Scottish independent schools have said that children with ASN are being disproportionately impacted by the introduction of VAT on tuition fees.
Lorraine Davidson, chief executive of the Scottish Council for Independent Schools (SCIS), has said that children with additional support needs make up a significant portion of the private sector’s student population. SCIS could not provide exact statistics for the sector, but Ms Davidson said that she expects the percentages of children with ASN in mainstream private schools to be similar to those in the public sector. New data released this week shows that students with ASN account for roughly 40% of the student population in public schools.
However, many dedicated special schools in the private sector offer individualised support for students with complex needs. Nearly all students at these schools have their places funded by their local authority, meaning the policy which adds 20% VAT to private tuition should not impact their ability to attend.
At one of those schools, Harmeny, outside Edinburgh, chief executive Gavin Calder described the degree of bespoke learning for students. Referring often to the need for providing children with “appropriate challenge,” he stressed that individualised lessons and care plans are essential to giving young people a fulfilling experience. “Finding an appropriate challenge for every student is what it’s all about. Anxiety can prevent children from accessing the curriculum. A bespoke three-hour timetable can be better than trying to get the most out of a day possible.” All of this dedicated attention requires substantial resources.
Harmeny’s pupils are funded by their local authority, with the farthest coming from Orkney to board, and placements going for more than £200,000 per year. Mr Calder said there is typically a maximum class size of six pupils with at least three adults.
Many have been through the care system and lived in multiple foster homes before coming to Harmeny, meaning staff need to work to build trust while also creating an educational foundation. “Every time a young person builds up trust, it can be ripped away at their next transition,” Mr Calder said. “In primary school especially, children cannot cope with the amount of transitions, and we work to limit the transitions of young people.” Creating classes and cohorts is about finding the correct mix of need, personality and more. Getting it right can change the course of a young person’s life, Mr Calder said.
The kind of personalised care all of this requires also means that special schools need to be particular about how they manage both staff allocations and admissions.
Since 1874, East Park School has provided education and accommodation to children with ASN, including autism, in Glasgow’s Maryhill neighbourhood. Head of education Catriona Campbell said that the admissions process is a regular challenge because of the complex needs of pupils that she and her team need to balance and the desperation some parents face. “We’ve got people who are willing to wait until August 2026 for a placement. It feels like there is a massive demand.”
She said that demand has grown steadily since the COVID-19 lockdowns. Still, spaces at East Park are at a constant premium because student needs dictate a very generous staffing ratio: two-to-one in most cases, with a few children receiving three-to-one or one-to-one support. That is mainly because the entry criteria at East Park require students to have autism or a similar communication challenge, as well as a significant learning disability and associated challenging behaviours. Because each child’s needs are complex, the admissions team must consider the needs of existing and new students. Dedicated staff and personalised care plans allow pupils at East Park School to take part in a wide variety of learning and recreational activities.
These strict considerations make admissions a critical process and staffing a daily “jigsaw puzzle,” but ultimately, Ms Campbell said, it is about making sure students receive the care they need and giving them a school experience just like that of any other young person. “We try and make sure that we can group peers appropriately, and that makes sure that they’ve got opportunities for social development as well. “Although we have classrooms that are shared, a lot of the children need their own individual breakaway spaces.
“We need to have a manager who is not part of the staffing ratio available at all times to go in and provide support. Also, the teacher for the class isn’t part of the ratio most of the time. That means that they can go round and spend time with each individual child and work on things specifically, like emotional regulation, so that it becomes as predictable for the child as possible. Usually, when it becomes predictable for the child, their time becomes more predictable for us.” Predictability can make a fundamental difference to a student’s school experience with ASN, but it becomes increasingly challenging as student populations grow and staff ratios shrink. East Park students access a tailored curriculum that meets their needs and abilities.
At dedicated special schools, staff ratios are baked into the structure. However, as is the case in the public sector, there are students with ASN at mainstream private schools. In many cases, these students are self-funded, meaning parents and carers have chosen private education because they feel it would best meet their children’s needs. Still, they may not necessarily qualify for a council-funded placement. This also means they are unlikely to receive any VAT exemption and will have to shoulder any added cost themselves.
At Kelvinside Academy, Rector Dan Wyatt said that his staff works to accommodate ASN pupils at every level, from physical spaces to learning and emotional support. As he described it, implementing these measures can add up quickly.
“Let’s take, for example, National Five English, which is one of the most commonly sat papers. If 36% of your children have additional needs, then there’s a lot of laptops with either spell check on, or spell check off. There’s a lot of additional rooms. There’s readers, there’s scribes, there’s the appropriate levels of support, different coloured papers. There’s a huge amount of additional work around that, which is really important for equity, for those children to be given a fair playing field in that National five English exam. And that’s just one course, and that’s one exam, on one day.”
As in the public sector, these provisions do not come cheap and require extra staff attention. Mr Wyatt said that Kelvinside, with smaller class sizes and more generous staff ratios (with an average class size of 18), is better equipped than many public schools to make accommodations.
However, Mr Wyatt and the SCIS worry that the VAT increase will impact these students more than others.
“You have a lot of families who have self-funded support for their children. They’ve identified, maybe in early primary years, that their child has learning needs. Nobody knows a child better than the parent, and they have said they will fund the education of their child because they recognise smaller class sizes, a supportive, nurturing environment in a smaller school is something that will support the child’s development. So they have self-funded. There’s been no cost to the state whatsoever. They’re still paying their taxes for their place in the state’s system, but they’ve funded their place in the private system.”
Mr Wyatt said he already knows of families whose children attend Kelvinside because of an additional need and who will have to leave in the new year because they cannot afford the VAT increase. He said that he worries about the impact these decisions will have not only on the families but also on the public school sector, where many schools are struggling with capacity and staffing issues and have identified shortages of support for ASN students.
SCIS Chief Executive Lorraine Davidson told The Herald that she shares these concerns. “Children with ASN will be the most impacted by disruption to their education and teachers in the state sector will need to cope with greater numbers of children who require ASN support as a result of this damaging tax on children’s education.”