If you send your child to private school, do you think this will work?

As someone who has put 2 kids through independent school and the youngest about to leave next year, if I was starting out again I would wait until Year 7 before I committed myself. Unless there’s a significant reason for you to bypass the local primary school, then why not hold back, invest the money for 5 years and reassess later?

Honestly? As a private school child myself, I wish my parents had saved the £100k and given it to me as a house deposit. Absolute waste of money private school in the main. If you're bright, you're bright. Both of my two go to state. Probably will top up with tutors once they reach Year 10 but the quality of teaching is superb. Something that cannot be said about the private school I went to (still 'highly rated' and bloody expensive I might add!)

If you absolutely must, don't bother with primary (honestly, biggest scam ever), save it for secondary age and again, don't bother with sixth form.

@twistyizzy I think that £48k number is to cover living expenses, not just school fees!
My DD just left last year. It was £25k/year when she left. Then add the annual rise of about 4% plus then VAT on top. I've just checked it's gone up to £27k due the next year NOT including VAT. Plus uniform, trips etc add another £3k maybe more. So £30k/year from September rising every year. This is a typical amount - I've seen more, I've seen less.
Are you only having the one child? Is the school you are looking at likely to admit your child? How permanent is your job - you likely to keep it for the next 15 years? What if you remarry, have another? Maybe you just want to calculate on the here and now circumstances, fair enough, but something to consider.
You should also think about what if you need your savings to fix your roof etc - or is that just for school and you have other money for other needs?
I always thought one needs to be earring £50k (before tax) JUST to pay for private fees. Then add whatever you need to live on.
And yes there will be plenty of people who will pay whatever it costs to send their kids private. Some smaller less selective schools may close.
Is it worth it? Depends what the state equivalent is and how much more the private school offers. Is it worth it for your child in particular? Might be too soon to tell.

@Amyia I'd add at least 5k onto those fees. And then every year they'll go up by a further 3% or so.

The reality is that the independent sector is made up of a considerable number of small, family owned schools catering to students from the local area, a sizeable amount of smaller schools owned by for-profit companies or charitable trusts, mid-range schools appealing to domestic and foreign students, and then the big-name schools that have been going for hundreds of years. The mid-range and big-name schools will be able to keep increasing fees without too much worry.

It will be the smaller schools that will struggle, as their bread and butter are parents like you who are paying out of monthly income and making genuine sacrifices to prioritise their child's education. These parents can only pay so much and these schools won't have big endowments or any endowments at all to absorb the additional VAT costs for parents for very long. Schools who are part of larger orgs will be able to hold on for longer as they will share resources and spread costs amongst them, but a lot of the family owned ones will either merge or close in the coming years as the VAT increase means they lose too many students to be able to continue. Several of these schools have already closed in the last decade as the cost of living crisis has reduced their numbers to untenable figures.

I do expect that the independent school sector will shrink in the coming years and it will slowly become more and more a privilege for the truly elite. At my school, the fees are £40k per year. For some of the parents, that is what they earn in one day. It's literally nothing to them. The VAT increase hasn't worried them at all.

If you've got your heart set on a specific school for your daughter, get copies from the Charity Commission of their accounts from the past three years and make sure they're on a firm financial footing before making any concrete plans. What kind of endowment have they got? Are their numbers falling? Schools are very good at presenting a rosy picture on their websites, but their accounts won't lie.

I really don't see why anyone would send their child to private school before secondary school unless the local primary is really horrible.

I'm an independent school teacher.

Our fees go up every year and the VAT introduction is going to be a big hike on top of that. If your child is only 3 now, I would imagine the average cost of a year of private school is going to be a good third higher than you're imagining by the time she's going to secondary school.

On top of the fees, we charge for any residential trips - on average about £2k per trip. Most year groups have a couple on offer every year, and while they aren't compulsory, there is pressure put on parents by the kids to go. There is also a charge for the laptops, for any other equipment needed for science/maths, PTA fees, after school wrap around, clubs, etc ....it all adds up. So you need to budget for that too.

As others have said, you need to think about your reasons for going down the independent route and where your money will be best spent, as that £100k in savings will dwindle pretty quickly and you will be a slave to those fees for a very long time. Why do you think an independent education is so important for your child?

Not all independent schools are equal and not all will give you the advantages you may be looking for. I would agree with others who say that primary is often not worth the money if you are in a catchment area for a good primary school. Secondary is where the money can be really well spent - if you feel the local state school can't give them what they need. You will get smaller class sizes and probably some great extracurriculars. Don't bank on getting better teaching, though. I work with a lot of colleagues who really aren't great teachers but they've been at the school so long that they're too expensive to get rid of. There is a lot of dead wood in the independent sector.

Honestly, having worked in state and independent, and having been state educated myself, I wouldn't send my own children to an independent school unless I had a really particular reason for believing my child would be better off in that specific environment. I had an excellent state education that I would say was academically stronger than the education any of the children have had in the independents I've worked in.

Think carefully about your priorities. You could be spending upwards of £400k on fees over your daughter's time in school - with that, depending on where you are in the country, your daughter could buy a first home when she's 21. Think carefully about what else your daughter could potentially have/do with the money you'd spend on those school fees over the course of her school years, and would that be better for her in the long run, over and above what might not be any better an education than she would have received in your local state school? That's the key question you have to consider here.

We started out at a very good state primary school and then moved our DD to private secondary school from year 7 onwards. So, only paying for 5 years. We're not at A level stage yet but will decide later on if she would like to attend for the remaining 2 years or if she wants to go to the outstanding college near us which is state owned and free but dependant on her getting excellent grades.

School fees originally started at about £12,500 pa and now is £20,000 pa with the added VAT in January. Whilst it's cheaper when in infant/juniors it does rise up considerably as they get older. Plus you need to factor in school trips and holidays abroad, school uniform, school lunches and possibly a laptop on top. Just make sure you have a big cushion to fall back on. You don't want to have to pull your child out part way through their education because you've ran out of money. Private school teaching styles are very different to state school and your child might not be used to that or adapt easily.

What you term a standard car may be more expensive to own, replace and run than a smaller one. You could probably save another £1k a year there.

I find the idea of primary aged children “building a portfolio” and taking learning exam techniques extremely depressing. We actually left London to avoid all this nonsense after hearing about the stress of it from colleagues. Moved to a place with decent state schools never regretted it.

But those aren't average prices, they are well above average over the whole of the UK

Actually that's a really good point. What are your goals / hopes with goung private @Amyia ? Is it all about academics, or smaller classes, rounded education, extra curriculars? Having a clear idea on what you are after may help make the decision for you.

We've gone independent as our secondaries are not great here, and wanted to still give our DC a well rounded, focused education. Exceptional academic results / prestige were not our no1 focus, so entry to our preferred schools were not all on exams (although the results are still better than our catchment school by a county mile)

£100K savings stealth boast klaxon!

It depends how competitive the entry for secondaries is in OP’s area. Private primary from Y3 (or at least Y5) will teach children how to do the papers (time management techniques etc) but also interviews, help them prepare a portfolio etc. Who knows if it will make a difference but not something you can easily make up for, even with paid tutoring.

To give you an idea, leafy SW London area, primary we pay 25k/year for everything (fees + clubs + lunches + uniform + trips etc.)
For secondary we budget 30-35k for fees + 10-15k for extras.

Honestly OP, if your primary schools locally are OK and have wrap around club I'd send them state for primary and save the pennies for secondary at an independent. Personally I don't think it's worth it for primary, especially if you can afford some nice extra curricular clubs on top when they're younger.

Your mortgage is so small each month though (our rent on a flat in 2007 was the last time our housing costs were that low!) with a secure job and budgeting for the rest you should be able to afford it, if that's what you want.

Maybe wait until Y3 to go private, it will save you some money. Lots of people do that - we did. Public school is quite good for the first years IMO, before the academic starts being more important.
Money wise, at secondary level you can apply for bursaries with a household income up to 120k so you should be able to benefit from one.

My advice would be to start at state, looking to transfer after year 5 or 6 depending on your financial circumstances at that time. Changing schools during the secondary years, especially after year 8/9 is more of an issue than when young.

Personally I would focus on sending them for secondary.

Is your take home pay 4k after tax, pension, etc? So roughly a 70k salary?
How much are the fees for reception-yr 6?

Your income (you don’t say if it’s gross or net?) is low enough to get a partial bursary for fee assistance at both my DCs’ private schools (assuming there is no partner on the scene with a second income which I’m assuming is the case as you haven’t mentioned them). The amount of the bursary would depend on if you’ve quoted a gross or net figure.

I don’t think that prioritising school fees for primary (and definitely not age 4-7) is worth it on your income. Unless you are likely to have a big pay rise or come into an inheritance I would save your money for your retirement and pay down your mortgage.