Private schools, times a changing?

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TownIdiot said:

So that school has quadrupled in 30 years as against to average earnings slightly more than doubling.

And I presume that is boarding?

Same everywhere. Mates of mine went with parents in jobs that wouldn’t have a hope in hell today. Guess what? It’ll only get more elitist now.

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TownIdiot said:

I am a bit surprised at the massive increase in fees over the last couple of decades, which given I spent a good deal of that time paying them probably means I should have been paying more attention.

The increases seem excessive and surely create more of an issue than any potential vat?

A steady increase is manageable for many, especially while we've all been riding pay-rises, at least according to stats. Our prospective school has emailed to say they're doing 8% increase next year, that and then maybe 20% in a few weeks time makes it suddenly a LOT more expensive all in one hit.

I think Labour should consider a phased approach to this sort of thing, personally, they'd get their little victory and maybe give more parents/schools a fighting chance at making it work.

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I think having a fancy school on your CV can be seen as a negative.

I know of people who have removed their school from their LinkedIn to avoid a certain image.

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Probably lots. Most people from our nursery are going to state primaries. The nursery costs more than all of the local private schools. So they’ve been making it work for 2-4 years in most cases.

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Louis Balfour said:

Bullying from the rich kids? State school? You weren't trying to start some sort of imagined class war, were you?

In my state school the poor ones were the issue, they were better at fighting!

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My wife and I had the discussion about it yesterday (it was the first she’d heard of Labours plan) - nonchalance was her response.

Tells you what she obviously thought of our state options that we saw.

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if the schools retained their current disciplinary measures I’d imagine a vast amount of such kids would be expelled in quick order. Pointless.

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Also more stable homes, exposed to fewer toxic behaviours and people, better food even.

It’s impossible to level a playing field while democracy exists. The best way is to try and catch the intelligent kids early from the world and try and give them a shot. But taking the ones who even the state sector, who famously can barely expel anyone, can’t deal with isn’t going to work.

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State till 8 - a well known phrase in these parts

Not one we agreed with given the states local to us but suspect it is the most bang for buck in terms of saving cash vs when kids are older.

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Amusingly the hoops and donations mates of mine have had to make to get into the local Catholic school for reception make the selection process for the private schools in the area look very straight forward and much more transparent and fair.

Pay or pray as they say in grotty London.

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vaud said:

Not necessarily. Those parents will still be able to afford a raft of private 1:1 tutoring out of school hours that provides excellent tailored outcomes.

Not sure why going to a state school impacts social skills. Plenty of secondary schools have highly active social programs running from volunteering to DoE to debating clubs, etc. They aren't all a grim wasteland!

Our local secondaries are either outstanding or good, and have a very large array of extra curricular programs, attract very good teachers and have very good pupil outcomes...

Would imagine that's not the case in much of the country.

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vaud said:

Yorkshire. I'm not sharing my postcode but I pay council tax to Bradford, which will probably break some other PH myths.

My underlying point is that parents that can broadly afford private today will be in a very comfortable position to pay for high end top up tutoring if they are forced into state system.

They're not going to accept whatever the local 'needs improvement' type situation that is near their house. It will not be some straight swap, if it were me I'd just move house to where there was a grammar or renowned state school. Many will do similar, and it will put pressure on those already sought after schools and because these people can probably pay to play and buy property in catchment it will cause an even tighter funnel of problems.

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ooid said:

Only 18% of the schools in England have achieved outstanding in 2022. So congratulations living in one of those areas though, pretty soon most locals might be priced out of such areas.

The heatmaps below is easy enough to highlight level of educational quality drop in the near future, as it also highlights both grammar and independent schools in a given area.

https://www.locrating.com/heatmaps.aspx

Run a scenario of average redistribution of 20% of students from private to nearby state schools, and calculate the outcomes for the next 5 years, including lack of funding, teaching and facilities.

No, wait, the original policy inventors has not run such scenario based models yet?

Edited by ooid on Friday 14th June 17:57

Telegraph ran an article today on the dearth of decent state schools in areas where there was high private schooling.

The stats were eye opening. Many London boroughs with over 20% in private and over 50% in Kensington and Chelsea.

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You’ve just given me an idea!

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Via a mate - Heard about one of the best schools in the U.K. going through their entire waiting list and then onto reserves to fill a place for September reception - totally unheard of for this to happen - times not looking so good…apart from his kid of course.

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I haven’t bothered yet, have the option to and school has significant enough wealth that I doubt it’s going anywhere but it isn’t a shoe in that the school will pass 20% on anyway.

There is a small discount for paying up front - 4% - so suspect it does make sense ultimately.

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TownIdiot said:

Will this stop you sending your son to the independent school?

Attitude and affordability are different.

Is an interesting point around private nursery. I dare say that (despite them costing just as much) the view of private nursery is VERY different to private school. Odd isn’t it.

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TownIdiot said:

Is it odd? It's been a while since I looked but is there such a thing as a "state nursery"? From what I can tell from the outside that's a fked up market full of price gouging.

I asked if it would impact whether his child could remain as I am genuinely interested in how many people will have to remove children from school as this is the straw that breaks the camel's back.

Well from 3 years old, yes, there are state pre-schools, usually attached to state schools. Nobody bats an eyelid at folk throwing £k's a month at private nursery, but if they dare to do it past the age of 4 and it's a 'school', suddenly they're the 'rich' and 'elite' all very silly.

You asked if his attitude had changed, I doubt its changed at all, why would it? But affordability will change for many, they won't have a choice. Their attitudes won't have changed I doubt?

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TownIdiot said:

I asked if "this" would stop him being able to send his son to private school.
By "this" I meant VAT on fees.

Will be interested to see where they draw the line in respect of VAT in terms of age.

If he says yes, what is your response?

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Zolvaro said:

There will however be many kids in the state system with similar issues who parents already can't afford to send them to a private school. It's no more of a shame for his kid than it is for any of them. They all deserve a proper education .

The disruption is the difference. The state children won’t be facing that.