Is this a financial mistake? Help please

Pay off mortgage. Pay for extra tutoring / holiday school if you feel your child needs a boost. You will kill your self covering private school fees based on the salary / income you mention

I wouldn’t bother with private school, it is on the kid and parental support whether they do well or not. If they aren’t academically inclined private school won’t get them great exam results/a good job.

Any primary school is going to give them the basics, and they will
likely have more fun and make more friends.

Secondary is slightly different but the schools strengths need to match your child’s strengths - but you can’t currently second guess yourself what those strengths might be!

I would get financial advice to invest your windfall for the next 5-7 years, then consider once your child is secondary school age and look to see what school is best then to make a decision.

A lot can change in 5-7 years and secondary schools you might think are not great now might be totally different by then - you may then find that you don’t need to move etc and can reinvest the money for your child’s future.

Having spent 10 years recovering mortgage debt when I was younger. I agree with most of the posts and be really careful with private school fees. Always a great move to reduce your mortgage. It’s such a horrid move for them if you need to move them to state schools in the future. We did as most suggest we moved to an area with a great comprehensive and top Grammer school. It was the best move in the end for the children.

It’s not just the fees that are expensive with private schools it’s the other costs too, uniforms, trips etc plus if you can’t fund into secondary then there isn’t much point just funding primary. I’d look at the mortgage, if your current interest rate is less than you can get in a savings account I’d put the money in savings and pay off the mortgage when rates move the other way or when you next remortgage or go onto a new deal.

Private schools cost more than state, not only in the obvious (fees) way, too. The uniform is often more expensive, there are often more extras to pay for, school trips, etc. So £80k at £20k a year is only four years, and if your child's now 2, that's not even enough to get through primary. It sounds as if you'd be putting yourself under immense additional financial pressure, and that's something to be cautious of, to be honest.

You don't need to decide "no" for now, though, you can pay a chunk off your mortgage, max out your ISA, and I think you get up to £1k a year interest on savings before you pay tax on it, too. You can use the money for other education things later if you want - music or sports lesson, a tutor, an additional language outside school, or university costs.

Do not do this OP! For a start gone are the days when a catholic school was considered to have a better education. I’m saying this as a catholic with DCs in a catholic primary school.

You also cannot get a place at a catholic school just based on church attendance. Your child would need to be baptised a Catholic. Yes some people do this to get their DCs into catholic schools, personally I think it’s pretty immoral to claim to follow a faith you don’t and many churches look out for this.

Catholic schools these days are no different to other faith and non faith based schools, the quality of education is absolutely based on the quality of teaching staff and head teacher. I would say my DCs school has gone from a 10 to a 5 in the last 3 years under knew leadership. Anything can happen between now and when your dc starts school.

As others have said, what makes the local schools so awful?

Absolutely- however if done right unlikely to be as much as compound interest

Invest it and look at private from year 5.

No, don't put it into the mortgage. Invest it in a stocks and shares ISA for the next 10+ years and average annual returns will be notably more than your mortgage interest rate. I made a 13pc return last year, which was an average, not a good year. 80k are protected per investment, so you can split it and open an ISA now and then another one in April and let both grow. The stocks and shares ISA's I know will also let you withdraw money should you have an emergency for example.

This would be my suggestion

Yes, that's what I'd do. Moving just a short distance away will affect your choice of schools. If you can't drive, then spend some of the money on lessons and a car.

I'd pay £60k off and keep the rest as a buffer, unless you've already got good savings. Doesn't sound as though you can afford private education to be honest. You can help your daughter in other ways, especially spending time learning things, you could even have a private tutor if you felt she was struggling in an area.

I think it’s always said that the best thing to do with a windfall is put a bit aside for a rainy day, and put the rest into your mortgage, because no savings will get you as much as your mortgage will be costing you. So I’d probably put £20k in a cash ISA now, possibly another £10k in another cash ISA in April, and use the rest to pay off some mortgage.
The absolute last thing I’d do is spend it on private primary school fees. However, if the local secondaries weren’t any good (and you really can’t move), I’d use this financial boost to start saving for private secondary when the time comes.

No, it would be foolish. You can augment a mediocre school by doing extra work at home with the child, mostly as much reading as possible, but other educational/enrichment activities. At least until they are 10-12.

Do not squander a windfall on something like school fees that are gone when they are gone. Keep a bit for emergency and either funnel the money into your pension or pay down the mortgage. It would be worth spending a couple hundred for a one-time review with a fiduciary financial advisor (not a salesperson!) to look at the pros and cons of each option.

Are you going to have to pay tax on this money? Will it affect your child benefit?

It’s not just the private school fees you have to consider. It’s the uniform costs, meals and the trips. Can you afford the ski trip? Are you comfortable with your child being the only one who doesn’t get to go because all of the other parents can afford these things?

I think you’d be resigning your child to a life of feeling like the odd one out amongst significantly more wealthy peers.

Pay it off the mortgage.
Then you have the choice when she is 10 to move to a better catchment for a good secondary school. Or have the money to pay for private tutors of grades are important. It's not enough money to pay for private school all the way through.

I moved to a grammar school area for that specific purpose. Depends on how strongly you feel about your child's education.

Look on money saving expert website. Check mortgage overpayment calculator and see what you could save by paying into your mortgage (be careful to avoid fees might have tonwait until next time deal expire). There is also an option to compare overpaying mortgage to savings.

This

Great if you live in a grammar school area and have an academic child

I always used the logic that I would put my children through private education if their father was in a stable, high paying job, like a Dr or suchlike. My exH was financially successful from a young age being self employed, but it was largely contract based and if those dried up, we could have been in a position to have to pull the children out of paid education and into the local schools, which are excellent here, but not a situation I wanted to put either child in from an emotional perspective. They went to our local schools and have both done exceptionally well, from A Levels, to Uni, and into jobs. They are as happy/content as one could be for this stage in their lives and have both just bought a property.

I would invest it too. I'd put it into a market tracker fund of some sort, and move the max each year into an ISA. This assumes that you can comfortably afford your bills etc with your income.
This will probably grow more than if you paid down your mortgage and you have the security of it should life change
Don't tie yourself into private school. It's hard to untangle from. Get your child into the best local school. You can get a tutor /pay for activities. Reassess at 10 ahead of secondary
Life changes hugely in those years.

My son went private until he was 10 and then did the 11 plus to get into the grammar school system. It was worth every penny.

I’d put £20k in a cash ISA now, another £20k in the new tax year. If you already have some savings then yes put the remaining £40 against the mortgage.

I would not invest a lump sum in an index tracker stocks and shares ISA, they work better drip feeding monthly and are long term investments (10/20 years plus).