To think if you can no longer afford school fees...

"No it hasn’t, it’s been portrayed that there are a lot of private school parents not earning megabucks. Which is true."

I don't think I've ever said they're all earning mega bucks, I've said that I think the vast majority people paying currently 18k for school will have flex in their budget to cover this. For higher priced schools, or multiple kids the likelihood is even higher.

@Willyoujustbequiet

This is a question that I've asked a lot too. If you have 132 k to spend on 6 years of school, isn't this better invested in a house that will most likely provide a financial return in the end?

I think the answer is that most people privately educating already live in these areas.

My oldest goes to one of the top ten state schools in the country. To get my youngest into a decent comp in the same area would cost us around £100K to buy the same sized house as we have now (plus the stamp duty and other moving costs.) And a decent comp wouldn’t be suitable for him just like the outstanding comp that I went to wasn’t suitable for me. “Outstanding” means nothing if the school doesn’t meet your needs.

And get to it before they add cgt to the family home.

Then why not move to areas with outstanding state provision?

Not it hasn’t, it’s been portrayed that there are a lot of private school parents not earning megabucks. Which is true.

I think you have misunderstood. If you read all of my posts on this thread and all the other similar threads I have posted on you will see that I am not in favour of this policy and have argued against it continuously. It is the poster that I was responding to that was using a figure of £10k in her defence of the policy. I don’t actually think it is that common for senior schools. But I also know that there are lots of people stretching themselves with the £15-£18k senior schools.

" Do you mean to be so condiscending? I never said that I had an average income or that private school parents have an average income"

Did I say it was you? No. Stop being so defensive. It has been portrayed on here a lot that PE parents are very average incomes.

The small private school near where I live charges £18k per year at senior. There are loads of pupils there who were previously in state schools and they have a high proportion of pupils with SEN. £18k is £1500 per month. That’s the going rate for day nursery round here. And, the same as day nursery, some people do struggle through for a fixed period of years.

And yes, I think that most existing private school parents will find the money. I have never said otherwise but 90% is most and if 10% drop out this policy raises no money.

I am fully aware of average incomes (and low incomes) thank you. I grew up in a low income family and I support my dad financially now that he is a pensioner. Do you mean to be so condiscending? I never said that I had an average income or that private school parents have an average income. But there is a big different between a state school teacher on £40-50k and a premier league footballer on £multi-millions. I know both.

Please do read further: of the ones above, the Cambridge one is £13k (against £20-26k for other day independents in the city); the Crosby one charges about £13k for senior; Tower College £10k for 11-16 and this one in Cornwall charges £7500 for Key Stage 3 and £7650 per annum for Key Stage 4 (up to 16).

There are many schools around the country like this: small private schools, some without sixth forms (and large areas of the country are 11-16 state as well); many are religious foundations, or with endowments that offer fee subsidies, or who cater to kids who have additional needs (and this is without factoring in special schools). I randomly chose areas of the country not in the Home Counties or SE, and just picked a few schools at random and immediately found many who aren’t charging anything remotely like £18k+. I could go and find more and more and fill up the thread with them, if you like?

You can fantasise that this policy is hurting the poshos who are crowding into Westminster and Benenden if you like, but the reality is that it’s actually more likely to affect the only child of a doctor in Cornwall who is paying for a little private school; or a working-class kid who gets a chunk paid by a bursary but whose parents can’t pay much more. Those are the people who added VAT will affect; not the people who can afford it anyway. As long as you are happy with that, fine. But those people aren’t the super rich and they’re likely shouldering a fair amount of the tax burden as it is.

I’m fully aware for prep. My own DC’s school charges £11k for pre-prep (and £14k for prep) but the previous poster was taking about secondary. The one you link to in Cambridge charges £15k for secondary.

But on MN it seems to be one in the same, someone who has 46k available for school fees but couldn't possibly find the extra anywhere else. Who are these people that can afford to spend 11k more than the median household disposable income PA on fees but haven't got any kind of buffer zone?
I mean that's just bad financial planning to start with.

Lets be really honest here, most will find the money, those that haven't started yet will maybe reconsider, but those who view PE as a necessity will just change consumption patterns, slightly to save for it.

I don't know who said that it was becoming a trend, but the state primary followed by private secondary has always been a fairly common move, many, many people I know both from way back when as a child, and later as parent followed this route.

"Oh and you still haven’t provided any examples of a £10k per year secondary school"

I'm not going to scrabble around to get one, but people kept going on about he small, lower priced schools that would be badly effected as the parents really only just scraped the money together. Not spending the average fee for one child on secondary school, which is more than half the median household disposable income. I used the figure as being significantly lower than the average.

I actually think a lot of people have no idea what "average incomes" are, or just how much money you have to have to spend the average fee on one child. Assuming Year 8-13 it would be well over 100k in 6 years, the one DC fees you have mentioned would mean that you are spending 132k, that's nearly half of the average house price in the UK in 6 years! This is not average.

Yes people may not have expected the cost of living crisis, yes some people ( a minority) may have to make decisions on whether they continue. I truly don't believe it will be many, but I feel sorry for those that do.

@Dibblydoodahdah — Lots of schools all over the country - prep and secondary - that charge 10-13k fees. My nephew goes to one in Derbyshire - obviously I don’t want to put the exact school, but a few Googles gives you many similar ones!

https://www.oakleighhouseschool.co.uk

https://www.towercollege.com/

https://stmarys.ac/

https://www.stpiranshayle.net/

https://heritageschool.org.uk/

There are loads of schools like this all over the country - at least as many as the 18k+ ones.

Oh and you still haven’t provided any examples of a £10k per year secondary school. The small private school nearest to be charges £18 for senior - compared to £22k at my DC’s larger school. I have considered moving to different parts of the country and the cheapest that I could find were around £16k.

This ^

The answer is that there are a wide range of incomes at private schools. So the premier league footballer dad at my DC’s school is not going to be worried about a VAT increase but the state schools teacher parents probably will be. I’m not sure why that’s so difficult to understand.

I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again, I don’t think that there would have been as much concern about the VAT policy amount private schools parents had it not been for the cost of living crisis. From a personal perspective, we have built it into our sums since it was first mooted in the 2019 election. Trouble is, a lot has happened since then. Mortgages, food, electricity, insurances etc have all gone up dramatically. Our outgoings have increased around £1200 - £1500 per month. For some people the VAT will be the final straw. I’ll find the money and have already started applying for new jobs. But for my friend who is a social worker, she can’t just change companies to get a decent pay increase.

You’ve said it so well. It will only divide and take away opportunities from those who need them the most. Shame on Labour and on anyone who celebrates the spite of it all.

I was giving examples for the lower priced and smaller secondary schools ones that everyone appears to be so concerned about, rather than the higher priced.

@MyNameIsFine

MN appears to be full of schroedingers private school parent, both massively well paid/extremely wealthy and able to drop their hours instantly to cause massive shocks to the treasury and at the same time so poor that they live in deprived areas with terrible state schools and have stretched themselves to the absolute limit to pay private school fees and their budget has 0 flex in it.

So which is it?

You realise any single kind of incident could have added significant costs to your budgets right?

We are swapping to state. DS will be taking a place. It's over subscribed but entry based on location and grades. No doubt some other child has missed out.

It's not just me! That's what we're trying to tell you. You think that because you've looked up a few statistics you know better than everybody else. The state primary, save up for secondary option is becoming ever more popular, especially for people who live in a middle class catchment area anyway. People who used private for older children, are keeping the younger ones in state longer and getting private tutors. Others started home schooling in lock down and didn't go back. It was already becoming unaffordable, and this is the nail in the coffin

How many private secondaries only charge £10k per year? I don’t know of any and I have studied fees widely across the country.

You are wrong if you think this policy won’t stop many people selecting private education for their DC. It will, particularly at primary age. My DCs school has reduced their reception classes from 3 to 2 this year (i.e. a thirty per cent decrease). And that’s a big, successful all though private in an area in the SE that is seeing massive housing development. I’ve read about other schools reporting a 20% drop for admissions this September.

There are lots of children who are struggling in state schools and the parents do not have the resources to send them to private. They do things such as unenroll them, or battle for a part-time schooling place and out-of-school support.

There is a massive area between "private school" and "a sure death in a state school"

@MyNameIsFine

That's you, and I think its fine if that is your position.

I think a lot of other people who are planning on educating their children privately will either just swallow the VAT when it comes to it, or save slightly more now.

As said, the increase means on an average day secondary, 225 a month, or 51 pounds a week. I know I keep putting it in these terms but this is how people think about money.

But situations change.
My brother went to a private secondary at 13, as he was being beaten black and blue every day in the only 2 state secondaries in our town, his ASD was not being supported despite all my parents efforts and he was suicidal.
So my mum went and got a 2nd job to pay his £6000 (back in the 90's) school fees, and they borrowed from family, extended their mortgage. Because it was that or lose their child.
Not because they has aspirations of grandeur for him. But because they loved him. He now works as a gym instructor, so not exactly a 'toff'. But he is alive, and happy. Worth every penny.
After 3 years in that school my Dad got made redundant, we nearly lost our home, but as they said, they could get another house. But not another son.
The 20% increase would have been the final straw in having to remove him back to a school which was literally destroying him, which they should have left him in until they saved 150k. Which would have been never.

Some parents can afford the fees easily. And some do it to save their child.

If my children were starting out, and I looked at the fees and the likely increase, I wouldn't be making that choice - not at this stage, anyway. Finding a way to make it work because you're committed now is a different thing. We're going to see a huge drop in numbers - especially at prep level - for day schools. The boarding schools and feeder preps will probably be fine, because they tend to be oversubscribed anyway. That's my prediction. I don't know where you teach, but the fundamental problem here, I believe, is that we're talking about a completely different set of schools, and a completely different demographic of parents. Unfortunately, there's no way of taxing one without taxing the other, even though they have little to do with each other.