How do you fund DC school fees?

[user8636283907]

Curious.

We pay through salary - although sometimes I think I'd just use my bonus to pay a year in advance for them, but I haven't done that yet (too scared to say goodbye to such a huge chunk of money upfront I suppose).

How do you pay? Salaries, bonuses, Bank of Mum and Dad or grandparents? Dividends? Ring-fenced trust?

A friend of mine, they had an agreement with her parents, the parents paid one term, and they paid the other two from their salaries, I thought that was cool. My parents would never offer that!

Not really the Trust fundarians Labour would have everyone believe are we?

I’m a single mum working my socks off in an industry I don’t remotely love but pays well. My bonus pays just over a 3rd of the fees, my mum contributes about £200 a month also, and I save about 1/3rd of my monthly salary.
I never buy myself clothes or get my nails done or anything much for myself . I don’t drink, I drive a cheap car, shop at Lidl… my big expenses are mortgage and school fees. The rest is just extreme budgeting.
I’m terrified of the fees going up faster than my salary. And I’m in the dreaded 60% bracket right now so any salary increases are decimated by tax and my never ending student loan. But it’s just me and that single salary I bring in so I have to keep going.
My child is a SEN kid that has an ASD diagnosis but can’t get an EHCP as he’s a quiet, rule driven kid who loves school. He would be eaten alive in a big secondary so I’m doing everything I can to give him the best opportunity I can for him to thrive at school.

As if anyone who is pro the 20% tax cares a jot about our circumstances

my mum will give a term’s fees for one child up to £50k all in, so fees are now £7k a term - someone do the maths for me. The rest we pay for two kids out of salary. I paid a lump sum up from for my now year 8 child up to Year 11.

other child in year 5 so we have years 6-13 for her and then years 12-13 for eldest. It is very very very hard. I work for myself and both are ND kids. Every day is a struggle but I can’t put them in our large comp which is 300 kids a year. I am from a family with illiterate parents and we are immigrants so this is big for us. It’s the one gift I want to give the kids.

I do believe I have ADHD, awaiting assessment so I do have my fixations and constantly calculating how we can continue to afford this, much is based on DH salary going up.

She’s at uni now, but grandparents died and left her money, we bought a house in her name and used the rent from that, also contributed every month from wages.
The school trips I paid for, the ski one was ridiculously expensive but such an amazing experience I didn’t want her to miss out on.
6th form was a killer!

My parents paid for their uniform in their first year, which was very welcome, but that’s it.

Started out with salary/inheritance but now in-laws amazingly have taken it all on for any of their DGC that want to attend. Aware we are very/very lucky.

What are the school fees in England? I'm in NI and my daughter's school fees for primary are £7k a year so we pay from salary. She'll go to a grammar school after primary so no fees there. I can't imagine paying £30k a year!

There’s a huge variation. Ours are on the cheaper side for England… £7k per term per child. Many pay a lot more, especially in London.

We pay from our salaries, but will be dipping into savings by the end. It’s worth every penny though, changing to an independent school has been transformative for our two DC.

This is interesting to read. We are currently debating whether to send eldest (of three!) to prep school or state in September. Fees are about 14k per year per child.

We could afford it from our salaries but it would be quite tight - both working full time, very limited ability to save. Grandparents currently contribute £1000 a month towards nursery fees (we are very lucky!) but I don’t know how long this could continue so don’t want to factor this in to my sums.

We live in a grammar area so hopefully that might be an option at secondary, but obviously it would be a big gamble on hoping they all get in. Pretty difficult to predict how three under 4’s might do in the 11+! 😂

That’s interesting. Do the school receive funding from the state as well as what you pay? I think £7k per year is about what state schools get per pupil in England and it famously isn’t anywhere near enough. I can’t imagine cost of living is much cheaper in NI than England? How do they provide a good education that people are happy to pay for so little? Cheaper prep schools near me (SE England, not London) are £18-20k, secondaries far more. Eton is £60k! Though that is boarding of course.

Salaries. We have absolutely no family money/inheritance. I have 2 jobs (one freelance, one side hustle). We live in a very cheap area & are very frugal. I hardly spend any money on myself (£20 on a haircut every 2 months is about it) and everything comes from Lidl/Vinted. But for us it’s totally worth it (one DC with ASD who would crumble in a large state school).

I meant to quote @modgepodge

I would assume so. I don't actually know! Private schools at secondary level are not very common in NI as we still have the grammar school system. Most private primary schools are linked to a bigger grammar school so are probably cross subsidised to an extent and also share their facilities (canteen, sports fields, computer suites).

We are happy to pay the fees and tbh didn't give it an enormous amount of thought as we only have one child and both earn well so £7k is very affordable. I doubt the education is any better but the class size is half and it's a self selecting group of parents as well (basically lots of nice middle class parents). Almost all the children pass the transfer test and go on to grammar school.

A lot of private primaries have been closing / wanting to close even before the introduction of VAT as they're not making any money. Our school is actively trying to recruit pupils and increase enrolment as it has declined in recent years.