The Association for Families of Independent Schooling (AFIS) has today launched the Emergency School Fees Support Appeal, a new initiative designed to help children remain in the schools they know and love despite the introduction of VAT on independent school fees.
The appeal responds to the impact of VAT taking effect part-way through the academic cycle, a point at which families’ practical options are limited and when changing schools is widely recognised as most disruptive for children. While fiscal changes may be announced in advance, education systems operate on fixed timetables, with notice periods, examination years, specialist provision, and oversubscribed schools all constraining families’ ability to move without harm.
As a result, some children have already experienced abrupt disruption to their education, not because families were unwilling to plan, but because the timing of the change intersected with the realities of how schools and children’s education function.
“This is an emergency created by educational timing as much as cost. When a major financial change takes effect mid-academic cycle, families’ real choices are constrained, and it is children who bear the disruption.”
Michelle Daniells, CEO, AFIS
AFIS’s Emergency School Fees Support Appeal seeks to provide short-term, professionally administered support to families in genuine hardship, enabling children to remain in their current school for one additional academic year. This time-limited support is intended to provide stability while families either recover financially or plan an orderly transition at a natural point in the school cycle, avoiding mid-year exits or disruption during examination years.
“This is an emergency created by educational timing as much as cost,” said Michelle Daniells, CEO of AFIS. “When a major financial change takes effect mid-academic cycle, families’ real choices are constrained, and it is children who bear the disruption. Our focus is on protecting educational continuity and giving families the breathing space to plan properly.”
Since AFIS was launched in December last year, the organisation has received a growing volume of enquiries from parents seeking advice and support as they face sudden financial pressure. While AFIS has always intended to establish a School Fees Support Fund to provide hardship grants, doing so sustainably takes time within existing revenue streams.
“What we have heard from families has underlined the need for an immediate, transitional response,” Daniells added. “This appeal is designed to provide short-term stability, so families are not forced into rushed decisions that can have lasting consequences for children’s education.”
To ensure the highest standards of integrity and transparency, AFIS is establishing a strategic partnership with an independent bursary administration specialist to oversee the professional assessment of applications. All support will be targeted, means-tested, and time-limited, with schools informed of applications to enable coordinated support and, where possible, matched funding through existing bursary schemes.
The appeal is not intended to subsidise private education on an ongoing basis, nor to compensate families universally for VAT. Instead, it seeks to address acute hardship during a period of structural transition, where the risk of educational disruption to children is greatest.
AFIS is also inviting philanthropic supporters and education leaders to join an Emergency Steering Group to help guide the appeal’s rollout and ensure funds are deployed responsibly and effectively.
Donations and further information: HERE
Emergency Steering Group enquiries: michelle@afis.org.uk
