I’m trapped paying for private school – I can’t find a state place for my son

5 comments

1. The only comprehensive available is a 90-minute commute away, but with the VAT on fees we’ll be paying an extra £4,000 a year, says one mother

   *The government’s move to charge* [*VAT on private school*](https://inews.co.uk/news/private-school-parents-attack-labour-vat-closure-3256850#:~:text=Chancellor%20Rachel%20Reeves%20announced%20in,teachers%20in%20the%20state%20sector.) *fees is dividing the nation and causing chaos for some parents, who say they cannot afford the rise, but that state schools are full. This week, the head of the Independent Association of Prep Schools said that the decision to raise the fees in January, in the middle of the school year, was ‘cruel and punitive’.*

   *Here Sarah, 52, a lawyer, explains the impact the private school VAT rise is having on her family.*

   As a full-time working mum, securing [childcare](https://inews.co.uk/topic/childcare?srsltid=AfmBOopzJrRAuqE8QQM7VaLjTKkVHc4KV_RpNqfPRFwSg2ihIJE2ONpG?ico=in-line_link) has always been important. I have to drop my son off at eight and pick him up at 6pm. There is no way I can pick him up earlier. The local primary school couldn’t guarantee that my son would have a place at the breakfast club or the after-school club. Our nearby [private school ](https://inews.co.uk/topic/private-schools?srsltid=AfmBOoozCktU0BEDIO25wHpyQJZJ6JPivYG9jhW67ICvMWnqw4_prLCP?ico=in-line_link)wasn’t a top-end school. It was a regular primary school that also happened to be private. For £600 a month in school fees, they said they could secure my son a place on their wraparound childcare and they wouldn’t charge me extra. A childminder would have been £40 a day, which would have ended up being £200 a week. I did the maths and it actually worked out cheaper for us to send him to the private school, with his holiday clubs, his breakfast club, and his after-school club, and he didn’t have to keep being moved from pillar to post.

   I sent him to the private primary school, and by the time he reached secondary school, he wanted to stay there. We were fairly indifferent about it until the government announced that the VAT on fees would change. Some children desperately need the extra care of private schools because they need extra help – that’s not our situation. I never had my heart set on sending my son to a private school.

   He’s going to be 13 soon. He can walk home on his own – I don’t need to be quite so worried about after-school care. So I decided it was time to send my son to a state school. If only we could find one. The [government](https://inews.co.uk/topic/government?srsltid=AfmBOor8EFhUhoYAyWf5UhJHRAzc9ZtfBM5PqTVSt6-Iy_HxCOpugWPX?ico=in-line_link) originally said that the rise in fees would be implemented in September 2025, giving us enough time to find a state school for him. But on 29 July, while we were away on our summer holiday, they announced that it would be implemented this coming January. I spent the entire holiday worrying. Keeping him in private school would mean an extra £4000 a year, on top of the inflationary prices we have already been paying.

   We were blindsided, and the government have not given families much time. When I have applied for state schools at primary and secondary level in the past, I have never, ever got my first choice, or even anywhere near it. Most parents know that you get what you are given. In our area, they’ve been building new schools because they can’t keep up with the already high demand for state school places. The infrastructure is already straining. Our local schools are oversubscribed.

2. Sorry, but where do they live? And why did they **choose** to live there, given that they’re a lawyer (it’s not like they were forced to live somewhere specific for council housing).

   >I have never, ever got my first choice, or even anywhere near it.

   And with comments like this…

   Look, the fact of the matter is you were, before this, paying for your son to go to private school – an expense that is, frankly, beyond that of the **VAST MAJORITY** of working people, even at the price it was before the VAT increase. You must’ve moved to a location where the availability of “normal” schools was not a concern, because you could afford the (what to normal people, remember!) is the incredibly expensive costs of private schooling.

   What I’m saying is you’ve paid for something that most of us would consider a **lavish luxury**. A sports car. A yacht. A mansion. Just in this case, it’s a private education. It’s something no-one *needs* but you *wanted*, so you paid for it. Now you can’t afford it. Some measure of sympathy, perhaps… But I’m not gonna cry over your yacht when the the same economic conditions have left many people struggling to simply feed their families or heat their homes.

   And for the record, I went to a comprehensive school for which I had to take a 75 minute bus-ride there and back each day. I turned out fine.

3. oh noes

   ‘scuse me while I find my tiny violin

4. I shall dig out my tiny violin to play the worlds saddest song as soon as I can…

5. Notice that she complains about the price rise but continues to pay it and *at no point says it’s unaffordable*. She only really says it’s expensive.

   She is an example of exactly who this policy is targeting, those that could afford to pay the same tax as they pay on everything else but aren’t. And understandably she isn’t happy about it, but just about everyone else is!