To ask how you afford private school fees

[Elephantslovetofly]

We have a young DD, and although it's a while away yet we are thinking about school. The area we live in does not have a good local school, and we are considering an independent school for her

Disclaimer - I went to a private school and for what it's worth had a great education. I enjoyed being there and did well in exams. I believe my parents decided to send me there also because of a lack of a good local state school. I might have done fine at a state school, but will never know I guess

We are probably 45 min drive from the school I went to - further than is ideal. DH doesn't mind driving her there if we decide to send her there though (if she is fortunate enough to get a place)

The issue is whether we can afford it. The fees are about £9k per year for junior and £12k for senior. Assuming we therefore need to find £1k per month for fees

My cheeky question is this - if you have a child at private school, what does your household earn and how difficult is it to find the money each month to pay the fees? Our income is about £60k, and at the moment I don't think we can do it (along with our other current expenses). Wages might go up a bit before we would need to start paying, but if this is always going to be a pipe dream i'd rather get over it now

I know we could move closer to a good state school, but am exploring my options at this stage. Don't really want to move, as we have a good house here and are settled

Thanks for reading

Elephants , he is doing brilliantly, we see him more, he is less stressed and he works less. He is just not earning as much! Which was not good for us timing wise as I had just started retraining.
I think you know that you can do this, bit of belt tightening maybe at first but it will be doable.

At DDs school there is a real mix of family setups / economical and financial situations so it never feels like we are the 'poor' family. DD does ride etc as I do but we certainly don't have fancy holidays etc.

Just to add we could easily afford the fees for both DS as we have an income of around 200k basic without a mortgage but having explored state for our youngest see no added value at primary level. We will keep our eldest at private as he is settled and thriving with an academic scholarsip but despite having private school offers for our youngest we are giving state a shot and are gutted we didn't do it for our eldest.

Gosh. I couldn't handle reading more than a couple of pages of this thread - green-eyed monster was rearing their ugly head! OP, if you can tighten your belt enough and you want it - go for it. Our household income is currently 26k. I'm a teacher. Hubby at uni. Estimated income next year 50k. Likelihood of any of the three gifted DC going to private school? 0%. Do I want them to go to private school? Yes and no. I personally find that children at private school are too sheltered from the reality of the majority of the world. But yes, being in a class where everyone has a positive attitude to learning is wonderful. However, learning to deal with the annoying little wotsits who disrupt your learning teaches you a really valuable lesson in how to deal with insufferable idots in the workplace :-) Just my tuppence worth from the other side of the coin. X

Hi,
It all depends on you personal circumstances. I went to a private school, and my eldest two do and my youngest will when shes old enough. We have never struggled to afford it, however my parents did for me. Is there anything that is a luxury rather than a nesesity, for example sky ext. my kids school fees in the us were $42,000 dolllars per year each! I dont even know how we managed, but somehow we did. What i would certainly do is to work out how much it is per month, and put that into a savings account. If its possible maybe ask your parents to help out. Is there any kind of bursary that you could get.

I've just started working at a nursery that's part of a pre-prep/ prep school. My daughter is in an older class of the nursery, and I'm getting a huge discount. If we keep her there, we'll still get that discount. It's long hours, but I think it will be worth it. As for uniform costs, many schools offer used uniform sales. I'm looking into that. Or you could find a parent with children a bit older than yours who are willing to sell you theirs. They tend to outgrow clothes so fast that it's not worth buying everything new (especially at the costs you'd have to pay). You can also look into if your employers offer childcare vouchers, which can save you money via the tax benefits. And consider asking friends and family to contribute to some of the extras (like club fees or trips) as birthday/ Christmas presents.

Don't do it.
Move house, or put in a placement request more locally.
Review if by high school your kids are not achieving, or are doing less well than you hoped?
Education isn't the only place your kids will learn
Jus sayin'.

I have 7 children. 6 of them have good degrees the other qualifications in dance/drama.
I would say they are all equally intelligent.
The oldest 3 were home schooled in Africa then went to public boarding school, part of expat package. They finished their education there.
The youngest 4 were also home schooled in Africa then went to a very evangelical Christian school in Zimbabwe. One of my daughters came home from there one day and told me I was the antichrist!
Then we returned to the UK and the youngest four went to a comprehensive with a good reputation but which I wasn't entirely happy with.
Three of them have MAs.
Out of the youngest 4 one MA from Oxford and one from Cambridge.
No explanation really. Does make me think though it may be more about the children than the schools.

I'm a single mum and get around 20k a year. It's something I've thought about and could afford fees of around 600pcm (which is fine for the school I had my eye on) unfortunately my son struggles at school and I don't know if private school would help or if I'd just be throwing money away.
My rent and bills are around £700 a month, I don't drive, I'm frugal with gas/electric/water don't have tv license or sky etc
I suppose it's what you're willing to sacrifice for so many years really

Is £60k your total gross or net household income? My daughter is moving to Y7 in the independent school system from starting in reception and whilst we regret nothing, you should know that some children will thrive in most schools if they have the ability to. What we find is that many (NOT ALL) independent schools provide the support and aim to take the majority of kids to a decent level academically plus add the extra curricular activities which most state schools cannot. But, if you start a child at a private school, be aware that yours and their expectations do rise, therefore you need to consider it for the long term, and not a short term fix. Good luck and don't worry about distance if it's right for your child!!

busymom

We are one of the minority of schools, you mentioned, the fees are 1.5 times our income.
Believe it or not there are plenty worse off than us, some receive free uniforms, travel expenses, and trips.
There are no expensive uniforms, holidays, extras.
The children come from all walks of life.
90+% of the students receive some help with fees.
We do still pay proportionately though, so we don't have many luxuries.
One old car, don't really like holidays anyway, don't drink.
We don't buy designer labels, and have been frugal all our married life because we are like this.

You say you are several years away from thinking about it... have you spoken to a financial adviser? There may be a way to save now for expected fees later with an endowment policy type scheme which will pay out for the fees. You are right to think about it now. If it is something you want to do and the school cannot offer you an assisted place because of your income, then start saving now. I have more than one child, but only one at a private school (long story..), we get an assisted place and my income is a long way below yours.. speak to the school now, find out about the options, visit them to make sure that it has the same atmosphere etc that you remember. This is about getting it right for your child and for you.

I'm a single mum and get around 20k a year. It's something I've thought about and could afford fees of around 600pcm

That's £1400 a month. £700 on bills and £600 on fees - you'd feed and clothe your family on £100 a month?

That sounds like a pretty miserable existence tbh.

DS1 will be starting pre reception at a prep school this September and the invoice for the first term is an eye watering £7k, including school dinners and trips . DS2 will be arriving in a couple of months and I'm already worried about having to fork out £14k a term for both in in just over 3 years time. This does not include school uniforms or the mandatory extra curricular activities.

Since falling preggo with DS1, we stopped eating out, going on holidays (even UK ones and day trips, we just visit family and friends instead) we've moved to a cheaper rental property that gives us room to grow as a family and fixed the rent for 3 years (ugly and old kitchen/bathrooms), we don't spend on clothes, hair/nails/grooming, While we do have a relatively nice car, it was bought well and could be sold for what we paid for it if we do end up needing to sell it down the line. We don't buy nice things for the house. Basically we've stripped back our spending completely.

Our household income is just over 100k

I had fab state education, achieved higher grades than privately educated cousins. DH good private education. We have equal earning capacity.
Small prep school for kids was a huge strain financially. Me and DH just went without. Personally I think it was not worth the money compared to the area it is in, but was better than local state where we were living.
Couldn't run to high school fees. Moved instead. Excellent states with rich and broad curriculum and 2 v happy DC.
Unless local state was dire, I'd only go private if you can comfortably afford to.

Others have made excellent points for and against. One consideration I wanted to raise, is that small class sizes aren't necessarily wonderful. Particularly for primary kids. I was told this year's ago by an excellent primary school head, but only truly saw it after I had kids. If you only have 15 or 20 kids in a class then you may only have 7-10 kids of each gender. At this age boys and girls often don't play together. For some kids it can be really hard to find good friends with that few kids (obviously in a single sex school there'd be more). More than one of my friends' private school kids just hasn't found their niche - I think they were just unlucky not to click with the small group of kids.

Our local schools all have a 30 kid max class size. This really doesn't feel too large. As a privately educated person sending my kids to a regular primary school, there's been certain things I've really liked: all their friends are very local - the kids can now pop around to each others' houses alone and go to school alone; it also means the parents are very local, which builds a sense of community; I've been stunned by the calibre of the teaching, orchestra, drama and sport - we really didn't expect them to be such good quality. I know we are lucky to be in a city blessed with scores of good primary schools (leading to a good secondary followed by a sixth form college with results to rival the best private schools in the country).

years

"unfortunately my son struggles at school and I don't know if private school would help or if I'd just be throwing money away"

Saw this and just had to answer. Private school per se won't help. A particular private school that you are sure will cater for his needs will. As would a similarly carefully chosen state school.

But be very careful indeed if he struggles because he has special educational needs. In many private schools, SEN support (free at state schools) comes as an expensive extra. And a child that doesn't fit the profile the school wants in any way can be asked to leave and you have no come back. So do loads of research.

We put my DD into an independent school in Y4 (2008) when she was starting to be very unhappy due to bullying at her state school. The appeal was the pastoral care, which is outstanding, and the small class sizes. Our joint gross income back then, with us both working full-time, was about £80K and the school fees, including lunches, were about £9K a year (we live in the North so fortunately the fees are a bit more manageable than some others quoted and the annual inflationary increase has only been 2-3%). We also have a pretty small mortgage and only pay about £200 a month; additionally, the cost of her before- and after-school care when she was at the state school offset about a term's worth of the independent school fees.

As others have said, you do have to be careful about factoring in extras. We have had times when we've had to say no to things like trips because they can be very expensive for what's actually on offer.

I have to say it was the best thing we could have done for DD. She became a different child, developed self-confidence and came on musically to the extent that she was successful in obtaining a music scholarship for senior school. This helped, but only pays 10% of the fees; however, we've managed by being very careful with money and this was OK until we took the decision to put DS into the same school when he was going into Y6 last September. At this point DD was starting Y11 and so we decided we'd take the extra hit for a year, since she'd already decided she wanted to go to a state sixth form. Her current fees are about £11K so it's over £20K for the two of them, but I think it's been worth it. DD is doing GCSEs at the moment and is predicted to do really well. I don't think she would have done anywhere near as well at our local state school. I am really glad it's only been one year of paying for both though, as our income hasn't gone up at the same rate of inflation, so it has required a fair bit of sacrifice.

It might be do-able for you OP, as long as you're really careful, and I think the advice that's been given about starting to put some by now so that you're not having to pay the money out as soon as you've earned it is very sensible. You do need to think seriously about the commute though. We're fortunate enough to only have a 15 minute drive with the school near to our workplaces but I know other kids are brought in from all over and some are travelling for over an hour.

Good luck with whatever you decide - sorry this has been such a long post.

Elephants, not many doctor households can afford private education these days. My kids are in private school and none of the other parents are doctors, they either work in finance like my husband or have their own businesses as a general rule. My fellow GP colleagues around here all send their kids to state schools.

The other thing to consider is whether you really want to be forced to work full time for the next 20 plus years to pay for school and then uni. Being a doctor is a relatively good career from the point of view of being able to go part time, so it would be a shame not to be able to take advantage of that.

Vicky my dc's London day schools are packed with doctors.

This is going to be such a hard decision!

When I was young I don't remember having friends 'down the road' - my best friends in junior (state) and senior (private) were both car journeys away. I don't remember it ever bothering me, but I can see our DD is unlikely to have friends in the immediate vicinity if we went for the private school and didn't move. Looking at the list of bus routes at this school though, it's quite clear they have students attend from all over the county

I have thought about whether I want to work full time or not long term, and it's hard to know. I've always worked full time before, but obviously didn't have DD then. I guess it partly depends on what DH does too, whether he can do drop offs etc

Don't forget to factor in the fact that. Universities discriminate v private school pupils in admissions . Good state school better from this point of view,

Private schools can't ask a student to leave because they have SEN and don't fit the profile of the school. That's disability discrimination. If a school admits a child then that implies they feel they can meet the child's needs.

Pipsqueak that may not be the case in 18 years' time. Mine have had no difficulty vis a vis university places. Whether they would have achieved or been predicted to achieve A* at GCSE and A'Level if they had not gone to private schools is another matter altogether. There were much cleverer girls than dd at the comp she attended for two years - they did not do quite as well as her at GCSE. The local comp where we lived (quite good reputation) has yet to send a child to Oxbridge or Cambridge - again some very bright children go there. A very high percentage of the children's London Day Schools do go to Oxford or Cambridge. I am, however, talking selective schools here.