One private school has already declared it will close for good at the end of July, blaming “adverse economic and political factors” for its dwindling numbers. In other words: Labour’s VAT plan has done for us. Other private schools have been quick to offer alarmed parents the chance to pay school fees early; get that cash into the bursar’s office before 20 per cent is whacked on top. State schools, meanwhile, are warning that they don’t have space for a deluge of confused pupils, wondering why they don’t have to put on a straw boater every morning.
What drama there will be over the next few months if Sir Keir’s flagship policy gets under way. Even The Guardian managed to say last week that the policy was a mistake, because the average boater-wearing kid whipped out of private school to avoid £3,000 in VAT will cost taxpayers £8,000 annually in state education. Posh schools will increasingly look abroad for foreign pupils to plug the gap. And hark! Can you hear that rasping sound? That’s the noise of a thousand middle-class elbows being sharpened further, readying themselves for battle over the best state-school places.
If you’re someone who’s dismayed by this looming situation, worrying about what to tell little Peregrine, feeling a touch Eeyore-ish about the fact that he will now be the 11th generation of Garibaldi-Talbots not to go to the school in Dorset where you had to break the iced water in the morning to wash your face before a swift 10-miler around the grounds (last one back’s a rotten egg!), please don’t be too despondent. This is perhaps no bad thing. Times are changing, going to private school is no longer mandatory even for families as illustrious as the Garibaldi-Talbots, and in fact little Peregrine may even be much better off at the local comp. Here’s why:
1. He may be able to play a normal sport like football, instead of a peculiarly old-fashioned sport like Fives (Radley) or the Wall Game (Eton), which nobody has ever heard of, much less understand the rules. Some schools also offer beagling, which is all good and well but imagine the scene in the pub, any pub, when someone asks Peregrine what team he supports and he stutters out that he likes the Stowe Beagles. Kinder, if anything, for him never to know about the existence of such a pack.
If Peregrine has a sister, let’s call her Persephone, she will more likely be able to play netball than lacrosse, which is also a good thing. Every Saturday afternoon at my school, at least one girl had to be carted off to the local hospital because her nose had been broken in a tackle. In certain cases, this improved the noses. Still, it was a vicious and bloody game.
2. Parents, you will no longer have to drive three hours (and back) on a Saturday morning to watch these unintelligible games.
3. You may also be able to afford a holiday.
4. And/or a new car.
5. It’s not just the straw boaters. My kit list for school included a separate uniform for Sunday chapel; a thick woollen cloak so large, cumbersome and indestructible that it could have been used as a communal duvet in the trenches; an inordinate amount of sports kit, every piece of which required separate, even larger name tapes in individual house colours so staff could tell who we were at a distance. “Money-Coutts! Get that stick away from her face!” At Christ’s Hospital, pupils still wear knee-length mustard socks; Scottish private schools remain keen on a kilt. A simple sweatshirt will come as something of a blessing.
6. Peregrine and Persephone may develop a healthier relationship with the opposite sex.
7. They may also develop a healthier relationship with you.
8. Gordonstoun, the King’s alma mater, employs a head chef who was once a finalist on MasterChef. Ross Burgess, he’s called, and he doles out breakfasts that include shakshuka and cinnamon toast. Lunch could be a steak with French onions and garlic butter, or chorizo and prawn risotto.
No, no, no. This is all wrong. Private school pupils are supposed to learn important life skills such as how to get through an abysmal dinner party, as well as forbearance and deftness, by swallowing lumpy rice pudding and hiding unidentifiable pieces of meat in a paper napkin. The food they’re being given now will make them awfully soft and spoiled. Out they go.
9. If they graduate from the state system, they won’t have to take their posh private school off their CV. A handful of Old Etonian friends have done just this in recent years, fearing that they’ll be judged by potential employers otherwise. Their plummy accents and signet rings still give it away a bit, but they feel safer, less inclined to be derided as an arrogant berk without their school explicitly stated. Unless you’re applying to the Tory Party, that is, in which case leave it firmly on.
10. Similarly, if your child becomes an Oscar-winning actor in due course, it will be much easier to give interviews to the press if you’ve been to a state school and therefore don’t have to spend half the time apologising and hand-wringing for being privileged.
11. Peregrine and Persephone may actually get into Oxbridge. I’ve heard rumours, in recent years, of parents hoicking their children out of private school for sixth form, so they can apply for university from a state school and try to dodge the quotas that various Oxbridge colleges have set on private pupil intake. Send them from the start and you can avoid all such skulduggery (although they might want to rethink their first names).
12. I once (very briefly) dated a privately educated man who declared that he’d like his children to go to his old school, “less for the educational benefits and more for the social side of things”. We broke up soon afterwards. Possibly not long after he finished that sentence. So look on the bright side: if you do have to send little Peregrine or Persephone to a state school, there’s every chance that they may turn out to be much more well-rounded than him.
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