numbers of applications to London private school - why so many?

I live in London and DS1 will go to boarding school at 13 ( currently year 7). From my experience of taxi driving to and from pre tests at boarding schools this year and last, the numbers sitting these tests is up, not down as you might expect, given the economic environment. This has been confirmed by the schools too. They are all schools within 1.5 hrs of London. However the numbers sitting London day school tests still far exceed those doing boarding. Maybe there are lots of children sitting lots of pre tests/exams both day and boarding to see what they end up with when the process is over..... Then they will decide and free up places for others?

Even in tough economic times education is seen as a worthwhile investment. Many families (especially ethnic minorities but clearly not exclusively) see job prospects getting tougher for their kids and assume that that means they need better education and to work harder a school, not to assume that they will be jobless and so "it's not worth doing anything".

agree that it's a combination of London being a little bubble of wealth in the recession - many people seem unaffected by the recession here (I moved here from another town where it was a very different story) and also the high numbers of rich foreign people.

state schools are very over subscribed too, so maybe there is just a very high number of children in this year's intake.

I have no problem believing that the numbers boarding is declining but the total numbers boarding nationally are I believe only 1% and they cant all live in London so I don't think it can have that much impact.
As an ex. londoner what surprises me on the rare occasions I go back is how every square inch of what used to be empty land has houses built on it. More people = more need for school places if you can afford a house in london you're unlikely to be on £20 000 a year.

Re Surbiton also - it's a good school and takes the girls of whom there are many who don't quite make the criteria for spgs, leh, phs, whs. The catchment is also vast. Mid Surrey into Fulham

Yet isn't meant to be dismissive - just that I think if you have a choice of school a and b that are similar and school a costs anything between 1-2 k less per term you might like a better.

Anne there may be a more straight forward Reason why surbiton popular and that is fees- the fees are less per term than other day schools in area yet it's still a good school.

Seeing the youth unemployment levels I think more about indie possibility for DD, which I never considered before. My mediocre state school and trash correspondence-course uni is no longer an option which could put a person in comfortable employment.

London is very very international. People are here because they are well educated and have well paid jobs. They want their own children to go to internationally recognised universities either here or overseas.

Whatever the domestic reputation of the University of Salford or wherever, it is really just Ivy League, London or Oxbridge that cut it, with the odd European, Australian or Canadian University thrown in.

Once the grammars are excluded most state schools in London don't deliver at this level.

People may also be here because, post-Arab Spring etc, London has become not just a place to have a pied de terre and to visit but to have your family home and to educate your children. Think Abramovich.

In DDs main out of school activity in Central London she has worked out that only 10% of her peers have two British parents and virtually all are privately educated. Similarly both DC have friends whose mothers have few links to the UK but whose fathers travel massively. If you get your children into a good London school you might as well be based here as in Dubai, Hong Kong or wherever. Fluent English is the bonus. IB is then popular for those heading abroad for University.

It is no coincidence that house price rises in Central London show no sign of abating. People are still coming in. Their children still need to be educated.

I am not sure the extent to which growing up in such a cosmopolitan area affects the children's sense of being British. I assume like many, they see themselves as Londoners first and British second. I like the way that my son's school really promotes school trips within the UK. I think the assumption is that pupils will have been all over the place, but probably not to Wales or the Yorkshire Dales.

Not a scientific study, but very few are now opting for boarding schools from DSs prep in the wealthy borough of Richmond. DS is year 7 and of 29 boys there is only 1 going o board. This is partly because the school does extremely well in getting boys into the top London Indys, and also because there's a lot of concern about where boarding school fees are going.
We looked at boarding, £30k a year is bad enough but there were rumours at the time if making fees vatable, that puts it up to £36k. Add to that the rapid inflation of boarding school fees and we could potentially be up to £42k plus maybe VAT by the time he finishes. Fortunately he got his first choice School so we could forget about backups.
DD is at Surbiton juniors, historically they have always had places, but it is full to bursting now, with extra classes in 2 years to appease parents who demanded sibling places. I've no idea whats happening there, or where the money is coming from.
I'd be interested to hear from other girls schools in the area as I suspect they will tell a similar story.

My DD's opinion (based on conversations at her private school) is that parents are worried about employment prospects in the long run for their kids, and that the private sector seems more successful in passing on life skills. Therefore, if they can afford it, they are going for it.

It all about money. London is the largest city in the UK with 12 million next Birmingham 1 million it is a global city one of a tiny handful of pre eminent cities in the world along with NY. It has some of the wealthiest people in the world living in some of the most expensive houses in the world and gradually even in this current recession the few remaining poor areas are still being gentrified by the middle classes. Here ends the geography lesson.
My DH works for many of the richest people/families in the world whilst Mr and Mrs Average may be struggling financially in this recession don't be under any illusions these people aren't (which is good news for my DH) wealthy people will pay to educate their children.

I've heard it was the boarding school downgrade as well. It would be interesting to know if boarding schools are experiencing lower levels of applications to back this theory up. Personally I find it odd that there could be such a noticeable increase just from the boarding school thing (although actually, what concrete evidence do people have that numbers are up?)

I think it's because standards in London are so dreadfully low within the state sector. We sent our dd to what was the last bastion of excellence but a change in head and admissions procedures meant the school was declining very fast. We were lucky we could afford to transfer to the private sector but as schools like that one decline it leaves London families without state choices at secondary level. Unless more money is made available for unmanageable and disruptive children to get them out of the classroom then there really is no alternative. The system in London must be at all time low and it is heading to towards critical.

People are downgrading from boarding along with people still sitting for places as back up if they don't get their preferred state option.

Might it because fewer families are leaving London?

I think it is because there was an increase in the birth rate around the millennium. We don't live in london, but in my DCs school which normally has 2 classes in each year group currently has 3 classes in years 7,6 and 5

CEA is indeed only available for boarders, aged 8 and over (so not from nursery), and only applies to just under 8,000 pupils in the UK anyway, around 11% of all boarders and just 2% of all private school pupils, so i think we can safely say that they are irrelevant in terms of this discussion....

It's interesting, as this story (here www.guardian.co.uk/education/2011/apr/28/private-schools-drop-pupils ) says that overall pupil numbers are down very slightly, as one might expect.

I suspect in London it's a combination of a couple of things; multiple applications (people perhaps doing state+ a couple of private, to keep options open) plus the general imperviousness of the central London economy. There are more than enough highly paid individuals in central London untouched by the downturn to sustain the private school sector there, unlike perhaps in many other areas of the UK.

Interesting point dull- there certainly seem
To be more threads here asking about bursaries etc

Possibly people who would normally have picked their favourite school and swallowed the fees are now applying to several and seeing whether they can pick up a scholarship/bursary from any of them. If 10% of applicants are doing that it could account for the increase.

I also thought ceas was hard to get (and is for boarders) so not sure that makes up for it.

Is it some difference in how they keep figures as it doesn't make sense given economic circumstances . Also is it all day schools or just some? I would imagine that application rates for schools like Westminster etc (well know consistently high results) have always been very high.

oh, and Westminster boards as well, I think. But Forces families are not really any part of the equation in London because of the lack of boarding.

It's applications to day schools that are rocketing - I think that is because Londoners are not choosing to board.

gusmum: if you are aware of abuse of CEA, then you need to report it to CEAS. They both prosecute offenders and claw back the money. There is zero tolerance, and they will investigate if someone blows the whistle.

There are only a handful of Grammars in London and they are all massively over subscribed. ;

gusmum
i think forces familes and rich foreign families based in London probably do make up abpart of indie school applications but the question is why this year have applications skyrocketed?
One would expect applications to grammars to increase in a recession as people who might previously paid look for free options.
But it is odd in this financial climate to see more people applying to Fee paying schools.

The military (not just Army) does not/not pay for education at day schools which do not have a boarding option; nor does it pay at all unless the serving person fulfils ever-stricter mobility criteria.

As the only school in central-ish London which offers full boarding is Dulwich College, it cannot be a factor in the increase in applications in London schools in general.