Prep school fees - £££ per term

[Estherwithagoldenpipe]

Utterly daft question but would very much appreciate your help. How many terms are there per year in primary school, three or more?

So if school fees are 3.3k per term, how much would a family end up paying per year (is it 3x 3.3k) or are there more terms and also are there any other hidden costs.

Roughly speaking at 3.3k a term how much would I have to dish out?

A separate question: how far away from London do I have to move to bring prep school fees down to less thank 10k per year?

(Not bu to ask but probably totally bu to consider this but that's a whole different thread, thanks!)

Three terms a year

Plus uniform, lunch, trips, school bus if relevant, endless charity days......

can only answer one question the one abouts terms- most schools have 3

Three terms per academic school year, so you would pay 3 x £3.3 k.

Hidden costs would be things like uniform, school trips, music lessons, after school activities etc.

Uniform, pe kit, after school club, day trips, music lessons, other activities such as tennis etc. Sometimes lunch if you can't send a pack up, can't think of anything else. 3 terms in the year. We're not too far from London, fees around 6k per year, but other local preps are more, so its not always about area.

Our prep in the nw is. £7000 per year, £300 for uniform. 3 terms in a year.

Oh, and longer holidays mean you have to organize / pay for more child care, depending on your circs.

There are 3 terms in a school year. Hidden costs - some schools require the parents to pay for school lunches (rather than deal with lunch boxes). Transport costs, would your DC need to use a coach, if there is one? School trips. Uniform. Morning break milk & biscuits are sometimes provided (at parents' expense). Extracurricular music lessons. Instrument. Some after school clubs cost extra. Music exams. Ballet exams. Deposit on the school. Fee to take the entrance exam.

A lot of those are optional, but you'd have to ask yourself how optional they really would be, if all the other children were doing them.

Depends what age group you are looking at, do you mean prep as in 7-13 ? In SE 4 k + per term isn't unusual. 10% for extras like lunch, books, music, swimming etc is typical plus uniform which changes as they get older (more sports kit for example)

The only private school near me is £3,000 a term + hidden costs and we are nowhere near London. This rises to between £4,000 and £7,000 a term as they progress through school.

3 terms per year (a few rare exceptions for international schools).

Watch out for (compulsory) lunch as an extra, and see what (if any) trips are included, plus other unavoidable "extras" (as opposed to things like individual music tuition that is more genuinely optional).

Also check cost of after school clubs (if not included, "late rooms" can be priced to deter, and if you have to use them it mounts up).

I budgeted about £1000 pa for extras - uniform, trips, music lessons etc. If you are looking at 3.3k in London that's very reasonable. I'm in Surrey and was paying about 4k pa a couple of years ago, now paying senior school fees (sob).

We are in Edinburgh, our fees are 7500- 12k per year depending on age of child, and we are mid range. Lunch is compulsory and £3.75 per day. After school club is £2.75 per 30mins. Uniform was £500. It is a lot, but we feel it is worth it.

The extras mount up quite quickly. At my sons prep school-
uniform and sports kit- £400,
each extra curric club- approx £50 per term,
compulsory swimming lessons- £25 per term,
trips- £15-25 each (usually 2 or 3 a term),
music lessons- £15 per lesson,
£50 per term towards the scholarship fund.

We also get numerous books of raffle tickets to sell and PTA events to attend along with several other requests for donations towards equipment.

As Posy says the extra curric clubs aren't as optional as they sound. They are often at lunchtime and almost everyone does them.

The words I used to dread on a letter home were 'this is mandatory, and the cost will be added to your bill'....

£1200 a term here rising to £1750 a term in final year. £145 pa for lunches, approx £750 for entire uniform, bag, napkin etc. After school clubs run by teachers are included. Clubs run by employed professionals extra. School trips, fundraisers, plays etc extra but approx £1000 pa. We are lucky to be near a reasonably priced school but we are in deepest West Country.

And there are three terms, which is usual I believe; summer, Michaelmas and Lent.

Also add to the above flexi-boarding nights if the child is at a sporty school and is in teams/matches or extra-currucular group activities. Some include lunch and sports snacks in with the fees, do check. Siblings pay less on a sliding scale. Do check whether the fees quoted include VAT and expect a charitable donation box alongside the fees when you receive the termly invoice.

Some preps still use the old-fashioned sports on a Wed and Sat pm as well as lessons on Sat am. Most have a much longer day than state schools and weekends can be school-focused, so be sure that's the lifestyle you want. Some also have longer holidays to compensate for the term-time weekends being school-focused. If they also take boarders then there's usually social activities on a Sunday which the day-pupils can also attend if they would like to. Boarding schools also usually have half-term holidays arranged for the boarders ( it's often too far/expensive for them to travel home for a week or two) which day pupils can attend.

You can compare fees here www.iaps.org.uk/schools
Some have a fee structure whereby the older the child, the more expensive it gets, example at the end of this post.

Please be aware that private education varies widely from school to school, some are solely academic hothouses, some have excellent pastoral care, some foster independence at a very early age, some classes are large, others very small. Competition is encouraged at most independent schools and kids have to become used to there being winners and losers.

Go and look around as many as you can to give you some ideas of what will suit your child(ren) best.

Example of fees by age of child :-

Years 5-8: £4,095 per term.
Year 4: £3,995 per term.
Year 3: £3,865 per term.
Year 2: £2,585 per term.
Year 1: £2,405 per term.
Reception: £2,270 per term.
Nursery: £2,270 per term.

We don't pay much in the way of extras (lunch is included), it tends to be about £50/term, just the odd day trip.

Uniform you can buy second hand, but a full set is probably about £250.

Thank you everyone, very informative. I can't see a scenario where we can realistically commit to this. Well, we could for one dd but not two. . Ah well......

Good to get the numbers straight, thanks again.

If it would be a struggle then you'd be far, far better off moving to an area where the state schools are good.

Using the money to do that, I mean.

Same as AgaPanthers. Apart from uniform most extra stuff that's expensive is optional (foreign trips, music lessons etc). Normal day trips, theatre and the like, are included in the price as are their lunches. Things do get added to the bill but you can say no to a lot of them, for my lot it's the odd new book or an icecream.
Think you need to look at the specific school.

Meant to say our overall fees are higher than mentioned though. The positive to this is at least you know what you're committing to.

thewomantheycalljayne not at any private school I know. So far I've paid for day trips to museums, a farm, an aquarium. All within the school day. And of course as they get older the trips get bigger and more expensive. Lunch is definitely extra (day school, maybe not for boarding).

It may be because their school has both day and boarders so it's easier for them to manage that way.