The Courier

As the General Election campaigns gather pace, I want to update you on the actions we have been taking to put our views across to local parliamentary candidates on Labour’s plans to introduce VAT on school fees, and the scenario planning and modelling we are undertaking to mitigate the impact on fee payers should the policy be implemented.

As you will be aware, Labour have included their intention to add VAT to independent schools’ fees in their election manifesto. Much is made of how they plan to spend the money they claim will be raised; however, they give no detail as to the timings and exactly what VAT will be applied to. Of course, this lack of clarity adds to the difficulty of our scenario planning. However, the Trustees, Senior Leadership Teams and I are entirely focused and committed to doing everything we can to support you and your children in the coming months and years.

There is now a small window to potentially influence the debate, sow seeds of doubt and affect the timing and scale of any implementation. By working together, we hope we can encourage a pulling back by the policy makers from the most destructive scenarios. This is something that the Independent Schools Council is doing at a national level, and that we and other independent schools are doing at a regional and local level. As Parliamentary Political Candidates (PPCs) have now been confirmed for all constituencies, we have been in contact with the three main party PPCs for all the constituencies where our families live, emphasising the effect of such a policy on our Foundation schools.

We now ask you to add your voice to ours, by contacting the candidates in your own constituency to put your view across about the policy. It is important that this is not seen as a ‘round robin’ type communication, but personal and authentic to you and your family’s circumstances. It is recommended that you include your address or postcode to any communication so they know you are a local voter, which will prioritise a response.

You may want to include some of the following:

- the reasons why you chose independent education and why the school is important to you and your family;

- the sacrifices you have made to afford this education;

- the special reasons you chose the school, the education matching your faith/values because of special educational needs or pastoral concerns, or to develop your child’s particular talent in sports, music, arts, or drama;

- your worries about what will happen to local state schools if the tax comes in;

- requesting a follow-up and that your concerns be passed to the party’s education team can be an appropriate way to conclude any correspondence.

To help you get your own message across, we have drawn up a list of the local constituencies and contact details for the Parliamentary Political Candidates for the three main parties. This can be found on My School Portal by clicking here and logging in. We notice that the changes to constituency boundaries will have affected a large proportion of our families, so if you would like to check you can use the tool here.

Thank you for your continued support for all our Foundation schools. As soon as we get further information post the election, we will give you further updates. In the meantime, I send you and your families best wishes for the summer – the weather does seem to be on an upward trajectory at last!

Yours sincerely

E D Hester