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

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!)

If you’re not going to send them private until secondary, it probably makes sense to start saving the equivalent of the fees every year from now

Do it partly as an experiment to see if you can do it and still live comfortably, and partly to give yourselves a sink fund to cover fee rises once they are in school

We did it for a year before our eldest started school to make sure were weren’t overstretching ourselves and it was a worthwhile exercise

Rubbish advice. It’s proven children who go from nursery are more socially active and involved in sports etc. more than their non private peers

But apart from a few hours freenursery after the age of 3 everyone pays for nursery. So it’s all private. How do they measure it if this is the case?

The value of charitable status is estimated at around £200 per pupil per term, which is less than the variation of fees between schools (whether legally charities or not). I have never seen a proposal on how this would be achieved (just headline ‘let’s do it’ sort of stuff) which under current laws surrounding the winding up of charities would mean closure, assets sold off and proceeds donated to similarly aimed charities. Also, if provision of education were removed as a charitable aim, it would have a big knock-on effect on all other charities which have education as an aim - they might need to cease funding those activities from charitable funds and pay market rent for using charitably owned assets. I’m not saying it can’t be done, but I’ve yet to see a proposal which wouldn’t have major unintended effects.

VAT on fees themselves is unrelated to charitable status, and is currently exempt because our VAT still matches EU version, where there is no taxation on education (in a broad sense, crammers where you buy individual courses rather than the full experience are not exempt). Now post-Brexit, that’s something that can be more readily changed. But still needs a level of administrative competence that I’m not sure we currently have, as nurseries and universities rely on same exemption and no-one wants unintended effects on those.

@Fudgeball123 soundslike you have e down the right thing. But universities and job interviewers don’t care about ‘reasons why’ I don’t think. My brother is partner at one of the big 5 accountancy firms and their employment policies have changed massively since he was taken on (he was privately educated too and says it is very different now how candidates are viewed .)

Such an odd educational system we have compared to some other countries!.

BumblingBy I agree state plus seems what our London friends do. Their schools are mostly very good and they have plenty of after school activities. They also do pretty much an extra curricular activity daily and at weekends. They also do museums, city farms etc. One of them works part-time so this works well for them. State schools in London and now some of the best in the country and have improved massively since I was a child.

For us the nearest state schools are pretty dire and distances to activities are significant. We'd need someone to drive them around which we don't have. We did as much state schooling as we thought we could and will certainly consider boarding grammar (though we don't really want our kids to board) and will consider the 6th form college as that's very good.

I think its horses for courses, different families and children need different things. We also went to the Commonwealth Games :-)

To my knowledge, the vast majority of private schools are run as charitable trusts and so they don’t make profits as such. Everything does keep on getting more expensive and so the fees do too.

@Fudgeball123
State 'plus' doesn't work for everyone but its a seriously great option if you have someone working part time who can do the after school running around. I love the fact it is so highly tailored to our individual children as all of mine are so different.
Re galleries etc - we don't live near any either but we have the the time at weekends and 'fee' money to spend on lots of trips to London / Stratford/Paris for theatre, galleries etc and then we get to enjoy it too. Ditto trips skiing, to things like Commonwealth games etc, we get the fun too.
I suppose what I am saying is that if you care about extra curricular you don't have to do the school fees route and have kids face potential at discrimination at Uni/work place due to usually outdated ideas about what a fee paying person is like (I went to private school so faced some of these myself over the years, I usually play down where I went to school TBH.)

While you could possibly pick out the prep vs non prep dc in Y7 at my kids Private school they were all pretty much the same by Y8.

Ours have gone up about 3% before but this year it's 6%.
I went to a state school in another country but both my kids have been to private. Our initial intention was to try state primary first but failing to get in to our nearest FOUR state schools (all very good) and offered an adequate one across the borough decided it for us.
My eldest was not academic and left for vocational college at 16, my dd is predicted to do very well at A level (though ironically is going in to a creative field where grades do not matter so much). Would they have had different outcomes at state? Would they be different people? Would it have made any difference in the long run considering the fields they are entering? Who can say?
You can't tell at 4 years whether your child is destined to be a brilliant scientist or artist or what have you. Or if they would still become those if they had gone to a state school. You just provide the best you can under your individual circumstances.
I do know people who only had one child as they felt they could then give that one the best of everything (schooling, time etc).

BumblingBy this is true. Sadly our local comp (and I know because a good friend's kids go there) provides very little extra curricular. There has been 1 boys sports fixture all academic year and her DS is very sporty. There are no lunchtime or afterschool activities. Her kids are not very academic so find school a real grind.
I work full-time and we live remotely so the amount of driving about to provide all the sports our school provides would be mindblowing. Our county town where most of the action is, is about 30 miles away. So the independent school enables the kids to most of their activities at school, means I can work full-time to pay for it ;-) and I don't have to drive around.
Certainly where we live there aren't really museums or galleries but I know if you live in London / Manchester etc there is alot more to see and do.
We will look at grammar school for DC2 at 11 but this will require boarding as we live 30 miles away.. so we would still have to pay for the boarding..

Rubbish advice. It’s proven children who go from nursery are more socially active and involved in sports etc. more than their non private peers

@Fudgeball123 but you ARE blowing the fees on the fun stuff, you just said your choice of school was all about the extra curricular!!!!!

I have children in state schools and that is where our ‘fee’ money goes too. Extra curricular. Clubs, music lessons, county sport, lots and lots of interesting travel, museums, galleries, skiing.

You are quite right it’s a defined benefit scheme since then. It’s still incredibly expensive for schools to fund however which is the point about it feeding into the fee level.

ArseInTheCoOpWindow there's also more to life than uni application forms. Some children enjoy the extra curricular stuff and its what makes school enjoyable and gives a broader education than the purely academic. Alot of independent school families see the main added value in the extra curricular and the chance for their child to be good at something rather than just shoehorned into academic lessons all day with no music, art etc. Believe me if I thought we could get the same education at the local comprehensive we would be there tomorrow as I rather blow the fees on fun stuff.

Teacher pensions aren’t on final salary schemes to anyone after 2012

You should also factor in the possibility of a Labour government doing away with private schools charitable status and the subsequent VAT liability.
Teachers pension costs will continue to be a big factor, I think schools contribute c 25% of salary and rising to fund the final salary scheme.
Last but not least energy costs which are particularly challenging in big, old , poorly insulated buildings like a lot of schools both private and state.
I can see fees increasing by 15% a year in the next couple of years, after that who knows.

You can get the best doctor for a heart bypass.

But you can’t buy your way into Oxford/Cambridge/red bricks anymore. Why waste your money? It’s going to continue.

They aren’t interested in DoE/ extra curricular stuff anymore. So what exactly are you paying for? For your child to lose a place is what you’re paying for.

@Fudgeball123 that is why uni’s are making sure more applicants get in from deprived backgrounds and limiting those that have had the benefits of tiny classes and hand holding. They want the best, not those that were helped the most. About time too!

So many misconceptions and stereotypes here about Private schools and Parents who choose to send their DC there.
I am sure if people were stereotyping State school kids and Parents in the same way there would be outcry and/or deletions.

We didn’t all go Private ourselves
We dont all have “family money”
We don’t all do it to get better A levels/degrees/jobs for our dc
We don’t all do it to avoid the riff raff
We don’t all go skiing and to Barbados for Christmas
Our kids aren’t all snobs who look down on kids from State schools

If only government funding for state schools would also track inflation!

ArseInTheCoOpWindow tbh if I'm going for a heart by pass operation I want the best Dr whether they have been to Eton or a council estate - I really don't care. I don't want someone because they do / don't tick a box. It should be based on your performance and not whether your background does or doesn't meet certain criteria..

Wowzer if you are earning £250k a year you should easily do it unless you are spending tons on house / cars etc. Not all the kids will be at the same school at once. And in our case we get a small discount as our kids have scholarships.

Why bother with private schools?

The Telegraph ran an article yesterday moaning about diversity and how ‘lower class’ students were being offered places whilst private school students weren’t.

It had loads of parents moaning that their children had all A* and couldn’t get into med school as someone from a council estate was taking their place.

This is how it should be. Payment doesn’t buy privilege anymore,