subjects there may be some knowledge overlap and if she's quite academic it might be less stressful catching up than trying to make new friends. Given her age though I would ask what her preference or thoughts are on where to go.

So the kids don't matter. Great I don't think.

Doesn't sound like the OP had a years notice, if she had why wouldn't she have moved child for year 10.

Private schools were closing before Labour introduced VAT on school fees. The private school in my town closed under the Tories, so did the school in neighbouring tow, another neighbouring town had two private schools and now it has one.

Of course it's easier to blame Labour than accept the reality.

Are you trying to mover her now, or waiting until September? Sooner would be better ….

This is getting absurd . The reality is that Labour have introduced a 20% tax on children’s education and it’s shrunk the independent sector leading to school closures. Schools are closing at roughly double the usual rate since the education tax came into force at 100 a year rather than 50. This really isn’t anything controversial or new information, Labour’s own estimates are that it would be directly responsible for closure of 100 schools. Their estimates appear to be lower than reality by about a third.

The only new news is that taxing education in Scotland has resulted in a net tax loss, the results aren’t in from England yet. So tax money that could be used for any number of other things is being used to pay to close schools, limit education options and put people out of work ! Yes Its easy to blame Labour because Labour unequivocally caused it, there is nobody else to blame. They did it and they did out of spite aimed at children, the really sad thing is that they managed to manipulate easily influenced people to go along with it by simply appealing to their envy.

I think it's naive to think they matter at all.
If it's the school I'm thinking of it changed from all-girls to co-ed at the start of this year. If they'd truly been thinking of the children it would have not allowed a whole new cohort of boys (and girls) to be lambs to the slaughter.

How do you get that? The schools didn’t implement the education tax, it was the government. The schools that are generally closing offer education at cost basis, they aren’t even allowed to keep large cash holdings that could be used to outlast a hostile government. Labour caused this.

There’s just under ten a month closing so it’s possible you have the wrong school.

If it’s IC as mentioned above there’s apparently a rescue plan. Though their problem has been decreasing numbers from well before the VAT change, so it remains to be seen if they can stabilise that.

If all the work is done in y10 can you move her now to preferred school rather than waiting until September then she’d get the focussed teaching towards exams from earlier.?

I wouldn’t worry TOO much about the exam board mismatch. I’d choose the school that has the best possibility of continuity into 6th form. Get tutors for her key subjects who can tutor her to address the gaps/mismatch of exam boards.

my DD had an A level tutor who was a teacher at a school which taught board X while DD was doing board Y. Tutor was fine with it and did a great job. DD scored an A.
Exam boards are about topics & marking scheme. The content within the topic is likely a decent match.