Barnaby Philip John Webber 11/01/2004-13/06/2023 💔 If you can, share these images of the beautiful soul stolen from us by the worst of humanity. Let his face today burn bright. Barney, I promise you there will be accountability 💛💚 For You. For Grace. For Ian.

Sounds like something positive is happening 👏🤞

New post on Schrodinger's schools, and why it's very easy to accommodate school closure without disruption in a market context. With a cartoon. open.substack.com/pub/isabel…

The figures that show the full effect of Labour’s cruel private school tax raid Me in @Telegraph telegraph.co.uk/gift/f1a374a…

I will be writing to Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards as in my view, this post is deliberately misleading. The justification for VAT on private schools was to recruit more teachers. This is blatantly misleading to make people think it has been successful. In fact, there are now 1,900 fewer teachers by their own statistics. The policy has been a spiteful, dismal failure, to the detriment of many schools and thousands of children. Others may also wish to do so: standardscommissioner@parliament.uk

To the Left, the instinct is to close the schools with swimming pools, not to open more public swimming pools. It's a strange mentality, but it explains why, eventually, all socialist countries fail.

A good article that focuses on the real problem with British education - extreme variation within the state system. Also, some familiar points concerning the durability of privilege.

Their purpose is education, and they do provide it to everyone that can pay the fees. Just like private hospitals provide their services to anyone that can afford them. They do not charge vat. The reason is that whilst vat is a consumption tax, it is applied at the goods and services level, not based on who provides or sells the service. If you pay for an optional school trip at state school, say an end of year celebratory trip out, this is a choice. Yet no VAT will be added. That same trip from a private school will attract vat. Why the difference? Your assertion that they exist for privilege and social inequality is probably quite telling of your prejudices toward these schools as they are nothing of the sort. In the area I live in the northern shires, theh serve as a choice for people who are willing and able to pay to receive the same level of results and education that millions who live in the south get for "free". My "choice" as a parent for my children was: 1. Use the local state school with results 30% below national average, persistent truancy well above average. 2. Move home to the catchment area of a good school at the cost of about half a million quid on the mortgage 3. Pay for independent school at less than half the cost of moving home. Am I fortunate to have options 2 and 3 compared to other parents in this area? Yes I am. But that was my choice, and as a father I did what I felt was best for my children. To then suggest by tsking this action im contributing to privilege or social inequality is just plain offensive. If you want to attack social inequality, then attack the reasons why I even had to make a choice in the first place. Attack the reason why 8/10 of the best LEAs are in London and 8/10 of the worst performing are in the north. The inequality in the state education is far more drastic than anything the independent sector contributes. Its somehow ok for @bphillipsonMP to send her children to a very nice state school in London then hold her nose and point to the private schools as causing inequality. If private schools disappeared tomorrow, the fact is there would be more inequality in education than there is today. All the wealthy would buy in the right areas, and we would be in the same old situation of good schools only being in wealthy neighbourhoods, just like people such as the Sutton trust were writing about 20 years ago.

The real inequality in the education system is not between state schools and independent schools, but between the best and worst state schools. The best tenth of state schools achieve a 90.4% pass rate; the worst tenth achieve just 8.1%. [Source: explore-education-statistics…]

UK tax has gone up significantly over the last 25 years But the tax paid by the average UK worker has not This apparent miracle was achieved by taxing “other people”: higher earners, capital, property, banks, etc The strategy has run out of road A 🧵 on what happens next.

This is the authoritative chart based on Jan 26 data. To June 26, it's much worse of course.

The Government forecasted that 37,000 children would pay the price with this tax over 7 years. We are already at 30,000 fewer pupils--AT LEAST. The @ISC_schools Census data is for ISC member schools, which isn't 100% of independent schools. It also includes independent special schools, which aren't affected by VAT. The damage is clear. The Government must scrap this tax. #EducationNotTax

FFS could the @ISC_schools be any more pathetic? Recognition of partnerships has been the line for years. It weak, hasn’t worked and it won’t work now. The sector is getting battered by hateful govt and it’s tax policy. Repeal is THE issue.#educationNottax

With the consolidation of another independent primary in my ward of Wylde Green, the closure of Ruckleigh in Solihull, I have written further to @bphillipsonMP on VAT on Independent Schools asking them to reconsider. @DebTon20 @kay88297 @EducationNotTax @JoJaygo18 @anaboultertv

A good letter in today's Times to counter the argument that more schools are opening than closing.

30,000 kids have left independent schools, according to the latest @ISC_schools Census, writes the @thetimes (@nicolawoolcock). The Government predicted just 37,000 would go in total. This is in line with estimates by @theIFS (@PJTheEconomist), which said up to 40,000. Parents warned the Government that this would happen. And we're just 18 months in. As the Government reviews its priorities, we urge them now to end this tax. It's not making money, but it is certainly disrupting children's lives. We can't improve the nation's schools with policies based on tearing schools down. We must instead look at how to build schools up. thetimes.com/article/49cf293…

Imagine one grocer owned 93% of UK shops. Allocated customers by postcode. Set prices at zero by confiscating your wages. Then called himself a benefactor. That's British schooling. We are pleased to publish our 2nd Guest Opinion piece by @IsabelPat1886 New on GBTT: gbtt.info/guest-opinions/the…

There is something particularly poignant about the closure of a school. The sound of instruments being played, the cheerful pictures on classroom walls, the life given to a street by children milling about, all that can suddenly disappear. Unfortunately, for many independent schools, the possibility of closure is edging ever nearer, and in some cases has already happened. This is a result of wider pressures facing such schools, including declining birth rates and increases in the cost of living. But one factor that has undoubtedly made things worse is the hostile environment facing the independent sector under the present government – in particular its decision, starting from January 2025, to impose VAT on all private schools and to abolish business rates relief for schools that were charities from April that year, as well as to increase employer's National Insurance contributions from the same month. ✍️ Emma Park Article | spectator.com/article/is-thi…