“Sarnia
OldFrill
MartavTaurus
I don't think that's true. The Conservatives would never have put VAT on school fees,
And that is not true either. We can't say that about VAT on school fees. I'm not sure that the Tories wouldn't have done this too at some point. There were a lot of people in the Conservative party who would have gone along with it. There are no certainties.
They Conservatives had long enough to put VAT on school fees, fairly obvious it wasn't going to happen.
I think the Tories would have thought that through much more than Labour did. They assumed that all children at private schools have very wealthy parents who would not blink an eye at the 20% VAT increase. Fair enough. However, there are many SEND children who attend private schools purely because this country's mainstream education system has failed them. The vast majority of them do not have rich parents. Labour's refusal to listen has resulted in many SEND children having to go back into mainstream education which has already failed them, because their families cannot afford the increase. Cruel really.“
Is this cruel? Or is it cruel that the majority of SEND children still don’t have access to decent SEND provision?
I’m afraid your assertion that a large proportion of independent schools contain many SEND children whose parents are not in any way wealthy, but have somehow magicked up the cash required to send their children to independent schools because the SEND provision is somehow better.
I’d argue this point, 1) average independent primary school fees (pre VAT) are between £13,000-£15,000 per year, uplift this by around 30% to include uniforms, school trips etc and these figures would exclude most average families choosing to enrol their SEND in independent education. Secondary education in the independent sector is even more expensive.
2) is the SEND provision really any better, or is it just more accessible due to much smaller classes and access to more 1-2-1 education?
What happens if you have more than more SEND child in your family? Not at all unusual?
Far far better to fight for bigger school budgets and more SENCO’s (Special Educational Needa Co-Ordinators), more specialised Higher-Level teaching assistants, more nurture hubs, within our mainstream state schools, as well as additional SEND schools and after school and holiday clubs.
My daughter works in year 1, in a large 4 class entry primary school, in a deprived area, most schools of this type in similar areas have more than their fair share of SEND children, who come from chaotic homes and a large percentage of these children have emotional needs due to their unfortunate family circumstances.
There’s no way in this world, VAT or not VAT, these parents could even think about sending their children to independent schools.
Better, more equal, more accessible education across the UK is what we should strive for, more young people encouraged to enter teaching, better prospects and better training for teachers.
ALL children deserve an education which suits their needs, not just the chosen few.
