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

In plenty of countries parents are expected to purchase school books and stationery - in France this typically runs to EUR 200 or more in September with add ons throughout the year.

I'm not sure school lunches are that expensive. I'd spend more than £9.50 a week making a packed lunch (I certainly did back in DS1's packed lunch days, and food was cheaper then). And I would spend more than £1.90 when making lunch for at home.

Even if school dinners are more expensive than eating at home (or having a packed lunch), then it's only the difference in cost that would matter. And then only if school dinners were compulsory. Uniform and such like are compulsory costs that make school not free. What you have for lunch is less of a clear-cut case.

And what is with secondary heads and their obsession with logo'd, hard-to-wash uniform? Only available from a single supplier? And the PE kit is about to be changed for the third time in ten years, so all the stuff that was sensibly saved up from eldest children to be passed on to younger siblings is useless! And I hear they're planning to change the main uniform again too, so the immaculate blazer I've stashed ready for my 10 year old nephew when he starts next September is likely to be redundant as well.

When we were on Free School Meals, we were offered quite a lot of 'extras' to help the girls feel more included, including the entire cost of the year 6 residential trip (£320 each), a week of Summer School (should have been about £80 each), group music tuition, and subscription fees for sports clubs. Additionally we were offered money towards school uniform and PE kit. I found it rather embarrassing actually as were only on FSM due to a weird technicality of the rules about benefits, and I'd only applied for them after a parent governor asked me to do so, as the pupil premium awarded to the school per FSM child was well worth having. As a matter of fact we could afford all these things, and it was only the fact that the money had been sent and was sitting in the school account and couldn't be used for anything else that persuaded me to accept it. I made up for it by buying a whole load of stuff for the school to the same value via the PTA!

This was a few years ago now, and we no longer either claim FSMs or are entitled to do so (although I gather the rule that enabled my family to receive them still exists).

What annoyed me then and still annoys me now is that I know there were other families who were on lower actual incomes than me who were not entitled to claim FSMs and therefore weren't offered access to this sort of funding who needed it far more than we did.

The secondary school dtds attend now does have a Discretionary Fund which the headteacher can access to help with financial hardship, but that involves writing to the Head asking for help and explaining why, which I'm sure some of the most needy families would find a hurdle in itself.

I still think £850 is not usual. Unless it's extra lessons like music. But I suppose if you counted school lunches it would add up but I wouldn't count those. But agree ingredients can be expensive. So it it could come to a lot more than you would think. Seems as if schools will put upon parents as much as they can get away with as extras.

Personally I think that sounds like good value, LO doesn't attend state school but it you remove the fees the extras are considerably more than £800. I think we have it quite good here (school uniform costs aside), when I lived abroad state school children were expected to also buy all of their school books and material.

Vivienne - read the thread. There are plenty of posters saying this sounds about what they are paying for secondary. Try buying my ds's uniform inc. the three specified pairs of shoes and three variations of PE kit, and the art equipment, and the locker, and all the other things you don't initially think of...

No second hand uniform sale, either, unlike at primary school.

Uniform has been an enormous cost for dd's start at secondary school. Not just the clothes, but the kit as well.

A kilt costs £38. Realistically, need 2 at least, because also cannot be tumble dried and is heavy weight, so not quick to dry.

Shirts are £22 for 2. Cannot be tumble dried.

Jumpers are £30. Cannot be tumble dried.

Logoed pe kit was £42.

When you add in regulation trainers, school shoes, coat (didn't happen to have a black coat with no logos or decoration hanging around for her) and black backpack, as well as kit bag, butchers apron and science overall it all adds up. Though will hopefully not have to buy another apron or overall again as they're enormous.

The saving grace of the kilts is that they are width adjustable. Not length alas, and she's growing so quickly that I am concerned that below the knee will soon become above the knee.

Then there's the stuff - stationery, memory stick, maths kit, calculator and so on. Expensive language trip next year.

At primary is much cheaper - have excellent relaxed uniform of basic colour jumper, trousers and shirts, none of which have to have logo.

It's more like Starbucks prices at ds's school, for instance. And quite often he tells me the vegetables ran out, so he only gets, say, meatballs and rice when it should include veg as well!

Can't see how they arrive at those figures. Unless they are including optional trips abroad.

but school dinners are expensive. The costs are not kept down - they are inflated far above what it would cost to feed a child at home.

For Ds1 (at secondary) it probably comes to about £1000 a year, but that includes transport costs that we wouldn't have if he'd stayed at the school at the end of our road. Before that it was probably about £800 a year mostly on school dinners and uniform.

For Ds2 it's much, much less. The are trips and stuff to spend money in all the time, which is hard to keep track of but we have no transport costs, he gets FSM (because he's in Y1), the uniform is cheap and lasts more than a year (even if his shoes don't), and they provide all equipment.

I'm not sure that school dinners is that reasonable a thing to include. You'd have to feed them anyway. It kind of detracts from the argument about the need for parents to find money for uniform, equipment and trips just so they can send them to supposedly 'free' state schools. And takes away from the fact that schools can set uniform rules that make it much harder for some people to afford to send their children to that school than others.

The uniform at DS1's old school was unnecessarily logoed and expensive, but you had to buy it all (including logoed school coats, two different sets of logoed PE kit, an even a logoed apron for cooking). I'm sure it put some parents off, especially if it was combined with the train or bus fare.

Sounds entirely plausible to me. ds's uniform for new secondary was hideously expensive, even though we bought some stuff (eg blazer) in second hand sale. Needing three different pairs of shoes ie school shoes/trainers/football boots, different football and rugby shorts/shirts etc. etc. probably set us back £250-300 - too scared to tot it up between me and dh but we were ruddy short of cash in September. Special socks for football and other PE, ffs (or was it rugby, I dunno). Stuff for art, particular calculator for science. And uniform is all logo'd, you can't get anything other than shirts and trousers from non-specialist suppliers. And he doesn't even have anywhere to hang up his ruddy coat!

School lunches are expensive, we had to pay £20 for a locker, FFS, an extra fee to get text messages about lunch money running out and other payments etc. and trips are a nightmare - ds's school put in a new 'bushcraft' bonding trip in September that cost over £200 and everyone was going, of course, and there was no time to save up as there would have been if it was at the end of the year.

Then there's days out and special events and charity stuff... they seem to think we are made of money. Secondary heads on £60-£100k or more seem to forget the average full-time wage is £27k and they are running state schools, not Eton, FFS.

At primary I think this is a bit misleading. School lunches are obviously a large outlay so a packed lunch would seem to cut this at a stroke. After all you would be providing this at the same cost as a lunch at home. Seriously, £200 a year on state school uniform? We are lucky in my area, the only logo'd items are sweatshirts at £10 each. Apart from shoes the rest from a supermarket would be well under £50 and then would be handed down. Shoes would be worn anyway. The only unexpected costs are trips which rise as the child gets older! I feel for anyone who has to fork out £800 a year for a child to go to school.

Secondary uniform is a large outlay and I think it should be the law that the school provide some sort of 2nd hand uniform outlet if they are expecting parents to cough up £££££ for new school-specific items.

May I add peer pressure additional costs such as toys and gizmos which your child wants in order to be the same as their friends? I know these are not mandatory but there can be an element of exclusion if these things are not available to your child.

Agree that school dinners, fetes and fund raisers, school logo sweatshirts and uniform, shoes, school trips (days out rather than residential trips), winter clothes, winter boots all add up.

I know :(
Rugby shirt was £27!!!
Ffs

at those uniform prices, Badvoc.

Our sweatshirts cost £7.50, poloshirts £4.75, PE t-shirt £2.50.

I had to kit out 3 kids from scratch this summer because they changed schools and it can't have come anywhere near £200 for all 3.

Uniform and packed lunches are factored into our usual budget. And the eldest 2 train fares are because it's cheaper and easier than me driving 4 miles in one direction and then 7miles to the primary school straight after twice a day.

But it's the £2 here for an activity, £1 for a cake sale, donation for XYZ, money for that trip, extra equipment needed that's not expected.

Oh blimey...I forgot ds1s dinners...that's £10 per week too

I would say it's that much easily tbh, especially as the dc get older.
My ds2 does not have logo school wear. I cannot afford £9.50 per polo shirt.
Ds1 has to have a logo sweatshirt which infuriates me as it's £20 each one.
Wouldn't mind so much if they were decent quality!
Since sept I have had to pay for Xmas play trip, food tech, school photos x 2, school fund, and that's after all the new stationary, uniforms, shoes, PE kit, locker rental....sigh.
My sons 3 day residential in year 5 was £300.
Luckily, he didn't want to go to France last year thank god.
I will have ds2s Xmas trip to pay for next month.
And that's not including the school Fairs, fund raising events, raffles, charity donations....

Ah - I hadn't even thought about secondary

Better get the chequebook out...

I don't think it's anything like this much. Thank goodness we are still benefiting from the attitudes of the last head teacher who wanted a truly inclusive community school. Thanks to her, the school's results and popularity have rocketed and it is a VERY mc intake now but it didn't used to be. I hope things don't change too much.

No uniform for a start - well, not quite true - you need to buy one item of school wear for school trips, say £10. Cake sales you can get away with 20p a week, actually i never remember to give ds any money for this but let's say, that's £7.80 a year. Recorder lessons, football club, chess club, netball club and a few others are free, but cost of a recorder would be £5 (actually they will always lend you one but let's assume you wouldn't know that). There is likely to be at least one other event requiring a donation per term, say £3 a year. There is usually one big school trip a year, the PTA help with costs; it might be £15, but this year is the big one, the residential which will cost £250. Lunches, yes, they are expensive so there is a big packed lunch cohort, but we pay - about £400 a year. Total is £670 this year due to the residential, normally more like £450 and not very much of that is due to the school really.

However, it has to be said that we have a good income nearly at the national average, so it is not too hard for us to provide cakes, music, clothes and other trips out for ds, so we spend a lot more than this on his entertainment and enrichment outside school. If I couldn't do this, I would want to take advantage of the cheaper rates and support that school provide, and would end up wanting to spend more on school things.

Easily that much, and more for dd's at secondary school. Been told we need to pay for insurence for them, dd1 needs some photographs A5 size for her art course, weekly ingredients for btec catering. I am slowly going insane trying to guess how much they need week on week for extras