Cheer up, Bridget, your lucky day is nigh!

FriedGreenTomatoes2

Until Labour abolished grammar schools and direct grant places at private schools, able working class children got the same opportunity for a selective academic education. Labour stopped that

This exactly!

The grammar school system in the UK was outstanding.

Why has no party reinstated it?

Governments have always used tax as a tool to re-distribute wealth.

In this case the wealthier folk have been receiving extremely generous tax breaks in order to educate their children and buy privilege, for many years.

This policy is simply tipping the scales back just a little towards the overwhelming majority of children, in order to improve their education - in this case pupil/teacher ratio.

Private education has not ceased, nor has all its accompanying privileges.

To read some posts you would think that the vast majority of folk privately educate their children.

This of course is not true, only a tiny minority do so. Our children should be supported - they are the county’s future.

Bixiboo

Parental choice MayBee70.

But the majority of parents don't have a choice, do they? Why have preferential tax systems to enable those with more money to exercise a choice that is not available to the majority?

The choice that parents have now is the same as before. If parents can afford the fees their children can have a privileged education. If they can't, they will have to go without it - exactly like the majority of children whose parents didn't have the choice in the first place.

11 was far too young to give a life changing test which divided us all up into categories where the majority didnt "get in" to grammar school and cut off opportunities for pupil development of bright children who for whatever reason "failed" at 11..

Allira

If we were still in the EU, Labour would not have been able to introduce VAT on school fees. It is against EU rules.

It does sit uneasily with me, that children's education should be subject to VAT, plus private schools will be treated as businesses and not as centres of education of children.

I'm sure the Brexiters were aware of that!

Bixiboo

Parental choice MayBee70.

Not really when the vast majority of parents don't have that choice because fees are more than their total household income.

Allira

growstuff

FriedGreenTomatoes2

Until Labour abolished grammar schools and direct grant places at private schools, able working class children got the same opportunity for a selective academic education. Labour stopped that

And what about the not so able children (the majority) who missed out on grammar and direct grant schools?

It depends on the schools.

The secondary modern schools for boys and girls in the town where I grew up were excellent, far better than many comprehensive schools I have encountered in more recent years. They were encouraging and friends who went there achieved good results and consequently trained for good careers.

So presumably the children who went to the excellent secondary moderns didn't suffer when Labour took away their 'opportunity'. There's a bit of a contradiction here.

Parental choice MayBee70.

growstuff

FriedGreenTomatoes2

Until Labour abolished grammar schools and direct grant places at private schools, able working class children got the same opportunity for a selective academic education. Labour stopped that

And what about the not so able children (the majority) who missed out on grammar and direct grant schools?

It depends on the schools.

The secondary modern schools for boys and girls in the town where I grew up were excellent, far better than many comprehensive schools I have encountered in more recent years. They were encouraging and friends who went there achieved good results and consequently trained for good careers.

If we were still in the EU, Labour would not have been able to introduce VAT on school fees. It is against EU rules.

It does sit uneasily with me, that children's education should be subject to VAT, plus private schools will be treated as businesses and not as centres of education of children.

Bixiboo

Why when education across Europe is not subject to VAT would this vindictive government decide to destroy the future of so many children? Perhaps it’s not only the farmers that Starmer is harming.

So you’re saying that any child that is state educated has no future? And, if that isn’t the case, why should they need to go to a private school.

FriedGreenTomatoes2

Until Labour abolished grammar schools and direct grant places at private schools, able working class children got the same opportunity for a selective academic education. Labour stopped that

And what about the not so able children (the majority) who missed out on grammar and direct grant schools?

Why when education across Europe is not subject to VAT would this vindictive government decide to destroy the future of so many children? Perhaps it’s not only the farmers that Starmer is harming.

Oh I dunno. I went to a posh grammar school. Ordinary family, hard working parents renting a huge terraced house in Old Trafford. No car, no telephone, no fancy treats. I was never bullied, learnt an awful lot and was grateful for the opportunities I was given. My younger sister followed me. We both learned the value of a good education where expectations were high. Our confidence grew. Inwardly we realised we were equal to anybody. Just poorer, but that was okay.

The 11+. Which made some children, at the age of 11, feel like failures and channelled them into a substandard system of education? I wonder how many of the children that were given a grant to go to a private school were bullied and ridiculed for coming from a poor background the way I was at Grammar School?

Until Labour abolished grammar schools and direct grant places at private schools, able working class children got the same opportunity for a selective academic education. Labour stopped that

Bixiboo

Totally agree Freya5. The politics of envy are well and truly evident in the actions of this divisive party.

What makes you think it is envy that makes people want fairness in society? All I can think of is that envy must be a driver for those who assume it of others, as it's not the conclusion I jump to at all.

If paying VAT means that some children are no longer able to get the education their parents have been paying for, they are simply being put in the same position as the majority, for whom £50k a year (never mind £50k plus 20%) is more than the household income.

What is 'divisive'? That most people couldn't even think about paying that to educate two children, or that those who can are being asked to fall in line with the taxation that everyone else pays on non-essential items? I assume that if a private education were deemed essential it would be free to everyone?

Totally agree Freya5. The politics of envy are well and truly evident in the actions of this divisive party.

In terms of advance warning, private schools have been aware for some time the possibility of VAT. Certainly from July 2023.

www.mha.co.uk/insights/labours-policy-on-placing-vat-on-private-school-fees

I think it very likely this information was made available to parents. The article it spells it out in detail.

I don't see why the public generally should subsidise private schools and private education by not charging VAT

Freda I looked up the claim that GCSE pupils couldn't find places in Rachel Reeves constituency and it originated in one article in the Telegraph only where it said that GSCE students were "at risk" of not finding places.

There is no further information on the internet I can find that confirms there actually were no places; have you a source? I suspect had this been the case it would have been all over the press!

Allira

Whitewavemark2

Frankly if parents’ budgets are so tight that a rise of 20% in fees would be impossible to meet, then you wonder at the risk they were taking in stretching things so tightly that it sinks the boat.

That is their choice of course, but I would never risk our budget to such an extent. It is irresponsible, to have the child’s education on such a tight wire.

20% is a fair amount of money on top of school fees.

The fees at our local independent schools are around £25,000 pa, if two children in the family are pupils then that would be 20% of £50,000 ie £10,000 pa, perhaps the difference between just affording the fees and making finances really tight.

🤔 if you can afford £50k a year plus of course all the extras …..

Does it need saying?

Our DGC'S school fees are roughly £4500 per term. We, as the fee payers, have to pay an extra £900 from January 1st, that's £2,700 per year.
If you multiply that figure by the 600,000 children in private education you come almost bang on the £1.5 billion Labour estimate will be collected.

Whitewavemark2

Frankly if parents’ budgets are so tight that a rise of 20% in fees would be impossible to meet, then you wonder at the risk they were taking in stretching things so tightly that it sinks the boat.

That is their choice of course, but I would never risk our budget to such an extent. It is irresponsible, to have the child’s education on such a tight wire.

20% is a fair amount of money on top of school fees.

The fees at our local independent schools are around £25,000 pa, if two children in the family are pupils then that would be 20% of £50,000 ie £10,000 pa, perhaps the difference between just affording the fees and making finances really tight.

The Labour Party Manifesto did include the application of business rates and VAT to private schools.

"Revenue from applying VAT and business rates to private schools 2028/29:£1,510m" to fund policies in 2029/30 ie 5-6 years in the future.

TheatreLover

I had always assumed that VAT paid, from whatever source, is credited to a 'VAT pot'. If this is so, does anyone know if it is possible for the VAT paid on school fees to be transferred to educational services specifically?

Freya - "^some children's education has been disrupted, at the start of the exam year for some, people who work two maybe more jobs , sacrifice holidays to give their children the best education, and now, in Reeves own constituency for example, no school places available for these
GCSE children.^
All are equal, but some more equal than others eh!!!!"

I think the aim is to even up the inequality already existing for the special-needs children of those parents who already work two or more jobs and don't have holidays, and still cannot afford the one-to-one tuition that their children need but whose schools cannot afford to provide what is needed for them.

Allira

^There’s no evidence that children are being withdrawn from private schools mid year as a result of this move, which had been Labour policy for years before they were elected, and the implications of which had been widely publicised and was known about by private schools and parents. It’s time to get real.^

But is there any evidence that these private school staff and parents actually voted Labour knowing about these policies?

No, but they wouldn’t need to do so themselves to realise that after 14 years of the Tories it was likely that Labour would win the election, I can’t believe that they didn’t contingency plan.