Why panicked private-school parents are fighting each other for a place at the local comp

Labour's plan to charge VAT on fees has sparked a scramble for the top state schools – and put the independent sector in peril

A movement nicknamed ‘swamp the comp’ – where middle-class parents all flock to the same state secondary school – is growing
A movement nicknamed ‘swamp the comp’ – where middle-class parents all flock to the same state secondary school – is growing

No wonder the Government’s schools website was down earlier this week. Labour’s proposal to charge VAT on school fees prompted a deluge of primary school applications from private school parents. They want to nab a place at a good local primary before their child’s classmates jump ship, too. It’s the same for secondary schools – shiny SUVs lined the car parks at grammar schools and outstanding academies on assessment days this autumn. 

It’s a movement known in parental WhatsApp groups as “Swamp the comp” – the idea being that if enough private school families descend on the same, unsuspecting state school, they will have a positive effect on its performance.

“Labour’s VAT policy has made everyone twitchy,” says Troy Renard, a primary school teacher in Surrey who sends his two sons to a small local prep school. “It’s a misconception that private-school parents are rich. At our school there’s no one turning up in yoga gear: the breakfast and after-school clubs are full as both parents work flat out as doctors or lawyers to give their children the best start they can. We’re already paying for state school places we’re not using via our taxes and now we’ll have to pay thousands more in fees – it’s never made more sense to take up a state-school place.” 

Private schools are as spooked as their fee-paying parents. A survey by Independent Schools Council found that 20 per cent of parents would “definitely” withdraw their children from private schools if the policy, which Labour says could raise £1.7 billion to invest in state schools, came into effect. The private sector, which represents about 600,000 children (or 7 per cent of the school-age population), is still recovering from Covid, when many furloughed parents were forced to pull their children out, and is now faced with higher running costs and lower intakes. As families feel the pinch of higher living costs and mortgage rates, “state ’til eight” has become “state ’til secondary” – an extra 20 per cent on school fees could keep them in the state sector forever. 

The glossiest, richest schools will be able to absorb some of the tax. It is rumoured that Cheam, a prep school in Hampshire, will pass on only 12 to 13 per cent of the VAT to parents. Smaller, less wealthy schools will struggle to absorb so much. 

Michael Armitage, deputy head at Amesbury School, a co-educational prep school on the Surrey, Hampshire and West Sussex border, worries for small independent prep schools like his that prepare children for a wide variety of schools rather than being linked to a particular senior school. While numbers at Amesbury, which has a main building designed by Cenotaph architect Sir Edwin Lutyens, are currently healthy, Armitage knows that many of the parents are already stretching themselves almost to breaking point to afford the £12,000-a-year fee. 

Other small independent schools are pre-emptively merging – Edgeborough School has recently fallen in with Charterhouse – while a few have given up entirely, such as Westward School in Surrey, St Mary’s Shaftesbury in Dorset and Ashdown House, Boris Johnson’s former prep school, in East Sussex. Redcliffe Gardens School in Chelsea, meanwhile, will shut at the end of the summer term. 

“If Labour has their way, only the big, rich independent schools filled with the children of Russian billionaires will be left standing,” Renard says. 

Even these might decide it’s not worth the effort, though; many of the big names in private education are propped up by private equity or education companies, who will close them if their profits are threatened. Parents of boys at Falcons Pre-Preparatory School in Chiswick, west London, which is owned by Inspired Education, an international private school company said to be worth more than £5 billion, have been told that the school will be closing in December because of a lack of pupils. And United Learning, the company that owns the Royal School in Haslemere, is attempting to cash-in by selling off part of its site to developers. These fat-cat schools groups are in it for profit, yet prep schools such as Amesbury exist purely for the good of the pupils and the local community, who benefit from jobs and facilities.

“Perhaps Labour should look at private schools on a case-by-case basis?”, says Armitage, whose two sons are at a state comprehensive. “Some schools probably don’t deserve charitable status but those like mine with no ulterior motive, who put every penny back into the school and send pupils to 25 different secondary schools, probably do.”

While pupils uprooted from Falcons have been offered a place at another Inspired Education establishment – Wetherby Preparatory School in west London, once attended by Princes William and Harry, is one of them – their parents might well decide to save their money and go state. This causes a problem, though, as the kind of state school they’ll want to send their children to is likely to be heavily oversubscribed. Already 60,000 children miss out on a place at their preferred primary school and in Bath and Wolverhampton there are schools taking only two in every five applicants. 

“The state system is not ready for an influx – already the system forgets children who are academically mainstream and compliant as it struggles to look after those with additional learning, language and behavioural needs,” says Armitage.

The argument, of course, is that with an extra billion to play with, the state sector will be able to hire more teachers and invest in new equipment. Both Renard and Armitage, as teachers in the state system, long to see a more egalitarian education system where the state system offers the same opportunities for drama, sport and pastoral care as private schools. They don’t believe, though, that the money raised from VAT on private fees will make any difference at all. Indeed Geoff Barton, of the Association of School and College Leaders, maintains the Government needs to spend an extra £2 to £3 billion each year on education just to meet rising costs; if 20 per cent of privately educated children move across, it will be even more. 

As Shaun Fenton, head of Reigate Grammar, points out, this would mean VAT is levied on just 3 or 4 per cent of the children rather than the 7 per cent labour has calculated. “Everyone knows this isn’t really going to raise any money and it’s not going to solve any education problems,” he told Times Radio. “And we’d be the only country in Europe doing this.”

Rather than benefiting state school children, Renard believes the tax could, in fact, lead to more “honey-pot” postcodes, where the rich compete to own houses in the catchment of an outstanding primary or secondary school, pricing out local families. “In the state sector itself there’s a two-tier system because of how admissions work and catchment areas. People with money are just going to buy the expensive houses near the amazing schools,” he says. “Until all the schools in every area are equal, which is never going to happen, there will be people with money pushing out those without.” 

Already towns such as Hungerford, in Berkshire, and Taunton, in Somerset, which have a selection of reputable state schools that are not oversubscribed are drawing in Londoners, while families are specifically moving to counties such as Dorset, Northumberland and Bedfordshire where it is easiest to get into your first choice of state school. 

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, whose parents worked hard to send him to Winchester College, believes Labour’s proposal fails to understand the aspiration that drives many middle-class families. 

For Armitage, who is a Labour supporter by birth and was state educated, it underestimates the value of small, independent schools that have been part of the fabric of British education for hundreds of years. “For me, taking a job in an independent school was a moral conundrum but I no longer feel any inverse snobbery,” he says. “All I see is people working hard and choosing to spend their money on a product that is benefiting their children. Labour’s proposal is a catchy headline that might win them some votes, but I’m not sure anyone will really be a winner.” 


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