£800 'hidden cost' of sending a child to a state school - your experiences?

We live in a very middle class area and my d/c went/go to the local school. I have seen a big change over the years since ds1 (19) was there. At one time we would have been well in excess of £800 pa with expensive trips, fetes, book fairs, theatre company visits etc. but times have changed and there appears to be more local trips, less bussing children around to this and that.

I don't think you can include school lunches or optional extras such as music lessons in the calculation because they are, well, optional. Some parents will be paying for music lessons out with school. Dress down days, after school clubs and discos are also optional and they would have to wear clothes of some sort although I can understand the problem if the uniform is hugely expensive.

We have a second hand uniform shop, sweat shirts £2, fleeces and jackets £4 and polo shirts £1 so you can clothe them fairly cheaply if you wish. Our requested contributions are not voluntary. Generally you pay or your child doesn't go (school has some funds they can use in extreme circumstances) and I would say that this year this has been less than £10 for the year. Some parents are "up in arms" at the lack of school trips and outings but these tend to be the parents who can afford to do these things with their dc's anyway. I don't think the cheaper, in house, entertainment has adversely affected their education one little bit.

I've just reread the information sheet about Duke of Edinburgh at ds' school: the £40 includes all the necessary "equipment", including boots and jackets - £16 to the council for admin costs and the remainder to top up supplies. I know the Parent Council contributed money (raised at a Mela involving local businesses) to buy equipment (tents etc) and the Achievement Fund will be exactly the sort of thing that would be used to ensure that kids who wanted to do DOE but couldn't afford the £40 could do so.

Fits the theme, I mean. The children have other clothes which fit them!

Yes, I would say that figure is easily accurate. The school is very active in fundraising, both for the school itself and chosen charities. Money is tighter this year, so I am cutting down the amount I give. But it is things like they did an educational trip to a museum. It has a shop attached. Children were told they could take spending money up to £10. There was also another list for a team-building day which asked children to bring a variety of indoor and outdoor clothing, including a tracksuit top in a certain colour, where you just think, fgs, my DD does not have a tracksuit top, never mind a blue one. Plus, the non-uniform days for charity which have a theme and you have nothing which fits. Etc. Etc. Etc.

Well, school dinners are £2.20 a day - £75+ a term (old half term) so that's £450 a year. So last year that was £900 for the two of them - for DD2 it is free for this year and next now fortunately.

I don't think it's costing me anything like that at the moment (1 DD in year 1). I probably spent £80 on uniform but much less this year as the cardigans still fit. The summer trip was £15 and she didn't do any after school clubs. I did pay for school meals some of the time (£120 for the year at a guess), but they are free now.

The uniform though is actually cheaper than the clothes I would normally buy (mainly supermarket and Next), probably wears better, and it means 'home clothes' wear out less quickly. Surely home schooling as a comparison must be way more expensive?

My child has just started state secondary. I was surprised to have to pay £16 for MFL books and a dictionary. It was particularly annoying as I have several A level dictionaries that would have been ideal. We were not given the option of the books only.

Other expenses have been for lockers, ID card and DT materials

That figure includes uniform, shoes, extra equipment & fundraising contributions.

Been in several sch systems and UK state by far the most affordable - no fees, relatively little fundraising, no textbooks or major stationery to buy, often free transport, many things free to those in need- school meals, trips etc. plus ebay et al make uniform much more affordable.
Adding it up, realise we spend £3000 x 2 on petrol, trips and sch lunches. None of it hidden though.

My sons uniform costs £7 for a polo shirt, £7 for a logo'd jumper and I buy the black trousers from any shop. Barely £6 a pair. £100 max for about three years wear so £33.33 per year plus coat which gets worn anywhere. Really parents need to be getting harsh with schools spending a lot on uniforms!

We're on our third state school system.

Uniform costs (inc. logo'd polos & sweatshirts) in the UK and various small fees for PTA type stuff. A few trips, I don't recall them being very expensive or frequent, but dc were fairly young. No costs for clubs etc. School dinners were rubbish so we did packed lunches for all of us.

In the US we were required to provide a whole bundle of stuff each year (including things like tissues and hand sanitizer, as well as pencils and paper) Expensive and a hassle to get. Also various small fees for PTA stuff. I think there was just the one trip, and it was fairly cheap (we were only there for 6 months). No uniform.

Now we live in Canada. At primary there was lots of fundraising activities but very few other costs because the PTA funded lots of it. In the last two years there was a residential and also skiing (but this is local so cheap). Most families opted for one or the other. I think it was $100 for three days (which was very good value). No uniform, and the only other school requirement was for indoor shoes in winter term (very snowy here).

At secondary we have to pay a fee at the beginning of each semester (two terms here) which depends on the course. Think it was $60 between my two this time. No uniform, no other kit required. School bus is free so long as you go to the local school (95% of children do), but we pay for bus passes as the times aren't great, that's $100 a semester. Very little fundraising, except for the food bank, which tends to be about bringing in no perishables and are totally voluntary (eg they did a 'scare hunger away' event for Halloween). School trips are rare, voluntary and a big deal (eg next year if ds wanted to take biology he could go on the trip to Hawaii).

Making families pay lots of money for uniform and kit is a hidden cost I think becasue it is totally unnecessary and also unavoidable as most people don't really have much choice of school.

Same here, Sparkling!

Ds1 tried the local school. It wasn't the school for him.

"I think transport to school ought to be free for DC who have more than 2km to walk. I think DC ought to go to their local school in order to keep costs down and transport times to a minimum."

In our LEA if you live within the catchment area of a school , but more than three miles away the child gets a free bus pass. We are 4 miles from DD's school and the bus goes straight from our village to the school and costs us absolutely nothing.

Can i include the mobility scooter i need to get them to and from nursery? Its walking distance, but only if you can walk...

Free pick up/drop off from the school only includes children with disabilities (not saying for a second they shouldnt get it!), no thoughts given to how parents with disabilities are going to get their children there!

When the DCs are home, lunch for all three of us costs £1.50-£2. When they are at school, their lunch costs £2 each, per day.
It goes up around 10% each year too.
When they're home, they wear clothes handed down from friends, or from charity shops. At school they need specific logged items which can't be passed on or bought second-hand.
I consider that a""hidden" cost.

I'm not sure why school lunches are a "hidden cost" of schooling. If you have DC it is your responsibility as a parent to pay for their food.

Ditto school uniform providing it isn't some mad fancy dress - it is parents' responsibility to clothe their DC.

I think transport to school ought to be free for DC who have more than 2km to walk. I think DC ought to go to their local school in order to keep costs down and transport times to a minimum.

Yr 10: £500 on two trips - language and Geography. £500 on lunches. £1200 on transport to school. £70 on revision books and £150 on uniform / stationery. Total £2,420.

Yr 8: £270 on language exchange, £450 on lunches, £1200 on transport and £150 on uniform / stationery / revision books. Total £2,070.

Yr 5: £330 on lunches, £50 on uniform and stationery, trips c£20 and share of school run cost say £20pw = £600. Total c£1,000.

Hallelujah for free school meals for my twins in year 1. But uniform, trips and share of school run etc must be at least £1,340 total.

Excluding music lessons which we do at home in one batch: £2,500.

Never added it up before. £6,830 without music lessons and £9,330 with.

Conclusions (a) stick to two, and (b) school closer to home. Hmm, bit late for me! No wonder I'm broke.

I just did the sums and so far I have spent over £700 for both of them just for the first two terms on uniform, voluntary contribution, and year six trip. This does not include any food or transport. I spend £160 per month on transport to school and they both have packed lunches. Packed lunches including treats and drinks so they don't buy anything from the expensive canteen average ca £80 per month, but they have long days and bring everything from home. They are very sensible in that regard, but most of their friends do the same thing. DD doesn't want school dinners, because none of her friends go. She likes vine ripened tomatoes in her lunch box though.

This is one junior school and one grammar child.

edam is right. I am on the finance committee of a large secondary school. All the schools in the LEA are struggling to make ends meet, including ours, but we don't ask parents for donations.

chocomochi if this is a state school, then the head who demands parents pay a regular 'donation' or explain why not is going well beyond her powers. Outrageous. If I were you, I'd refuse and I'd refuse to discuss it - in fact I'd complain to the governors and copy in your MP.

Our DC's school asks for a flat fee of £25 a term for trips and special activities, but its voluntary. I know a few parents who cant afford it and dont pay, and nobody misses out or is any the wiser.

There are endless charity donation requests, but its not compulsory and we dont always contribute.

Uniforms arent expensive - just the school blazer, as the rest can be purchased from supermarkets or budget clothing shops, and the school keeps a lot of hand me downs for parents who are struggling.

After school club and extra curricular activities are what add up for us. DS does two clubs a week and DD is an activity ir class every week day after school.

Mrscake I usually get charity shop clothes for that sort of thing.

DD has just done her Y6 residential trip. I was not impressed when the kit list included 5 days worth of clothing (complete change for every day) that should be old and not matter is it was basically destroyed. DD doesn't have spare, old pairs of trainers and clothes lying around, she grows out of them before they wear out. So I had to buy new trainers and other bits of new kit, knowing that there was every chance that I would need to bin them at the end of the week. The school seemed oblivious.

Very easily. £200+ on uniform and sports kit. The logo's tracksuit alone was £40. Never mind the logo'd shorts and polo. The polo shirt to be changed every year because of year colour. Then the blazer which again logo'd and depending on year and if prefect or not, different coloured piping. Although prefect got their blazer for free. Then of course the yearly change of tie. I was relieved when we finally finished in the school, all the changes came about in year 2, under a new head.

Then the cost of curriculum trips. Didn't matter if we were a quid above the free school meal, which meant heavily subsidised, because we were apparently rolling in it and the harassment when we couldn't make the voluntary payments. It was even suggested at one point that I should deal with my finances better then, or get a loan, because yes, this would help.

Then chuck in costs of compulsory after school things, things that meant they often had to stay until gone 6, so take in cash for food and drinks, because this was never provided, even though they were representing the school.

The no uniform days. Fund raising days. The pressure for the pictures, after all the school received money from this so the more sales the more money for the school. The book sales, again see the photo sales.

The stationary. The paper and folders to keep work in. The printing costs in school before we had a printer at home, and some worked had to be printed not hand written. The internet costs, because this was needed as some teachers insisted that homework had to be sent in electronically on the crappy mle (it was really dire then and crashed more times than it worked).Although school would say well they can use the pc's in the library which works well when school library had 5 pc's and around a thousand students lol. Or the other suggestion of using public library, where you could book slots, at cost for 30 minutes, because you can get loads done in 30 minutes on very slow machines, think the libraries here were using dial up.

The disco's. The Prom. The residential. The fun trips like Thorpe Park, cinema etc, things that you got a letter home about saying because of the excellent behaviour/work/representing the school, your child has been chosen to go to xx the cost to you is £xx. And yes I had many bloody words with the school about their treats costing me.

The costs for cooking lessons, this was a yearly cost, plus on top of that additional money for ingredients. Again this was questioned, and becuase I was paying twice.

The costs for art equipment. To be used in school. Again like cooking, on top of a yearly cost. These two lessons, during the first 2 years were compulsory.

The cost of the coach to go to the sports day, I refused point blank to pay this. The field was near my home, and all students under 16 travel on the bus for free. School hated me for this, and tried all sorts including threatening me with the ewo as dc would be marked as absent if they failed to attend school. Called their bluff, dc's went sports day, loads of pictures were taken proving they were in school. There was a number of other trips as well that were essentially free but the school wanted to charge. I am sure I was seen as one of those parents, but I refuse to pay for free things.

All of these hidden. None of these discussed during the visit to the school. Ok, yes we knew we had to buy uniform but we didn't expect it to change in the second year. Nothing was mentioned in any of the mountains of paperwork we were sent prior to starting in the first year. Nothing about these costs were mentioned during the first week, and we had to go and sign home/school agreements. We didn't have these costs in primary school, so it was a huge shock. The primary school was very, very mc and the secondary over 70% fsm.

Plus possibly more that I have forgotten about.

I do think that schools need to be more transparent, and these things included in possible costs in all the info packs they send you.