‘Labour’s new VAT policy is a threat to our Christian schools’

When our family made the decision to move to Scotland, the small, private Christian school run by my mother-in-law’s church headed up our list of reasons. From our comfortable living room in New York, in a rare moment not saddled with young children, I’d peruse the school’s website, drawn in by the cute tartan uniforms and smiling students in quaint classrooms. Many of the faculty’s faces familiar from our yearly visits at Christmas holidays.

Since becoming a Christian and a mother, almost nothing has been more important than shepherding our kids along the Lord’s path, safe from the world’s, ever escalating, harmful influences. Understandably, this proved challenging in New York City, home to untold thousands of other Christians, navigating the same issue.

Since becoming a Christian and a mother, almost nothing has been more important than shepherding our kids along the Lord’s path

You can’t change a leopard’s spots where the world is concerned, but the idea of our children enjoying a safe, sheltered environment at a Christian School in Scotland, one unlike comparable New York schools, we could actually afford, tempted us to believe there were perhaps attainable choices available where our children’ schooling was concerned.

My husband warned me about the stigma in Britain over private school education, something as an American I found hard to make sense of. Helpfully forewarned, I was mildly less taken aback when a British neighbour scoffed at the idea of our family moving across the pond for our children to attend a private church school.

Things like learning from the Bible, praying in school, singing praise songs at assembly, knowing the teachers shared our Christian values

“Every child should receive the same standard of education. Schooling is not something societies should give monetary value!”  Why our income or children should matter to anyone outside of our family, their overall safety considered, seemed a mystery. We wanted our children educated in line with the Christian environment we provided at home, I tried to explain. The two heads I seemed to be wearing in the eyes of my neighbour, only sprouted to three… “That’s totally inappropriate! The standard of education for everyone, everywhere should be THE SAME, no weird special treatment for Christians!” That’s what she seemed to be arguing anyway. 

Seven years into our move, the crater between my American and the British mind set on education continues to widen. Post pandemic, the cost of living crisis made affording the school impossible by our non-wealthy family’s means.

Of course, we live near public schools, but there were uniquely positive aspects to having our kids in Christian school, benefits valuable enough to us as believers, we were willing to pay for them. Things like learning from the Bible, praying in school, singing praise songs at assembly, knowing the teachers shared our Christian values, and being secure the children were learning things about health and personal care that were scientifically based and age appropriate are hard, if not impossible to totally replicate in today’s public school environment. Resolute, but disappointed, after six years at what was largely our dream school, we made the decision to home educate.

Now, one year later,  we’ve learned more sad news, after a quarter century as a community staple, the school is closing. Instead of empowering the diverse needs of local families and championing parents’ honourable intentions to financially support their own children with above standard environments and education, the Labour Party has implemented a 20% VAT on private school education, within only 6 months of its election. Families have been caught off guard; families choosing to sacrifice the considerable cost of private education, for the greater good, not only of themselves, but of local communities and the country. Wealthier families will cover the new tax, but families like ours, who haven’t left already, stretched by the government’s further burden, won’t meet the charge on such short notice. This harsh reality has forced the school’s closure.

I spoke to one friend, a teacher at the school and a parent of two students. Saddened by the loss for the community, she called it “a safe, happy place for children who’ve struggled in mainstream schools.” She described the school as “calmer, with small class sizes, and dedicated staff, able to give children individualised attention.” The community now has more overcrowded public school spaces to fill, a small school’s worth of teachers in redundancy and the loss of an educational legacy, sending the next generation of local kids to schools like Glasgow and Edinburgh Universities, with confidence and a Christian ethos. Newly elected British leadership sees this as something not to revere, but to capitalize upon.