The drop in pupil numbers, being blamed on VAT being added to fees, is the biggest since the Independent Schools Council began tracking the figures in 2012
, Education and Early Years Editor |
, Senior Data Journalist
Saturday May 17 2025, 5.04pm, The Sunday Times
The number of pupils at private schools has fallen by more than 13,000 in 12 months, a record drop that head teachers blame largely on the introduction of VAT on fees in January.
An annual census by the Independent Schools Council (ISC) of its 1,380 members found the number of pupils dropped from 551,578 to 538,215 in the year to January.
It was the largest fall in private school pupil numbers since the ISC began collating the data in 2012. ISC members cover about 80 per cent of privately educated pupils.
The figures cast doubt on the government’s prediction that only 3,000 children would leave the private sector during the 2024-25 academic year as a result of the tax, rising to 14,000 by summer next year.
The ISC’s census, which will be released on Tuesday, will also show that private day-school fees have increased by more than £4,000, or 22 per cent, in the past year to an average of £22,000. Many boarding schools cost more than £60,000 a year.
Aatif Hassan, the founder and chairman of Dukes Education, which runs 27 independent schools and colleges and is a member of the ISC, said: “These figures do not reflect the full damage inflicted on the education sector by the imposition of VAT. We are just beginning to see the impact on families and the flow through of that will become more apparent in September and next academic year, on both independent and state schools.”
He said the rise in fees was most likely to deter families deciding whether to send children to private schools, particularly those starting primary at the age of four, secondary at the age of 11 or 13 and sixth form at the age of 16.
Families with children already in private schools find it difficult to take them out because it involves separating them from friends and disrupting their education; perhaps having to switch to a new exam board or change the foreign language they are learning.
• Priced out of private education and turned away by the local school
Hassan said: “The larger and more premium independent schools remain relatively strong, but I feel incredibly sad for smaller, standalone independent schools that are under a huge amount of pressure and in particular those that provide specialist support for neurodiverse pupils.
“At a time when Send [special educational needs and disabilities] funding needs extra investment, it seems counterintuitive to load the state sector with even more pupils.”
The first significant survey of private schools since the government introduced the 20 per cent tax shows a 2.4 per cent fall in pupils, compared with the previous year’s fall of 0.1 per cent. Over the past 12 years, the average annual change has been a rise of 0.2 per cent.
The Treasury estimates it will raise £460 million in 2024-25 from its VAT policy, even if 3,000 children leave the sector during the school year. However, the ISC said the 3,000 estimate was low because it did not include the thousands of children that it believed did not start private school in September because of the impending fee increases.
Julie Robinson, chief executive of the ISC, said: “Our data shows a significant decrease in pupil numbers. It is going to take a few years until we see the full impact of this, but [we believe] it’s worse than the government predicted. Anyone who’s interested in the government’s VAT policy as a revenue raiser should be seriously concerned by these numbers. It risks raising absolutely nothing [in revenue] and yet the damage it is doing in terms of disrupting the education of children is already clear.”
Julie Robinson, the chief executive of the Independent Schools Council
RUSSELL SACH
The ISC’s data showed a 13,300 drop in pupils when comparing the same schools who responded to the survey in January last year and this year. When the ISC included the 12 schools that joined this year, the number of pupils dropped by 10,900.
Last week, Bridget Phillipson, the education secretary, accused private schools of having “cried wolf” over the impact of VAT on fees.
She told Times Radio: “They have cried wolf and it’s for private schools to justify their decision… They have whacked up their fees, year on year, and priced themselves out of the reach even of many middle-class families.”
Last year, the Treasury minister James Murray suggested that most private schools would “be able to absorb a significant proportion of this new VAT charge to keep fee increases affordable for most parents”. Many schools have tried to mitigate the impact on parents by passing on VAT at less than 20 per cent.
However, Robinson said schools were also dealing with the removal of charitable business rates relief, the rise in employers’ national insurance contribution rates from 13.8 per cent to 15 per cent, and the rise in pension contributions from 23.6 per cent to 28.6 per cent.
The government has said the policy to apply VAT to private school fees will help to “provide the highest quality of support and teaching” in the state sector and fund 6,500 more teachers by the end of this parliament in 2029.
A Treasury spokesman said: “Ending tax breaks for private schools will raise £1.8 billion a year by 2029-30 to help deliver 6,500 new teachers and raise school standards, supporting the 94 per cent of children in state schools to achieve and thrive.”
The spokesman said the suggestion that the 22 per cent rise in school fees was due to VAT “misrepresents reality”, adding: “The increases in fees are not only down to VAT. Average fees have risen by 75 per cent in real terms in the past 25 years and pupil numbers have remained steady.”