School fee hike - freaking out slightly

Thanks for the reminder. I'm totally doing this.

Is this a co-ed in south east London by any chance?

GDST has always aimed at keeping things as affordable as possible for parents.

https://register-of-charities.charitycommission.gov.uk/charity-search/-/charity-details/306983

If you look at this, out of thousands of employees only one earns 250-300k.

Meanwhile, plenty of headmasters of secondary schools in London (mainly male) are on 250k per year. Some even more.

Everyone should be reading the accounts of their private schools in detail, every year.

Our GDST school in SW London will increase 7% (exact.. 7.00 something) next academic year

@whathaveyoudonelately Many thanks 😊

@QuiteAJourney - not sure about all the GDSTs but I think it's the same one as your DD is going to!

Do you know if all GDST are increasing the same? We are waiting to hear from ours (in SW London, which might be the same as you) for our DD, starting in Year 7 in September.

I think users of private schools will need to have a careful think about exactly what they consider their reason for paying for education (and schools, likewise, will need to think about “What are our users’ commonest reasons for paying for education?”)

For each individual (or school), is it mainly about:

a) We want a faster-paced, more challenging academic curriculum than most state schools are able to offer, and peers that are academically above average across the board.
b) Our child has issues with attention space, focus, bullying etc., cannot cope in big state classrooms and needs a small-scale nurturing environment with more personal attention.
c) We want a well-rounded education with marvelous sports and music facilities etc.
d) I and my partner work big busy well paid jobs with long hours; we want good academics, personal attention, extra curric, wraparound care provided as a convenient one-stop shopping trip so we can both focus on our careers.
e) We wouldn’t normally have chosen private, but we’re in a difficult situation where the only state schools available for us are really bad/scary etc.

Some of those motivations offer the potential for increasing class sizes and/or selling off/monetizing some of the facilities without parents refusing to pay for it (for example, it’s possible to deliver a fast-paced curriculum to academically-selected kids in fairly large class sizes), some do not and are very much about seeking a premium product.

No doubt we will see private schools making decisions about what their target markets are, and budgeting accordingly. Or going under in some cases.

Most of the population can't afford three holidays and two 4x4s, even without paying school fees. Only households with a very high income would be able to afford those things.

Not bullshit. Factor in a couple of new 4x4s, 2 or 3 holidays. Sounds like OP chose their path but sadly didn't factor inevitable economic strife.

When did MN get so mean?!

I have kids in two different London day schools and the increase is 11%, one school has made it clear they want to look after their teachers to retain them, and to be honest, the teaching team is great and very stable, plus both sets have amazing facilities.
both schools froze their fees during covid as well, and we got some rebates as well.

And I am not in any way minimising the fact we are privileged to consider doing it in the first place.

@bibbitybobbityyhat you’re right - those choices don’t add up to school fees. What they do allow though is spare cash per year (eg 10k which would otherwise be saved) to have 5k added to from those savings allowing school fees to be paid.
and it’s those parents (ourselves included) who will feel the squeeze.
other parents I have spoken to this week were saying how their 8k holiday was now costing 10k. I suspect they can manage the increase more easily than us.

This is not bulls**t. It is a reality for a lot of middle class families. Families will stretch, maybe the bursar will help if the child
is exceptional, but going private does involve significant sacrifices in terms of holidays and entertainment for most middle class families.

"However, we've done this without foreign holidays, new cars and making sacrifices- we shop at Aldi etc"

This is such bullshit. This doesn't add up to private school fees for two children.

@Cyclingmummy1 Hope it works out well for you. Based on that last comment I'm 90% sure I know where you work, but I won't out you in case parents or your SLT are reading!

@PrivateSchoolTeacherParent that was one of the points we made. It went a lot further than indicative ballots before we got an agreement to pause until the figures are known.

I tried to find an article on current pay of headmasters in the independent sector but instead stumbled across this https://amp.theguardian.com/education/2021/mar/20/english-secondary-school-headteachers-among-best-paid-in-the-world
—which to be honest I found even more shocking! Sounds like the state sector can pay even more…

If I were a journalist I would trawl through the accounts of the best performing private schools to see what salaries are currently doing at the top level. My bet would be that they have increased since 2019.

@Cyclingmummy1 But nobody knows what the increase will be! We got a 7% rise at our place and the governors have stopped talking about leaving the TPS, at least for a while. We got as far as "indicative ballots" when they raised it about 4 years back, then they backed down.

It is fundamentally wrong to start by passing the bucket to teachers and pupils/families without any introspection. Bursars should be looking first and foremost for inefficiencies, ranging from admin staff to energy efficiency. Schools can get their hands on 20y+ infra loans with 3-4 year grace periods. How about investing in insulation, wind power on the fields, or solar cells on the roofs of buildings?

I sit on both sides of the fence - DS at one independent whilst I work at another. I sat through a financial briefing earlier in the week which boiled down to teachers needing to take a salary cut to pay the increase in employer pension contributions next year. I feel that this cost needs to be passed onto the service users but understand that parents may not agree.

Maybe so, but he conveniently forgot to label the x-axis so it reads as an absolute value. In any case the über rich will have little taxable income, as it all sits in trust funds anyhow. So his methodology is very poorly informed and amateurish at worst, or a politically motivated hit piece at best.

Pay as you go is actually the state model, where a school only teaches to the curriculum and then call it a job done. Parents would then take over the extracurriculars in terms of academics, sport, music, ferrying around, etc.

Agree to cut back on printed materials for environmental reasons, but that will not be a massive cost saving in and by itself. Cutting back on sport teams and travelling to competitions is a terrible idea in my view. This is one of the main reasons many parents choose private, as those cannot be efficiently arranged at the local club usually, unless you’re in a big city like London.

For me it’s amount of people working in admin that’s appalling. Celebrity headmasters on 200k salaries must go, but what about the dozens of secretaries guarding the doors everywhere at most boarding schools. Why?

@Postapocalypticcowgirl Tbh I'd go as far as saying the majority of private schools don't have an all inclusive fee model. Esp preps. The vast majority charge extra for clubs, after school provision, special coaching, exams, learning support. When we were looking at private schools now for my daughter to go into Y9, most reminded me of my state school under labour. 25ish kids per class, clubs, trips, drama productions etc. Except we also had free instrument tuition. It's sad really.

Gosh how awful you have to shop at Aldi! 😂