School fee hike - freaking out slightly

There are some things which can and should be cut immediately - glossy brochures, anything printed and sent out to prospective parents, free drinks etc - all the marketing stuff basically needs to be cut down immediately. It should all be sent electronically.
Printing concert programmes too - if there is free Wi-Fi just get the parents to logon to a code to download it on their phones. A lot of the heads of departments need to get with the times.
Secondary, CEO type headmaster salaries and incentivies… hmm. It is a recent trend that has gotten out of control.
Experienced and high performing staff that has been there for years absolutely most be kept on as usually they are the ones that make the school not the CEO management style management teams swanning in and out every few years. Staff turnover needs to be avoided and good staff kept happy and incentivised as much as possible.

Mini buses going to sporting fixtures at far off private schools multiple times every day, cut it down and play more local schools including state schools. Or just get the kids in the year to play each other. There is a huge cost involved with this and often the kids just sit on buses for far too long anyway.

As regards bursaries, if they are funded by existing fee paying parents, that is no good. They need to be funded by benefactors, alumni, endowment funds going forward. Or land sales to build an endowment fund, but again, this is risky.
To be honest I think they need to start appointing really financially savvy governors and lawyers primarily now.

@Dodgeitornot oh yes I agree. But presumably th school has factored that in when considering some parents may cut down on usage to save money if they can. If they haven’t then - it reinforces my point that I’m not sure schools have considered the ripple effects of parents belt tightening where they can.

@Intergalacticcatharsis yes our school is very vocal about having increased bursaries substantially - a significant percentage don’t pay full fees. I fully support that but the fact is if the full fee paying parents can’t afford to pay full fees and all the extras - so cut back - that is going to impact on the school overall - and also on the ability to offer such places. if VAT is put on fees that will also def impact on that as well - whilst lots of businesses do have a community element, not to the same extent as (some) schools have been trying to increase it to, if their provision is taxed as a luxury item rather than charitable. I don’t think there is an easy solution to any of this, but I do think governors should not just assume parents can absorb the costs with no impact on the school from their belt tightening.

I also think if Labour comes in and charges VAT on school fees the schools are going to have to structure the fees differently. People might be happy to pay an extra 20 per cent on pure teaching costs but all the extra curricular nice to haves will have to be structured differently … I reckon there will be ways around it to keep costs down.

I am not an accountant so don’t know how it works but I reckon with professional advice a lot can be done with the right sort of deductions. At the moment these schools could just keep racking up costs and passing them on. Successful state schools have had to severely cost cut and have managed too. Unfortunately though I reckon less will be done for local state schools in the future as there will be increasing pressure from private school parents to keep costs down. We are already seeing that and the top schools have already hired advisors to figure it all out.

The right thing to do is to protect the quality of teachers, students and welfare staff, and let the dead wood float downstream

Agree there is plenty of waste and loads of room to cut down admin costs. Not entirely sure if schools really need all those secretaries to start with. We’re way past the age of long formal letters and typewriters after all

I have heard from friends that in some private schools parents are getting together to sign letters and petitions to keep costs down… for example, one well known and highly oversubscribed school did 1 lot of double digit increases plus an almost double digit this year. Meanwhile the headmaster is earning hundreds and hundreds of thousands…

Schools can absolutely start cutting extra curricular if they have to. There is a trend at the moment in the top schools to pour everything into free and heavily assisted bursary places. Meanwhile lots of existing parents are struggling.

I expect we are going to see a big backlash in the next few years. Schools absolutely should prioritise their existing pupils and their existing staff etc

Don't then.

@Gloaming23 For a lot of parents, if the coach becomes unaffordable or stops running, the kids stop going. Many schools have vast bus networks they run and also use those buses for fixtures and sports.

And am sure just one person doing it won’t cause them any issues. But lots of parents we know are cutting back this way to both afford this and the the possible VAT. So there will be ripple effects - be it in staff redundancies and (assuming they don’t own the coaches themselves - (which would make swapping to smaller ones harder) in the coach companies. Sad all around.

@Postapocalypticcowgirl I completely understand your point but our school make quite a big deal about them preferring you to use coaches (it causes massive traffic issues otherwise for the local residents) and also are (rightly) very proud of their music offering.

I don’t blame them for passing on costs. I’m
simply saying that we will cut our cloth according and I’m not sure that they have acknowledged (and certainly not from our governors letter) that this will impact on the things they are rightly proud of - so they will have more complaints from the locals re traffic, there will be a less good music department if one member is sadly made redundant.

They seem to be assuming that we can just absorb it all and nothing will change from their provision. I was just making the point that we will cut out cloth to pay it, spend the same overall money but in different ways but those ways will have an impact on the school offering itself.

I don't think schools forget this, I'm pretty sure none of them want to be increasing costs so much but energy bills + staffing costs + costs of consumable resources and so on have all gone up dramatically this year. I think most schools on this thread are not passing the full price rise on to parents this year, but unless the school has huge reserves, they have to pass something on, surely? Or reduce the quality of provision.

It's not quite the same if people stop using the coach - if enough people stop using the school can stop running it or use a smaller bus, which will save a lot on fuel. If people stop music lessons, they don't have to employ staff for that and so on.

I'm not sure what else you would expect a school to do?

Whereabouts in central London are you? There are many outstanding state schools in W1, W2, W6, W8, W9, W10, W11, W12, W14, NW1 and SW3. Low competition as there are not many kids in the Westminster and Kensington borough.

7.5%, north east day school.

@Whatusernameisthis It depends on their Ts&C's. We saw a few schools that were very clear about being able to increase fees anytime. One even said it on their website underneath the fees.

Think the percentage increase only makes sense when knowing the baseline or at least the type of school e.g. 10% carries an entirely different meaning when applied to a £45k full boarding school (ca £4500 hit) or to a £10k prep school (ca £1000 hit)

Thank you - we don't have a state school nearby that offered what she wanted although we did visit a couple.

The private she is moving to has significantly less fees than the one she is currently at, includes exam fees in that cost and has a significantly higher provision than where she's at and better results. We will be saving about £5k a year with the move.

Some of her friends are going to a very good state in the town her current school is in, its too far for us travel wise .

@Mumsafan We spend years putting years of financial strain on ourselves by spending DS to very expensive schools ( including boarding school). He left after GCSE’s and I can’t quite come to terms with how superior the teaching he is now experiencing is. I do now wonder what on earth we were thinking. We also had to pay for exams almost £700 on top of fees of nearly £16,000. The pastoral care was also non existent (for our DS ). Best of luck to your DD in the exams and with the move in September.

11% for us!!! Ouch. Especially as our local council has put council tax up by 15%

DD is Year 11 at private but not staying onto sixth form there.

Despite this we were sent the fees increase letter for next school year. The increase is 9.5% for fees, another £50 on the bus fee and another £60 on lunches.

I looked back at when she first started and the increase in the past 6 years has been an gradual fee increase totalling £1700. The cost of the bus has doubled and the increase in lunches is £100. This all per term!

They are also one of the few schools remaining who charge extra for exam fees - charging and extra £5 on each exam taken.

The fact that the provision from the school has decreased in most departments in that time has left a lot of parents p*ed off to say the least. Unfortunately the teachers and staff can't do anything about it as the school is owned by a private equity firm who are obviously only bothered about money for their investors.

80% of this years Year 11 are leaving for other sixth forms - with nearly all of those leaving going into state school.

My DD is one of 3 going to other privates for sixth form.

I would imagine all schools will be giving a full terms notice of the increase in fees in that case.

Yes, in normal circumstances you do need to give a full term’s written notice. However, if the school has not given a full term’s notice of the fees for the next academic year, this does not stand.

You have to pay a full terms notice if you remove your child from a private school. We had to pay over £15,000 when we removed our DS from boarding school, after which we had to send numerous emails to get our deposit back. It took months and the school showed themselves in a very poor light.

If you’re not given a full term’s notice I believe you can insist on paying the Autumn term at the previous rate. You certainly don’t Have to give a full term’s notice should you wish to remove your child.

@Rockhall not at limits, but I think carrying on spending as if they haven’t gone up is foolish. I’d prefer to trim now to give us more buffer for when fees
do go up again. We won’t be the only ones doing this - I think schools forget sometimes that is exactly the same way people choose to reduce costs where they can in other parts of their lives, they will also do so where they can with school extras - be it uniform, school trips, lunches etc (and i fully acknowledge that we are in a privileged position in the first place). Thankfully for us my child will still get to play in the orchestra so will continue enjoying the benefits of the music department in many ways.