0:00 – The Guests
3:14 – VAT in Private Schools
36:13 – Fringe Benefits & The Psychology
43:27 – Pros and Cons
1:03:21 – Solutions
1:08:32 – The Parents’ Opinions
1:11:09 – Outro

The Guests

so welcome back this month we’re joined by rer who you might have seen on previous podcast before hi yeah andwe’re also joined by Ian Mr folks as we know him um do you want to give us a bit of background about yourself sure um Iknow these guys because I had the pleasure of teaching English to Jonathan for a couple of years at gcsc PR was atschool with Jonathan and my own son and so I’ve known them since they were quite small I started off as an investmentbanker when I left school myself I left with my a levels and uh worked in thecity in financial markets for about 20 years decided I wanted to change so Idid my first degree and my second my Master’s Degree with the open University as a mature student so my educationalexperience is slightly different certainly to yours um and then I’ve spent the last 20 years teaching andthen tutoring um mostly in private schools in uh Northeast London um and mycheing company uh I’ve been dealing with children almost exclusively from year 7to year 13 but working on occasions with degree students as well for the last 10 years or so in English sorry yes inEnglish and English literature yeah absolutely how however I should say that as my students moved off to Universityand they came back to me for advice then what they came back for was not my I Ihad no subject specific skills but they were still very much in need of Life Cocritical thinking life coaching how to manage your studies because you know it’s it’s Yeah just something we’requite big on here as well well having having being a student myself uh as an adult and holding down a job and being afather in the rest of it it’s easy to underestimate just exactly how much pressure there is because your day as auniversity student looks quite empty but it really isn’t there there’s a lot of pressure and of course everybody leaveseverything to the last minute and we have to constantly learn we have to constantly build up our skills thatthat’s uh that’s why uh the a lot of the students I’ve tutored lower down theschool I’ve ended up tutoring at University which has been very fulfilling B and your background if youdon’t know already yeah if you guys don’t know already my background is VE sort of similar to Ian but it took adifferent route um 25 OD years in the city didteacher training had issues personal issues so couldn’t finish it decided tostart a Tutoring company which is where we are now um and then have gone off todo other things so currently I’m working on uh my other business which is achildren’s nursery had several challenges there over the last couple of years so just got through all ofthat and currently I’m looking at commercial property conversions um solots of different things as you can yeah and it’s definitely not shiny penny syndrome it is just just time to move onso going off to do other things so this is why I’m not sort of involved with tuition anymore because I think I’vedone my time in that time to pass it on and move on so we’re talking about VAT

VAT in Private Schools

specifically yeah specifically vat and whether it should be add on to privateschool fees or or not so I know you guys have some thoughts on this well it beinteresting to hear your thoughts on it before we sort of launch because you won’t get a word in edgeways once westart um I mean it’s kind of 50/50 for me I must admit there is a bitof me that thinks yes maybe they should and well you guys you guys have gone through paying for that like imagine ifif it was 20% more we wouldn’t have been able to exactly but then they’re abusiness they’re still a business so they’re a charity but they’re a businessthey classify themselves as a charity I think that’s the place to start I think what’s important isthat it it we have laws in this country that set out how taxation Works yes andit’s very obvious and it’s completely understandable that Charities do not paytaxation because the money that is given to Charities that there’s there is a tax break you can you know gift AE yourcharity but all benefit should go if you’re going to give a pound to a charity then a pound should go tobenefit whatever charity you’ve chosen I think that the there is adebate about how this will impact fee paying parents and how it will impact the school system but I think we have tostart with the idea is is it not fair that these huge businesses and that’s what they are yeah is it not fair thatthey pay a similar tax levy overall to any other business but you could arguethe the count now I’m going to play devil’s advocate here the the other argument of that is the majority ofCharities when you look at them not every pound go they they’re run as businesses so if you look at the likesthe the big ones you know that need to put that admin in ETCum I think only 50% or 40 it’s a very low number that actually then makes it Idon’t disagree but what we’re saying is that the charity is set up to be charity to do good works the argumentthat I’ve come across and you know um my wife has been a business manager at um alarge private school for many years there is this discussion of can we provide public benefit are we providingpublic benefit as a as a private school and I think it’s difficult to argue particularly from the my ownexperience of the schools that I’ve worked at that you are providing a public benefit so sure let’s take oxanfor example I don’t know the figures but if you give 55 to oxv maybe only £350 Finds Its way into good works but youneed to you need to have you need an Administration to run a charity of that size it would be ridiculous to thinkthat everything’s going to be for free but that’s distinctly different from saying that almost nothing of your pennygoes to uh public benefit or or charitable good and I think it is it’s alittle bit disingenuous on the front of schools to suggest that they areproviding public benefit to the point that allows them to justify themselves as Charities I find that problematic yesso in a sense there a failure of the social contract oh helloum somebody told you well um yes I think there is the myissue is that are we are do we not run the risk of allowing wealth that there’s no otherway to look at it the wealth to define whether or not you can benefit from a tax break now I know that sounds a bitsilly because of course if you’re wealthier you can benefit from a tax break but this is this is not sort of aloophole that you can you found in an investment fund what we’re saying is we’re allowing these businesses to havedifferent terms of trade to other business and I’m not talking about State schools I’m just saying if they arebusinesses then they should be taxed appropriately if they are Charities then they should be doing an awful lot morethan we’re currently seeing because the whole thing with this is it’s not just the vat that they’re talking about uhIndependent Schools losing their business rates relief as well so in thatsense yes I completely agree with you that you can’t have it both ways no once you pull at this thread vat is will bejust the start of this I mean yeah if if we’re going to go down this route as a society then I think we have to um wehave to have an honest debate about why these schools became soimportant in the first place yes absolutely to a large extent to parents who really can’t afford that sort offinancial commitment and has made a huge had a huge impact on other aspects offamily life and you’ve seen that while you were teaching in the school and I’ve I’ve been through it I don’t think we Ithink in all the time that the children were at school I think we had one holiday and that was a long weekend inDisneyland Paris how middle class is that by the by just Imean but it was Disneyland Paris because my husband couldn’t fly so we had to goEurostar and we wanted to take the children abroad I’ve had experience of teaching children whose parents arepaying the school fees from a trust fund I’ve an experience of grandparents paying the the school fees for anynumber of grandchild there are obviously very wealthy families I’ve also had experience of a family where both motherand mother and father were black cab drivers they owned their cab dad drove it at night Mom drove it all day andthat was the only way they could raise the money to pay the school fees and sothere are huge sacrifices being made is that the right thing to do and I’m not suggesting we should price these peopleout of private education in order to teach them a lesson about you know how they live their lives and make Financialplans but I do think it’s important that people understand that there are other ways in which you can achieve a goodeducational outcome without the need to spend eyering amounts of money it it isa huge amount of money I think we worked out that we could have bought houses in cash for both our children for theamount of money that we paid because it’s yeah absolutely so you know itisn’t just about the fees you’ve got all the additional stuff on top mhm the thethe uniforms were an eyering amount of money mhm and you’ve got more than onechild my God you’re crippled you’ve got the holidays you’ve got all theextracurricular stuff but you know there there’s a there’s a proide to that aswell and I think that a lot of parents don’t so there’s two things herethere is a mindset that says particularly in Asiancultures that says says my school is not going to go my my school my child is notgoing to go to the local state school because we want better and so thatpaying for it simply paying for it is perceived as better the good State schools they dotend to be in areas which are more affluent and more middle class and and so I think no matter what you you stillwin a sort of postcode Lottery as it were and and all that will happen is thethe the the schools that have the spaces are generally the schools that are notas well performing in the state sector um all that’ll happen is that the themore achieving schools will become oversubscribed if then you more over subscribed I Ithink sort of bring this back to the notion of why we pay for Education because if we look at this topic we’rewe’re talking about government plans to raise the of private education beyondthe means of many people you could argue or at least Iwould argue that for some people that idea of paying for it is better hasbecome uh almost um you know a mantra and it’s not it’s not healthy so if youlook at the true cost of sending a child to school as you it’s it is cripplingand you would not spend that money on any any other part of your life withouthaving a huge amount of research yes absolutely you’re talking about buying ahouse if you’ve got two children in private school you’re talking about buying a a decent sized second propertyyou wouldn’t buy a decent sized second property Without Really knowing what you’re buying now my concern is thatthere is this General assumption that if you send your child to a private school there will be better educated they’llmeet interesting people they may well have better life opportunities it’s possible possible it’s highly unlikelyfor the majority of private schools that I have had experience of because you know we’re not talking about going toeaten and Harrow you know that’s a separate issue now with with with asorry but with the local schools that we’re dealing with in this area and there are some very good very large very academically achieving schools if youhave if you’re fortunate fortunate enough and I was to have two sons of a musicians or your sons are great Sportspeople or you know they have some other background that would not get properlyserviced in the state system then great and the schools will do their best to try and get students like that into theinto the classroom however the idea that just because you send your your perfectly intelligent youknow decent uh son or daughter to a private school it’s in some way Elevatethem beyond what they could achieve anyway I think is incorrect and I think you’re paying way way way too much moneywhen you could apply that in a better sense so let’s just suggest that you have managed to find amongst the familythe resources and a pot of money to put your child through secondary education in a private school if there’s going tobe no other benefit from being at that private school no soft benefit no you know no no extracurricular benefit thenit may well be better to ask yourself how you could change that child’s life with that pot of money so if you were toand I know this is a bit delicate because we all run tutoring businesses here if if you were to find a good StateSchool even if it meant moving to a different postcode and then identify some sometutors who would help support your children through their aspects of their education that aren’t working so wellfor some it’s science maass and education but some it’s and English some some is just English then the rest ofthe money that you would have spent on their education if it’s still free money it’s available for the family nowinvested this is where my Investment Banking background is helpful invested wisely over the sort of we’re talkingabout seven or eight year period with a growth that you could achieve invested in a fairly fairly safe you knowinvestment fund um would allow you to then send your child to University debtfree now that is going to make a material difference to a child’s lifenot having to pay off student loans over a long periods of time in actual fact if we talk about the numbers we’re talkingabout for private schooling today by my simple calculations you could send your child to University pay for theirtuition pay for their accommodation their maintenance and you’d still have enough left over to possibly give them adeposit for a flat when they left I agree I the if You’ if you’ve got no Ustudent debt and you’ve got the ability to buy a flap in your early 20s that’sgoing to materially change your life sitting behind somebody who ended up working a i Goldman Sachs or for thegovernment in maths in year seven isn’t it just isn’t not in the same way so Ithink what I would urge parents to do this comes back to the idea about taxation it’s not just that it willprice them out are they already spending money that could be more wisely used yesthat would be my my question the problem with that is it’s too for most peoplecertainly it was for for me it’s a very big emotional trip to say to to actually saywell particularly if your child’s already in the that private school umsystem to then pull them out and put them into a state school system there’sthis and it’s it’s more on the parents than than the child it’s a leap of faith but I but it’s more than a leap of faithit’s it’s this certainly for me it would have been well I failed I failed mychild well not if you are more engaged because I think sometimes when we talkabout about parents um using private education they are purchasing somethingthat they don’t really that they can’t really value or or easily quantifywhether it’s the right way to spend their money so it may may be wiserbetter to use to if you’re not going to use private education it it will giveyou the chance to engage a little bit more with that process so you’ll be you’ll know if your child’s being shoedby someone someone like me I mean I’ve been working for families and I’m on the fourth or fifth child and I’ve knownfamilies for 10 15 years they know me I know them and they know what they’regetting when their child has a lesson with me yes now if you send your child to a private school it is unfortunatelynot the case as it is in every school state grammar or private you cannot guarantee that your child is going to besitting in a classroom with the best available teacher the best availableres’ both had we’ve all you guys probably have as well we’ve all had experiences of of parents coming to usyeah and it’s not because that schools are cutting corners or schools don’t care it’s the fact that it is very veryhit and miss so if you’re in a really good school but you’re a little bit unfortunate and and you know you have anexcellent teacher in a particular subject and they for some reason they have to take a term or two off you haveSupply teachers because there isn’t a a huge pull of you know highly talenteddedicated teachers who we know this is a long-term problem who want to work in any part of the industry so one of thearguments that labor is putting forward currently is what it will what putting VAT on the independent school system umwill do is allow teach allow the the government to train up more teacherswell you see I I now having that’s one of their arguments having been a teacher and a tutor and having had a um aprofessional job that was you know incredibly demanding are I I don’t Idon’t like it when people go quickly to the the assumption that just because ateacher gets lots of holidays a year uh they get fairly well paid that it’s in some way it’s incredibly hard work andum I know that it’s it can be popular amongst people to give teachers a hardtime because of that but equally it has to be said that and I could speak from personal experience but I thinkanecdotally it’s it’s um something that we bump into a lot there are quite a lot of people who end up in teaching becausethey’ve got very few other options yes and that is not seen that but we’ve all seen that and I think anybody who’s beento school ever must have had a teacher who you think you’d rather be an actor or you’d rather be playing football oryou’d rather be doing and that’s absolutely fine none of us have to be 100% committed to what we’re doing but Ithink for me the the idea that you’re going to necessarily be have a betteroutcome because or you’re sending your child to private school is just not trueand if you were more engaged and understood how your child was being educated on what was going on then Ithink it would make a difference so the argument I’ve often used is the uh the idea of a pra a handbag i’ quite oftenhave when I meet a parent mom will be carrying a very expensive Pride handbag and they’ll be moaning about the expenseof school fees and then the extra expensive tuition and I’ve always putI’ve got got a sh carrier bag in my in my cupboard yeah could I replace my shop carrier bag with your PR handbag becauseit does the same job yeah and for a of course never no one’s going to want to take a plastic bag but that I saidthat’s really the decision you’re making even if it’s wait TR even if it’s wait but that’s the decision you’re making here because what you’re basicallysaying is I need a bag any bag probably would work for me but I’d rather carrythis one yes I think like the the magic of is likea actually one of the things things that gets so for instance if a child goes offa student goes off to Harvard something like that is it current prime minister is it becausethey’ve gone to a great elite school or is it because they’ve already got thatability they would have thrived anyway funny you should say that I was look just just reminding myself of some Statstoday just had a a quick cursory glance and I got told off for having it it on the back of an envelope hence the notebook there have been in recent years only five PrimeMinisters who did not go to private school um but funnily they almost all ofthem apart from John Major I think went to grammar schools apparently John Majorwas like the clever person but the interesting thing was they all went onto Oxbridge all of them okay so thewe’ve had some very serious political changes to the way we do things in this country and we are and I think it’s avery good thing sending an enormous amount of young people to University year no argument with that I I wouldquestion whether we should be sending all of those young people to University they should continue their education nowthe reason I mentioned that is because when I was when I left school at 18 with my a levels and went to work in the cityvery few of my um six form colleagues went on to University and University was very muchum seen as a place where you go to join the professions that was the thing youcould not take in 1981 when my colleagues were going up to University you could not take the sort of degreesthat you could take now but you had the the the two stream system didn’t you you had the poly Technics they had polyTechnics and also and and to be fair although it it was the early ‘ 80s things weren’t great there were jobsavailable and there were career paths available that would allow you to progress and to um have get a formaleducation you know a professional education which didn’t allow you to go didn’t need you to go to university andof course everyone went for free no one was piling up debt now the the reason Imentioned that is because I saw some research a few years ago um that and I’mstruggling here because I’m can’t remember the exact numbers but the bottom line was that they they did astudy of students from State School backgrounds across the country and private school backgrounds across the country they took the same a levels andthey had the same a level grades they followed them through University and it was 100% correlation that the stateschool students outperformed the private school students at un that’s interesting well this comes back to what you weresaying about the Prime Minister it’s all very very well and good to say we’d had these senior members of society that didnot go to private school but it’s the soft benefits of having a family that isnot struggling financially that is not that is a that can give you that’s it umthe space so with the the the with the university studies because when they got to University the state school studentsweren’t shocked that they were asked to get on with it to read to study to workindependently unfortunately and this is this I speak from experience here that the private school system they weren’tcushioned well they”re incredibly cushioned in their day-to-day lives but I meant the state sorry yeah the theprivate school kids are but outside of that the the reality is that how does aprivate school sell itself it says 86.5% a start a a level 93% a start a at GC oh7 to n at gcsc I’m showing my age there I know it’s changed um so what happensis the tuition in state schools sometimes lacks the breadth that you would expect and because studentsare being funneled and channeled towards those outcomes pass the exam get thebest possible grade that they don’t always develop the broader skills yes that somebody who is struggling in a abusy school and then going home and having to share a bedroom with a siblingor two or three not having a laptop not necessarily having all the other electronic benefits and not having alibrary of books in the in the house not having mom and dad who can pitch in witha bit of homework these students the intelligence levels could be similar but they learn to work andthey learn to be more self-reliant and I think that sometimes the private education system can take away that thatunderstanding that you need to engage educ you can take a bright child and youcan hot housee them to get the grade you want as a school that doesn’t mean you’ve educated them yeah so so withIndependent Schools my experience has been and and to an extent from where I’ve talked to people whose childrenhave gone to State schools and I’ve got friends whose children have gone to State schools happens Less in stateschools from what I can see and again it’s anecdotal but the with with umIndependent Schools I it was very much well you can’t take that particular alevel because you’re never going to achieve the grade as you’re saying right which is why they achieve the gradesthey achieve and there’s not a huge amount of difference one of the stats that I looked at that they were talkingabout at a level they looked at the top 300 Independent Schools and the top300 State schools the independent school children achieved 3a’s across the boardand maybe that’s part of the filtering system whereas with the state schools it was aabso you know to then go on to univers you’re already disadvantaged becausebecause it you know when when when they do as you know when they do personal statements it isn’t just about these arethe grades you’ve got it’s what else have you done I mean the amount of stuff my daughter did to get to where she isit was literally like ticking box okay well have I done pro bono work have I done this have I done that okay I’ve metall of my criteria now I can apply so you know it it it’s a muchbroader discussion I think and and you know you’re talking about tuition the Iagree with you that actually you need to look at what you get the best bang foryour buck absolutely um as you would in any other aspect of life exactly education has got this weird kind ofring F ter of parents I understand that and there is but I think like many things in our public debate to sort ofcome back to this idea about the taxation we are too quick to look for a headlinethat suits our our position confirmation bias absolutely and and I think thisidea that private is always better over state is incorrect it can be but viceversa no and absolutely but equally the idea that we should not the governmentshould not be looking to uh tax these businesses I’m going to call them businesses in the way that they’resuggesting but obviously the labor govern the the labor party if they be were in the election are suggest ing Ithink to knee-jerk to that being it would be wrong for too much pressure on the state system unfair on middle it’snot that simple there are other options other ways of looking at this and if you I just want to keep coming back to thecach we live in a very difficult time for young people and I would just reallywant parents to look very very carefully and this may be an opportunity for parents to reflect on how they spendtheir money so maybe if it’s a case of well we can afford X but X Plus 20% is going to be a stretch it might mean youknow all sorts of other then great then look at that and say should we be spending X then you know yes you seewhat I mean I think I’m not suggesting that this is the political debate is intended to do that I’m suggesting it’sproviding the opportunity to do that for parents to just look again because I think it’s it’s it’s not fair thatparents are so it’s almost impossible it’s I mean it’s a bit of a closed system it’s it’sany parent who sees this will probably recognize the idea because I certainly do and I was a teacher and a parent ofgoing to school particularly if you’re at a private school ask a questioncriticize or make any comment about why a particular educational um path hasbeen followed you know why why aren’t we why aren’t we doing more widespread reading in key St 3 why are we you knowstudying GC GCSE text in keystage 3 well there’s on the main answer for that isbecause we’ got a scheme of working it’s easier usually but the point is if you look at the examples they’re all sayingthe same thing wide reading in my subject Area Wide reading at keystage 3 it doesn’t take place certainly not notno and therefore you’re not teaching your children in your 78 and N to readbut if you were to go along as a parent particularly if you go along as a teacher that doesn’t help at all and ask them why they are studying a GCSE textas a classroom reader in year eight or year seven you’ll just get thisStonewall of well we know what we’re doing that it’s not fair on parents because you know you can’t go along andsay to your car dealer I’d like to buy this £100,000 car but can you explain to me why you know he got only one seat inthe front well we know what we’re doing you would want to know everything there is to know about that investmentwhatever that asset was before you bought it there’s the idea of this this parents just sort of think or a lot ofparents just think I’m paying money for this therefore must be good it’s exactly what I need they’ve got it all coveredit’s out it’s Outsourcing the responsibility and the and it’s horrifying to think that you might have spent all that money and not got whatyou want what you thought you were getting that’s the that’s the really horrifying thing I mean um I mean someof the most intelligent people I’ve ever met uh went to private school andtowbridge some of the shall we say less intelligent people whoever met also went to went to private school and towalkbridge and and there is not this there is so coming back to my Wickedpastor an investment banker one of my colleagues was running an investment uh sorry a graduate training program so youhave this idea that you’ve gone to a really good private school you’ve got three A’s at a level threea stars at a level you’ve gone off to a Russell groupUniversity and you’ve got a first or a 21 to get onto The Graduate training program of a particular Bank where heworked and this is about 10 years ago it’s probably worse now um he had three and a half thousandapplicants for 80 positions globally so he might have he wanted to possibly interview 230 240 so how do you go from3 and half th000 to 240 so we we just kept applying filters onto the individuals we ended up you know youtake out who hasn’t got a first who hasn’t got a masters who hasn’t got an NBA we ended up with students who had adistinction at MBA from places like the LSC Oxford and Cambridge Stanford Harvard you know all the topuniversities across Europe and in the Far East and that that got him down to about 260 so in order to make the cut for theinterview you had to have an education that was way Beyond you had to have a success levelof Ed top 1% Way Beyond and the truth is that the people you probably wanted to hire you’ve already discarded yeah I wasgoing to say but the point always no it’s not the case that just because that achievement is there but the point sometimes it’s worse it can be and thepoint I’m trying to make is that the to sell a parent and a student at the age of 17 18 and parents are you knowdesperately worried and concerned trying to do the right thing to sell them the idea get a good threea get a good threeAlives from this school we’ll get you to Russell group University get yourself a degree you’re set for life it’s not trueused true and 60 65% of judges are fromprivate education I think 60% of uh private secretaries and civil toptop civil service jobs are from private schools and probablyOxbridge um and you know the stats just go on and on some of that is to do withum clothes shops with the industries because I mentioned earlier about the very small percentage of my colleagueswho went on to university university in the 70s and 80s and obviously for decades if not centuries before it wasthere to educate people that we uh who were going to move into the Civil Service into law into medicine um it wasnot there for yes General further education we didn’t believe so thoseIndustries you just mentioned particularly the civil services and I would argue possibly the the Armed Forces as well yes I think that was theother stat you know the universities were taking a tiny percentage of of young people and saying you will be ournext barristers lawyers judges our next I it depends on what course people take because nowadays the coures inUniversity when I when I looked at University they to anything no not just that there is I mean I’ve sometimesyou’re better off just starting work absolutely this idea that there’s a correlation between a degree in mediaand a job at the BBC it it’s it’s never been the case and you’re more likely if you’re I don’t know 14 you start editingor something to be it’s portfolio base isn’t it I be much further ahead yes yessorry I do use filters obviously when I’m looking to bring people in and ifsomeone’s CV has has went to UCL was a sort of studying a medicaldegree or something like that I immediately go maybe but there’s a reason why you’veapplied those filters right because you’re looking for a science tutor so this right in that case so the subjectknowledge is there the fact that they have made it to UCL shows that the work ethic is there and the study ethic isthere which is which is matters understandable in business I don’t thinkit’s I don’t even think it’s the main thing I think the main thing is actually being able to to talk to people delivera class communicate well simplify going back to the soft skill it’s something I’ve struggled with a lot over timebeing able to communicate properly like a good good academic record I think shows a level ofconscientiousness and that’s something that I I sort of will look for we’re notsaying it’s the only thing though but i’ I’d say like one if I’m if I’m looking at applicationsand I’m just like I’m I could drown in a sea of data or I can go okay well I’vegot to start chopping I must admit I’ve been really surprised to see how manycandidates we’ve had yeah and then I how many I filter out and then and Iobviously I don’t see the filter stage because I only look at the most of them I just look and I’ll just go okay no Iagree I have to bring in I have to bring in the best people of course you do before we move too far along havingtaught you English at GCSE I just want to say how impressed I am with the metaphor drowning in a sea ofdata excellent I Pat myself on the back slightly there

Fringe Benefits & The Psychology

very so one of the things uh I experienced when we when I first workedin the city was that we didn’t hire graduates um I didn’t have a degree um and most of the young people I workedwith back in the early ‘ 80s didn’t have degrees all you had to have was far too much to say for yourself and the abilityto shout and scream uh to tra to trade the financial markets But as time went on we we looked at hiring graduates forspecific roles so we started off and I think fairly understandably with graduates with an economics backgroundthis is the financial markets and so that seemed to make some sense didn’t work particularly because financial markets are driven by famously by fearand greed not by economic theory okay and we’ve all read fear and greed I think everybody put it on your UK formas I remember um and then we said okay well let’s have another look at this maybe mathematics because we weretrading more complicated financial instruments and a mathematical background wonderful understanding ofhow to build an instrument and how to do something clever absolutely impractical in terms of trading it in the market notentirely but that so that didn’t really work so then we started being a bit more creative and and we looked at Engineerswho would have sort of un understanding of structures and the way long story short the best graduates we ever hiredwere graduates in psychology because makes per sense because the markets are traded by people they’re nottraded well okay algorithms trade the market to a large extent but at that time it was much more important to havea sense of how people were feeling how people were thinking what the psychology of the markets that’s why they brought in behavioral economics and the reasonthe reason I mentioned this is that coming back to your point proog the idea that you can take a degree that will getyou a job we need to debunk that because well educated people well educatedpeople who comp apply themselves with you know who are intellectually curious will probably have a better professionaloutcome yeah so what you’re suggesting is that we go back to the wild westbecause if you think about how universities were set up Oxford and Cambridge were set up for the clergywell no sorry to Dr I agree with that but what I’m what I’m actually saying is that everybody particularly a grar highperforming School grammar school private school these are the most important exams you’ll ever take your GCS I seeyeah and then You’ have your gcsc and these are the most important then these are your A Levels the point is but whenyou get into the bigger wider world the type of degree you’ve had theexperience you’ve had the quality of your degree is probably more is going to be much more important than whether yougot all nines at gcsc but to to be able to get into that degree well we we weknow we know that it’s not exclusive to private school so what I’m saying is perhaps what might be useful is to look at the pros and cons of these twosystems yes you know the pros and cons of paying for an education because thatwhat this topic is are we pricing people out of their education and I suppose my questionwould be is is that necessarily a bad thing yeah and and just very quickly on that point if you think about it againDevil’s Advocate um uh parents paying for independentschool parents paying independent school fees are paying twice already becausethey’re part of the taxation system and what 50% of the money goes to educationyeah so you again and then you’re paying on top of that but you see that’s one of the arguments that I would I would findthat difficult to sort of just sit just let it go because if that is the casebut you’re you’re being you’re being given the option of how you spend your money you’re you’re not actually being taxed twice because you’re taxingyourself the second time my question would be is have you really thought through the pros and cons of the twosystems and would it not be wiser to take some advice to think a little bit more aboutI know it’s emotional and I know you want the very best for your child we all we all did that but right now even moremore so than I think in in the last 25 years the best outcome from the child isn’t necessarily chucking a huge amountof money at private education no yes well I think most of most of where I amtoday and how I think and everything and what I’ve learned has come way afterbeing even at University I don’t I don’t but do you not think that your Ed in this case ithappens to be an independent school but do you not think that your education and all the experiences you had with yourmusic with all of that experiences that has led you to where you are if you think about the the the bestthat we’ve had I would argue that some of the best tutors we’ve had have come from a private school background look atlook at Gareth look at Caroline and that it was a different I mean I didn’t knowthey’d come from private school backgrounds I it was only afterwards but they happened to be some of our look atIan some of our best tutors I didn’t get a private school noyou didn’t go to private school but I certainly not you are very you had to teach private school kids so you teachprivate school children um yes yeah I do yeah okay so you understand I just wanted to clarify that I am one of thesekids who really didn’t have any I didn’t go to private school either but I think was it there’s you all turned out fineso but it wasn’t it wasn’t so possibly yeah it’s more about going to a good school rather than because like I wentfrom not a very good school to Forest and it was like a very big differencemassive massive massive difference I had similar thing I went from the biggest comprehensive in southeast London to aGrammar School in Kent and what a leap but I think it’s it’s very difficult totake individual cases and suggest that it works for the wholebecause I’ve several of my friends who I went to school with did not have a particularly easy ride through the largecomprehensive schools in warm Stow that I went to and yes okay turned out okayfor me and it turned out okay for some of my friends and they went to good universities or got good jobs and is POSbut it is possible but that doesn’t mean that of the Thousand boys who were at my senior high school in walm Stow thateverybody had exactly the same possibilities or opportunities because you you you as I say so the theindividual doesn’t count for the whole what we’re talking about here in terms of how we tax these schools back to thatidea how if we’re talking about how we tax these schools for me I’ve said it a few timesunderline it again I believe that it is important that parentsare almost forced because I don’t think many parents are forced to considerclearly the debate between is it the case that all state schools are terrible and all privateschools are good because unfortunately I believe that is the argument that has been put forward far too simply far tooplainly and in my view very incorrectly yeah yeah so you mentioned pros and cons I did

Pros and Cons

indeed so I have three of each roughly so I’m goingto read out one at a time and you just tell me your thoughts mhm yeah so westart with the pro we have increased fees of Independent Schools will discourage middle classfamilies from applying which could potentially benefit the state system do we agree with that um I I believe thatwe have to have a broad we have to have a representation of society in aclassroom now that’s difficult to achieve because we don’t have a representation of all Society in wherewe live I mean we all choose to live in places because we’re comfortable there but for a lot of people the majority ofpeople they end up living in places because that’s the only option and so the argument against grammar schoolsback when we talked about closing grammar schools was that it would give us better sort of a better mix of socialand intellectual and and financial backgrounds in the classroom as we know that Society doesn’t mix that waypostcode lottery I think was your term so I’m I’m not necessarily sure that youall of all of a sudden overnight you’d have these wonderful debates in in classrooms up and down the country in state schools okay anything to add no Ithink I Fair much agree yeah okay we’ll go with and against introducing VAT onIndependent Schools could make them expensive potentially driving these families to an already overburdenedState system so it could it could result in larger classes for yeah course wehave and in this country generalization but it’s Minds I’m going to make it we my experience ofgrowing up at a very workingclass background growing up um and workingamongst all sorts of people in different contexts we need to Value education in this country far more highly and I don’tmean we need to spend we PE parents need to spend their money or send them kids to University or private school I meanat home in the day-to-day workplace we need to we need to understand that it isgood to be educated it’s actually cool to learn and I think that this idea thatum that it only takes place in the best schools I think is is problematic youknow I think I think we need to and in order to if we’re going to do that we need to fund education in a far morecreative way we have systematically put various sides of the political um agendawith systematically underfunded education we don’t value teachers as we should and we only value educationbecause we think it will get you a good job now I believe that the I’ve saidthis going back 20 years we do not necessarily have the best people in ourschools no we don’t one of the reasons for that is I don’t think we value education in the way some of our European Partners do so forme it is fair to say that if we’re going to attract better quality teachers we need to pay more now this might mean for5 10 maybe even 15 years you’ll be overpaying teachers who don’t actuallydeserve to be paid in that way but ultimately if we don’t fund our teachingstaff at a higher level we won’t attract higher quality we won’t we’ll make it harder in the classroom now it’s notthat simplistic that’s not going to change education overnight but I think extra funding for uh for uhteaching staff extra funding for schools is vital that absolutely so to sum thatup I think and I you know we’ve talked about this over the yearsum we need to level up the state systemrather than bring down the systems that the peripheral systems like theindependent put some numbers on it remember 7% of young people go to private school so that means that youknow we’re talking about 7% of our our pupils 93% really where we should beconsidering what’s going on there exactly and level that up rather than focus on the 7% of which out of that 93%only five I think it’s 5% that go to Grammar School uh so maybe look at how you canimprove the state system sowell yeah this leads me on to this so we said it could raise 1.5 billion annuallyadding vat mhm now firstly do you think that’s going to do you think that moneywould go to state schools but it get put in people’s pockets with it I see firstly I think it’s unlikely to raise1.5 billion because that’s probably on existing numbers if you take if you take the impact of 20% increase in fees andthe reduction in number of that’s exactly they haven’t done end up with less than 1. less than that 1.5 billiona year sounds like an awful lot of money in terms of funding education is nowhere near enough I would it’s a really really tighty amount compared to Crossroadand and as soon as another project comes up or you know another Chancellor comesin or another political party you know education of course because it’s state-run and state funded it’sincredibly political and no it’s not fair to say that that money will be ring fended and go into education and thenwho’s to say whether you know you got let’s say you’ve got a billion pound po and it is ring fenced and everybodyknows nobody can touch it how do you start spending it you know the Northeast Northeastern schools Northwesternschools the I would I mean I know how I would spend it I would definitely levelup the Northeast that no not the Northeast Northern England but then theSouthwest would then be screaming quite rightly well what about us I would start with the north because the thedifferentials don’t go to coralon Holiday is my suggestion because of the differentials in the results that theyachieve inner city parts of London inner city parts of Manchester I me I’ve T I’ve T verybriefly in in in a city London and it needs a whole load morethan a little that pin drop of a a bit of money I think the argument is fair ifthey ring pin sit their extra money for schools is always welcome it’s probably not going to be enough no it definitelywouldn’t be enough right so we go back to against like a a con evenfixing the potholes in England would cost 15 billion yeah yeah so the scholarship andery situation nowif if if these schools had to add vat uh and you know charge more it wouldreduce the number of scholarship and bery places available um even less opportunity forLess there are some schools that do a lot of Outreach work but there aren’t that many so so forexample um um Local Schools uh you know the localIndependent Schools here how many bseries do they provide not many wellthey’re doing more bseries now scholarships there’s like a lot less tomake a difference to a child who would benefit from that but comes from a verydeprived background you need 100% you need pay for everything and if you hand out birth they are usually small amountsof money they are parents still have got to find the extra money you know and it’s it’s a used them before it is Iwater and more importantly spending that money in that way is lifechanging yeah and I believe that there are betterchanges you could make to person’s life that’s you know so I I think it’s a mood Point really there are some there aresome people who got 100% scholarships they are very rare very rare I’m like in a lot ofcases I I think sometimes they’re the parents aren’t necessarily that poor yesyes certainly so so in my daughter’s year if I look at the children that gotscholarships whether they were 100% or not they definitely weren’t poor it wasit scholarship is more ability based whereas berer is more means-based and I think maybe maybe if they switchthat then it would it may make a difference for me that’s a that’s not necessarilyan educational debate as much as a political one and one for you know onefor everybody to consider you know I think it’s uh I don’t think it’s fair that any business should receive I don’tthink it’s fair that any individual should receive an unfair tax advantage in that way you know we we we can haveany society I believe that we’re willing to pay for and if we’re not willing andto pay through taxation and let’s be fair we all have the fact that Google and Starbucks andthese people don’t pay the proper taxes they should get but if you said to any individual would you like some advice onhow to reduce your tax bill of course we sense yes everybody’s going to say that so if we’re if we’re not going to becomfortable with higher levels of uh tax because we I mean we’ve never had such high levels of Taxation ridiculous thisis outrageous so it’s not about necessarily the overall level of Taxation is what we do with that money and how we how we spend it we are abusiness we are an educational business and we pay V8 we have to pay vat as well as every other tax and I don’tunderstand the point of vat maybe I’m being naive no we’ve always said this you know you’re already taxed on yourincome why then tax again I think I think was it so consumption taxes theymade sense maybe when they were brought in because they we were in a growingeconomy so and and and it makes sense that if if people are consuming a lotthen but you’ve already taxed on that income that you’re spending yeah so why are you being taxed again well it’s justa way for the government to get money is as in if so there’s no actual short ofwe need this money and we’re going to take it there’s no actual but then when you studyvat I did study it a little bit so just like how you create tax Fair fairer taxsystems um consumption taxes tend to hit the thepoor and the middle class quite hard and then rich people wealthy peoplecertainly not that much well the regressive taxes this is the thing it is an aggressive tax if it’s not you knoweverybody pays the same rate irrespective of income um I mean sales tax Purchase Tax they’ve been a part ofthe taxation system of Western democracies and economic systems for a very very long time yes they have Ithink you know if we go back far enough we could argue that the window tax probably didn’t make any sense so people started breaking up their Windowsbecause you tax by how many windows you wanted the point you make I think is a good one the government needs the money they need to find ways to raise itfinally another against Point Independent Schools contribute quite a lot to the economyso um not just through fees with through employment local spending charitable activities so there’s an argument theoverall economic impact needs to be considered um we also spoke about how ifyou do add vat and they have to save some money it could also result in joblosses for certain people well we’re shter teachers generally but be even worse um but well we’re short ofteachers generally so you know I mean it’s not again comes back to funding we are we’ve got schools merging andclosing um but the being a teacher has I’ve always felt it it’s one of thefew professions remaining where you you do have fairly strong um confidence thator good confidence that you you won’t be unemploy employed yes you might you might not necessarily work in the context you want to work in you mightnot necessarily work in the area you you want to work in but you know ultimately as we know as a teacher you can stick asign up in a shop window and say you’re a tutor you know it’s I’m not suggesting that that’s the perfect career path butwhat I’m saying is that I think there could be job losses because schools will shrink classrooms will shrink they alluh but you know the one thing that really I look I’ve watched school fees go from the level that I was paying whenmy children went to private school to the terrifying numbers that I’m hearingparents talk about now and all of these schools have still got waiting lists yeah so I’m tempted towonder whether whilst it would be uncomfortable or unpleasant whether actually the impact that we’re allconcerned about or people are will it really will it I mean peoplepeople are already finding money that I wouldn’t believed possible spare cash you know and we’re talking it’s put somenumbers on it I think you we’re talking 8,000 a term or something for a local school it’s eight eight and a half eightand a half so that say 25,000 per child per year before all the rest so you got two kids £50,000 in you put a jacket onthem’s got to be earning £75,000 just to pay the school fees now that’s an it’snot a bad salary you know £75,000 is an awful lot of money to earn before taxand give to a private school yes maybe there’s a better there’s another debate to be had here because I thinkwhen we talk about private schools unless you’ve had the experience of having children in a private school and knowing what it’s what it means to spendthat sort of money I think it’s easy to either criticize them out of hand or tonot see exactly how much money people are spending and unless we look at thosetwo things carefully you private schools like all institutions should be open to criticism they shouldn’t be Beyonddebate no but equally nor should we sort of dismiss them as being only placeswhere Posh people go because there are lots of people who come from all sorts of backgrounds who are sacrificing inorder to raise that money yes school so my point is pro you know for or againstthe idea of of taxing them I just want parents to start to look morecarefully at the nature of um the the family Finance and how they could possibly use that tosupport their children because if they had to spend more time thinking aboutwhat school they were in how they were being taught how they were being tuted then that would have a knock on effectof the children because right now when parents pay that sort of money understandably but very unhelpfully theydisengage from the process not all of them clearly not all of them for some people it’s I’m payingfor this I I want to get the right result but for some people they think well that’s you know it’s always like I’ve hired a gardener I don’t need to dothe weeding I’ve go to private school I don’t need to think about the children’s education and I think we it would beit’s not a bad thing to have a debate that allows parents to look at what they’re spending think about how theychildren are being educated and ask is there a different way this idea about would we would there be job losses wouldit have an impact on the local area I can’t honestly see that most of these schools would I Idon’t think they’re going to disappear overnight right now they’ve had shocks like this before so when National Insurance uh contributions werechanged um one of the big local schools here had their entire surplus of cash because they’re not allowed to make aprofit because they’re a charity but they can hold a surplus and when the National Insurance contrib contributionsfor teachers went up their entire Surplus was wiped out they haven’t got anysmaller so I think there’s a certain amount of you know these these guysaren’t they’re not sort of they’re not some sort of Fab that we shouldn’t criticize or you know they need to benot touched not looked at I think they’re much more robust than we thinkand I think there’s because they don’t want their parents to have to pay an extra 20 20% and of course parents don’twant to have to pay an extra 20% they will make arguments that not exactly project fear but they will kind of makethese arguments that suggest that there’s going to be some major social unrest or KnockOn effect econom icallyI’m not so sure that’s the case well we’re only talking about what 600,000 children something like that that go tothese schools it’s not a a huge huge number considering it’s I don’t know howmany million how many yeah I don’t know how many millions there are in education generally so over thenext 10 years they’re predicting the um schools will get smaller or orclassrooms will get smaller because the number of children going to school over the next 10 years is dropping by byquite a big percentage um because of the birth rate drops um but I think goingback to your point maybe what it needs is that the Independent Schools need to make up their mind and not have a footin each Camp to say well we’ll get business rate relief because we’re a business and we’ll also take charitystatus because you can’t be both it’s one or the other m in my opinion some some parents go to like go to theprivate system for different reasons than just like academic a lot of parentsseem to go from from my experience having talked to parents for the smallerclass size that’s a that’s one so small to go into a smaller school yessometimes um and in some cases with some of my friends that I knew at primaryschool they left because of the bully in the state school was so bad so theyended up um going for the like chigwell and other ones so I mean it stillhappens there as well I was just going to say it still goes on yeah but it’s it’s not really but you’ve got list You’got less students you’ve got bit more oversight because obviously but bullying is bullying I mean it’s hor happenseverywhere and it’s it shouldn’t be ignored and and what it does make beg anotherquestion quite often private schools will not accept they have problems like bullying or like poorteaching or other potential you know issues in and around the school Fabricand the reason they won’t is because they are a business and like any business they want to present well to the public they they need a good sort ofPublic Image all of their activity is based around the fact that selling themselves as this look at any websiteand they will show you the little children in the classroom and the big children leaving the six wouldn’t you like your child to be dressed in thiscute little uniform and leaving through these Gates going onto the world to take it’s just not true you know in the samein the same way that I don’t know Coke doesn’t actually taste better than Pepsi probably advertising for these schoolsis crucial so quite often issues like bullying get swept under the carpet andso yes you might think to yourself well I’ll send them to private school there won’t be a drug problem there won’t be a problem with violence there won’t be aproblem with bullying well unless the school hasn’t got any children in whatsoever there will be there will beit was nowhere near as like it wasn’t it wasn’t anywhere near as as bad um forlike say say yes I thing I think that’s the thing is like it depends on the scale andless circumstances yeah lesschildren more space more teachers generally means that there’s better oversight so but it it it doesn’t justdisappear no you know it doesn’t just disappear is there a way of of doing

Solutions

this in a palatable manner for parents and schools so it’seasy you’re always going to have the conflict because nobody’s going to want to pay we already discussed this putextra taxation in a very very high taxation situation anextra tax on anybody’s income those to whom it will apply will be very upset soI think in terms of there being a compromise I think the I think it’s unlikely because I can’t see how youcould compromise and say well 20% extra on your school fees but we’ll make sure they get an extra burger at lunchtime orsomething you know there’s there’s no way we never we enough food there’s no exactly but there’s no way to give thatmoney back in it but you because if you do then you’re you’re not actually achieving what you set out to do so gonebut you could um you could do a reduce rate so as in like a like a yeah so canyou imagine can you the administration of that would be way beyond the the Imean You’ spend a lot of your tax money just managing and administr administering that situ I don’t know cuzsome like energy bills and stuff like 5% you not just do like a a lower V so whatyou’d have to means test the parents and say if not the parents School no no yeah you just do so what you’re saying israther than use oh so rather than use 20% use 12% as a flat rate or 12% yeah you could do on a flat rate scheme andthen or or based on like construction has 5% V8 don’t they I’m sorry I don’twant to sort of wave my political credentials too hard here but in a world where we were quitehappy to put VAT on feminine hygiene products are we really going to say thatwe should make some separate arrangement for private schools I mean this goesback to my original point about we have rules on taxation in this country and I just think that this strikes me as thevery wealthy and privileged whining about not being quite so wealthy and privileged I’m not suggesting that’s what’shappening but I can see how people would look at it in that way so I think if we startcompromising it’s going to I mean I think political suicide for a start but I think I think that would look bad andI think ultimately places like Eaton Harrow you know um these big Westminsterones yeah they’ll they’ll actually do much better so they’ll they’ll make more money because they’ve got vat they’llput it up 20% and then they’ll basically subtracts their vatable goodsand then but any company can do that yes but yeah those ones will do fine butthen the ones that are smaller will just so what let’s just go around what what would be what be yourSolutions or is there not one I don’t believe there is a solution I believe politically this is a very very popularmove amongst the country I think a lot because we’re talking about a minority of parents here minority of schools butit’s a very vocal minority and that’s the issue here you’ve got 7% of the children so tinypercentage of families in the country but these are the families who are likely to be on social media writing tothe Press making noise and the schools themselves have got advocacy because of the you know thepeople who went to these schools and there so there’s there will be a lot of people who can make a lot of noise around this issue but I think for I’mnot I’m not think every person in the country is not a private school would agree but I think it’s unlikely you’ll find many who won’t so is who who shoutsloudest alongside some level of bias I think so and I think also that for a lotof people this is just a non-issue yeah you know I mean if if if you’re ifyou’re regular middle class family living in any part of the UK sending your kids to the local state school andjust getting on with like you’re probably thinking really you I’m not really bothered given the world we’re living in given the issues is this isthis really I mean it will be an election issue because I think for labor inparticular it’s a vote winner yes because we are talking about the majority of people who don’t benefitfrom this I mean we’ve just spent I don’t know an hour and 20 minutes discussing this and you could argue thatthe four of our Collective intellects could have been put to better use today I mean I know it’s our topic and that’swhy but you see what I mean I mean I I I think that actually it’s politically very uh attractive I think it goes downvery very well with the sort of uh areas that believe that they are um beingbadly serviced when it comes to education I think that’s many parts of the countryso I I don’t think it’s going to go away I mean I I think the only way that thethe the there is a possible solution and that would be for um a conservativewinning the current election because they wouldn’t do this but I think given the current state of play I think thisis it’s not just a fair compete I think it’s actually just thestart interestingly enough though there was like a lot of parents who send their

The Parents’ Opinions

children to private schools actually would have no problem paying vat like sothey did a survey on this and they actually came back with more people the majority saying they wouldn’t stop themsending their goes back to Ian’s point of you know a storming a teacup and some of them say as well that the societalbenefit is more important than the because they feel they’re in aprivileged position it’s important to remember that not everybody who said not every family in that 7% who sends theirchildren to private school are by definition leaning towards the right oror voting conservative there are an awful lot of people some of which are on the front bench of the labor party whoare using the private school system private schools attract a variety of families with different political andsocial backgrounds for a variet of reasons I think that’s so the conclusion is that essentially VAT on privateschools is probably fair and and palatablefor the population politically and thus is quite likely to go through if laborwin the election yes just one last point I would like toadd is that when I was first training to be a teacher uh one of my mentors ummade a very important point which was in every lesson what a teacher should aim to do is teach the student and thesubject not just the subject not just the subject absolutely and I think thewhat what we if we look at this debate about how we should fund schooling I think we should start by making surethat we are aiming for the correct outcome no matter what the contextbecause if you’ve got a teacher who is teaching your son or daughter as a student thenthey will have a better outcome no matter what the context even if they have to pay for their own lunch or theydon’t get to play the flute or they don’t get to go on Cricket to us to you know the and and Dutch Antilles orwhatever you don’t get all those other benefits but if you have teachers who are willing to focus on the student aswell as the subject then that’s a better place to start than worrying about whether private schools are going tohave slightly more or slightly less students and the sad thing about that is that there are so many teachers who wantto do that but the constraints of the systems stop them doing it becausethey’re just not enough hours in the day so as you can see there’s no clear conclusion to this let us know your

Outro

thoughts in the comments below if you’re watching us on YouTube don’t forget to like And subscribe if you’re listening to us on Spotify or apple give us afollow and a rating and we’ll see you again nextmonth the education Lounge podcast [Music]