Are private school fees really likely to increase by 7-10% a year?

Agree.
Our chums in N London have a nice house (over £1million). V small catchment area. No social housing. Families mostly working in finance etc. Go on ski holidays etc. The additional cost of their house over ours is the same we will spend on school fees in 10 years..

That's not the point I was making.

If you took the money you would have spent on private school fees and bought a house in the catchment of an amazing state school instead, it's highly unlikely you would also be able to afford lots of extra curricular activities and still have money left over for a decent house deposit as well.

Yep
Not only have we saved money by not moving close to an excellent Secondary and opting for Private instead but we have left a place open for a child that wouldn’t be able to afford Private.
I should be getting thanked frankly

Please explain to me why you don't believe that using financial resources to purchase a place in an amazing state school by purchasing a home across the street from it is equivalent to using financial resources to purchase a place in a private school. On the face of it, they seem remarkably similar to me.

I wouldn't write it off completely. Have you calculated from Y9 entry? So 5 years per child.

Also, don't forget inflation will calm down and salaries will catch up eventually. So don't look at tomorrow's costs using today's income.

I think my point is that it's not really 'learning about' anyone in a patronising way. But yes, there are some advantages of encountering wealth, and realising as a PP said that it doesn't make you any happier, or a better or worse person. My rather simplistic take out from having been through state and private schools with my kids, having been to a state school plus Oxbridge myself, and having worked in very deprived communities during my career, is that people are people. Stereotypes of 'little Lord Fauntleroys' are just as ridiculous as stereotypes of the feckless poor.

@Frogusha hang on she said she liked the fact her children were learning about rich people. Isn’t that then equally patronising?! I think actually our joint point was that it is good for children to spend time outside their natural peer group.

@frostrime. Spot on. “Leaning about” people in difficult circumstances (i e poor) sounds pretty patronising also.

I guess I think the 'mixing with a range of people' thing is just slightly overplayed. IME of both sectors, the majority of families fall within a band, in which lifestyles are a variation of the same pattern - some richer, some poorer, but all perfectly easy to understand and imagine. I think we're sort of in the middle of that band - car is a newish but boring family car, house is a nice but unexciting 4 bed semi, holidays are a couple of weeks in Wales or France. For families 'below' us at primary, car might have been a bit smaller or a bit older, house might have been a smaller 3 bed with kids sharing a room, holidays might have been one week in a caravan. 'Above' us, both at state and at private, car might be a brand new Range Rover, house might be a gated 5 bed detached, holidays might be Maldives plus skiing. I don't think it takes much effort or experience for children to understand and accept different lifestyles within that band. Outside that band at the margins, there are the children living in squalor, or who have never had a holiday, or whose families struggle to pay for food and housing - or the families with yachts and staff. TBH I'm not sure that being in the same school as children in those circumstances is ever going to make your kids really understand what it's like to live that lifestyle. I think we probably 'see' those differences as parents much more than our kids do. I remember driving past the council house of one of DH's old school friends recently, and DH suddenly realised that his friend must have been on a bursary at school - it had never occurred to him at the time. Similarly, my kids roll their eyes (in a nice way) at some of their friends' exotic holidays and massive houses - they're perfectly aware that not everyone lives like that.

@Soma when I compare the experience I had of the world at my Indie, compared to what my chidren are getting at their local school, I feel that they are so much better prepared for reality. @frostrime I see what you mean about them mingling with people with huge wealth, but I think I prefer the thought my children are aware of what happens in 93% of the country's homes rather than 7% really. Although I had a real eye opener when I was at boarding school meeting some of my friends' parents - some very dodgy dads with fraud prison sentences and five ex wives, some very rich mums with awful anoerxia and cocaine addiction. So yes, it was useful in some ways, it certainly helped me spot that money does not equal happiness.

@NeedAHoliday2021
I agree. Some smaller schools who teach average DC might struggle. The bigger names won’t. Name of school and destinations of DC matter. School is also about far more than exams. There isn’t much difference between leafy comps and lower end private schools except filtering out some DC at the latter. If you pay, pay for the best.

Choose the private school well. It’s predicted a high percentage will close over the next few years and many are struggling right now. Private schools often have many large old buildings so heating costs are going to hit them hard.

I would work on the basis that they could potentially go up that much but probably (hopefully) won’t, and certainly not every year.

ours are going up about 3% this year after several years of no change. At a recent meeting to discuss it the governors said that they really needed to put the fees up more to be able to offer exactly the same but were conscious that if they did a significant number of parents who were stretched to the limit financially would have to remove their children, so it would be counter-productive as numbers would fall. Things may be different in London and the SE where competition for places is much more intense though.

We have friends in London who's catchment area is 180m. The primary school is outstanding. Within the area houses are over 1 million pounds. There is no social housing. The population is racially mixed but economically homogenous. These families are driving smax and 4x4, going skiing etc. They are hanging out with people like them... There is no mixing with other socio economic groups.
Our village primary has no racial diversity but is much broader economically..

To play devil's advocate - actually, the range of people my DC mix with at private school is very broad - but in the other direction. As well as the (relatively) normal families and the bursary kids, they mix with people who go yachting around the Med for the summer, and the odd foreign royal. And tbh, they have as much in common with those kids as they did with the kids they spent time with in primary who had a parent in prison or who couldn't afford shoes. That is - nothing. I'm glad that my children have had exposure to those much less privileged than them - but I'm also glad that they've had exposure to those who are far more privileged, so that they are totally unphased (for example) by the prospect of encountering someone in a job interview from a background of immense wealth and privilege.

As for outside clubs, I guess it depends. My kids do a non-school weekend sports club - I would say the vast, vast majority of kids there are either private school educated or have gone down the middle class 'state school plus' route - indeed, that's the very reason why most of them are there, to buy the privilege they're not getting from their state school.

@frostrime I suspect you're right that most children will make friends amongst the "people a bit like me" - after all friendships are built on something in common. But whilst at school, they work in pairs and small groups, and have to get on with, the whole range of people that attend their school. The range of different types of children at a private school is, by reason of having to pay, or having sufficiently switched on parents to apply for a bursary, automatically less broad.

My observation is also that people who send their children to private schools do so, in part because of the range of extra-curricular activities provided there. That gives their children even less chance to mix with others as they don't do these activities out of school, whereas, as cited here - it's much more likely that state school students will go to activities run outside of their school and expand their peer group that way.

@BumblingBy you may well be right. But I get the impression that they may only have a superficial awareness of DC not like themselves and would never actually socialise with them in any meaningful way.

@Soma but they are mixing within that school setting and that is important, really important IMHO.
round here the indie kids have the best parties (most booze and drugs 😂)

I agree with @frostrime about the socialising thing. In my area, there are several leafy comps, but it is very unusual to see kids mixing across class and race outside of that school setting. I also have friends with DC at both independents and these comps and one mum friend was relieved that her state school DC only went to parties with independent school DC. I am pleased and relieved that my own DC have genuine friends from all backgrounds and they are always welcomed in our home.

@frostrime My children have friends who have similar and very dissimilar lives to them. they are also very understanding of neuro difference having witnessed how hard children with difficulties find it to cope with a school day. And not the well cared for high functioning ND kids you get in private schools. The ones with ADHD who get a Mars bar for breakfast (if they are lucky) and have huge amounts of anger bubbling that can sometimes explode in lessons.

Hmm. I find these arguments slightly unconvincing tbh. My kids go to a private secondary. They went to a state primary. I know others who could afford private secondary but don't (grammar area). My overwhelming impression is that, generally, children and families socialise with others who look a bit like them. The rich families I know at state secondary tend to gravititate towards those who have a similar lifestyle - they go to the same parties, weekend activities, ski resorts etc. Same at primary - yes, kids might rub shoulders at school with those from a different 'class', but again, people tend to gravitate towards 'people like them' for their long-lasting friendships. Just the same, at private secondary, my kids tend to gravitate towards the more 'normal' kids than the super-rich - they just have more in common.

@frostrime the OP is choosing not to take money from GP’s and they are doing it their way. I respect that.
I went to private school and to this day it shames me that I didn’t have friends from state school when I was growing up. I had no idea how people lived if they didn’t go to private school and live the way we did. My children are at a good comp in a nice m-ish catchment area, have music lessons, go on nice holidays etc etc, but they know SO much more about live’s very different to their own than I ever did and I am so glad that they do. I hope they will go forth in to the world and put that knowledge to decent use.

I'm not sure money for private school = buying in catchment of an amazing state school as opposed to a just bog standard one, loads of extra curricular activities and still have money left over for house deposits. So your conjecture is very much a false one.

Not to mention that good state schools don't get "priority" for university admissions anyway.

I don’t know anything about sending kids to private school but I would anticipate those increases might not be unreasonable.

if your state schools are decent I’d just send them there. My son just got all As in his exams so I’m glad now we didn’t spend money on school fees or moving to a more expensive catchment as it wouldn’t have served him any better.

In terms of the confidence in my profession there are a lot of private school educated types. It’s not always a good thing, I’ve come across a lot where the confidence is extremely misplaced and/or just comes across as arrogance.

So, the outcome from this discussion is that the OP is going to save the money she would have spent on school fees and use it to buy a house in the catchment of a good school (thus making it marginally harder for poorer children to get a place). She will then use more of her money to supplement her child's state education with extra activities and perhaps tutoring if needed. When her children apply to university, they will avoid any potential discrimination which they might have attracted if they'd gone private. In future years, she may also have money left over to help them with house deposits etc.

I'm interested in how the 'private schools are unfair' posters think this is a fairer or more equal system than paying for a school place?

(NB OP I'm not remotely criticising your choice, whatever it is!)