To ask if private school is worth it?

[Secondaryschooldilemma]

Regular poster name changed for this post as it may be outing, I have talked to a lot of people IRL about this today.

My DD11 has today been accepted for a place at a brilliant private school. However, we applied for a bursary and were unsuccessful as other girls did better in the exam and there is only a small amount of money to go around. We have been offered a fee paying place at approximately £1,100 per month. We don't have a huge household income, we bring home around £4k a month between us and our outgoings are around £2400. That includes everything except holidays and fun stuff. Some months are better, some are worse. We have looked at where we can make savings without sacrificing our quality of life and I think we could manage it. I am self employed and could theoretically bring this in as extra a month if I work hard and market my business more. We also have six months before she starts to start putting money away so we can have a bit of a cushion to start with.

We currently rent and have no savings or assets which would be a reason for not spending 12k a year on school fees. This could be saved and used towards a house deposit giving us all more security as a family. However, our local secondary is diabolical. OFSTED inadequate in 2015, still requires improvement in 2017. I know OFSTED is not the be all and end all but tin the report there is so much focus on bad behaviour and disruptive behaviour in lessons and I don't want that for DD. All of the parents of her friends acknowledge it is a dire school but are happy because their children are bright and well behaved they will "survive it". I don't want DD to survive it, I want her to grow and develop into the very best she can possibly be and have a great experience. The three schools we have out on our state application form we are out of catchment for and they are over subscribed or have been in previous years. There is a chance DD will have no school offer at all, or the nearest one which has spare places which again I would not be happy about.

My concerns are that things could change and she could start and then we could not make the fees after a year or two. I'd rather she did n't get to experience it at all than she had it and we took it away. It will be stressful worrying every month about having to pay such a huge amount of money. We also have a DS9 who we would also want to offer the same opportunity, but he is sporty and practical, he struggles academically and I m not sure he would pass the entrance exam for a selective school. The two we looked at for DD have a very competitive, academically focussed entrance procedure. I hope that doesn't sound horrible, he has completely different strengths to DD and what is right in a school for her will not be or him as they are very different.

I love this school, I want DD to go there more than anything. I love the ethos, it is single sex if that is relevant and I feel her talents will be nurtured there and she will leave believing she can do absolutely anything.

So my questions are, if you have DC at private school, did you make sacrifices and is it worth it? If you comfortably afford private school fees, would you still do it in our situation?

Our two very different DC went to different secondary schools, one private, one not. It worked very well and there wasn’t the slightest resentment.

I would, in your circumstances, send DD to the private school and when you choose for DS make the very best choice available to him.

Is there any possibility of DD securing a bursary during her time there?

@AnotherDayGoes01 its the health and social care sector vocational and mandatory training is all tied up in legislation and CQC regulations, I can't see even in the post Brexit carnage care staff being allowed to administer medication or carry out moving and positioning on vulnerable individuals without training. The sector changes and the priorities for training change but people will always need care, and in a civilised society, the care staff will always need training.

@AveEldon we would like to buy eventually but the need for a high deposit has made it prohibitive. Yes he is now in paid employment. PIL can walk to school if I get held up on my way back from work, they live two mins away and I cover a wide geographic area. There are often accidents on the motorway and wraparound is only until 6pm so we need some back up. DH gets home later than this. I won't need this in secondary, no, but DS still has 2.5 years of primary to consider. I did also state earlier other reasons for why moving is difficult in our particular area.

I really wouldn’t in your position.
I went to a private all girls school, it was utterly ghastly and bullying was rife. Academically I did much better at A levels at the local college than I did in my GCSE’s at private school.

I don't want DD to miss out just because DS may not pass the exam or meet the other selection criteria in 2 years time

That’s irrelevant...he could smash the entrance criteria and you’d not be able to afford to send him.

It’s massively unfair to use pretty much all your families spare income on one child’s schooling in this way. He WILL resent it, eventually...whether that’s in two years or 20.

Personally I’d be using that spare money to move to a better catchment.

No you can't afford it. You won't even been having a camping holiday in Cornwall any more. Your family motto will be "sorry guys we can't afford that" (and by 'that' I mean a cinema trip or a copy of the latest trendy YA novel).
What is it that makes the local school so terrible? People focus so much on the exam results (but who knows the life situations of that years bunch of kids), ofsted - who lets face it just like ticking boxes on forms, and rumours (sometimes from locals who haven't actually had anything to do with the school since 1992). Is it really that bad?
If you are lucky enough to have £1000 a month to spend on whatever you choose then I would focus on family days out, visiting places, groups like Guides, going swimming, sports clubs, art clubs, computer clubs (or whatever your kids are into). Let them have the joy of going to Waterstones and being able to buy that book they have wanted to read for ages or whatever it is that makes them happy and inriches their lives.
But if you pay out for private school you won't have the money or chance to be give your children much of that at all.

That's good. In my organisation training is the first thing to cut when times are hard (not in any way saying that is the right thing to do)

we would like to buy eventually but the need for a high deposit has made it prohibitive.

If you're willing to spend £1100 a month on school fees, could you not send DD to the state school and save what would have been her fees for a year? That would give you over 12K as a deposit.

For me a house would be much more beneficial for your children, than private school education.

Private school expense isn't just the fees. The uniforms in my experience are really, really expensive. School lunches are more expensive than state school, paid in advance, no refunds for absence. Mine needed more equipment. School trips cost more. My children are very different. One would have been okay at a 'bad' school. They are hardworking and self motivated and very well behaved. My other child was different. Clever but needed the strictness and ethos of their private school to do what they were supposed to do. If they'd been in a school where there was a problem with behaviour and low expectations I doubt they'd have done as well. I think you either need to be financially able to send both taking everything into consideration, not just the fees or move house to be near better state schools.

I honestly think you will struggle to afford the fees on that income. You say you have not been able to save much to date - so why do you think you will be able to find £1000 + per month going forward? What will you do when eg the car breaks down, you have a couple of bad months at work, you get a massive heating bill. I think it will place a huge strain on you and the rest of the family.
The local state school may not be great - but it would be much cheaper to send her there and then supplement as necessary with private tuition, summer schools etc.
The problem with private schools is that they draw you in with their slick advertising, great facilities etc. Teaching is not always better - although it is true that there is less disruption. We have had children in both state and private sectors over the years and the outcomes for all have been broadly similar. With supportive parents like you and your DH and a stable home life, your children are already in a very privileged position.

Unless you can afford it comfortably I don’t think it is but I doubt that’s the response you’ll get on here, there are a lot of people obsessed with private school on mumsnet

@Secondaryschooldilemma Your OP is evidently moving very quickly, and I know it's something people can feel very strongly about.

However, I'll answer your specific question addressed to me, namely @AtseneGatnalp what would you have done if your DD hadn't passed the entrance exam though? Would you have taken your DS out so they had the same standard of education?

It was different for me, as DS gained his scholarship/bursary when he was 7. He was already at a (different) independent school then, as XH and I had already decided that the local school wasn't going to meet his needs (funnily, we encountered the head of the local school when he was small. It had an 'outstanding' OFSTED, and she still said we had made the right decision for him).

So. We had already decided that whatever we did for DS, we had to do for DD. So she was already in the independent sector from age 4, and has just carried on because we couldn't bring ourselves to move her.

If it had been a question of one DC passing an exam (and DS had the most astonishingly testing selection process) and the other not, I'd still have let the one go who happened to jump through the hoops. It's not ideal, as it's better really to have parity between siblings - but at the same time, if one has demonstrable abilities which enable them to go on to something arguably better in educational terms than what's on offer./ in the state system, I think it would be a crime to withhold it from them. I would have mopped up, if that had been the case.

Considering your renting I personally think you should move house to where there are better schools (renting or bought) and pay for extra tutoring with the money you would have spent on the private school.

I wouldn't in your situation. You could probably afore to scrape through sending one child, but you have a younger child to consider and i just don't see how you can afford two sets of school fees on your income.

I'd probably be thinking about moving. Or just sending them to the local school, it might not be as bad as you think.

Yes a good private education is definitely worth it imo but I wouldn't send my daughter to a highly academic selective girls school if you paid me - too much personal experience of the horror.

BTW, don't give uniform etc a second's thought. Second hand is always available. DS's uniform is in the region of 3K new. I bought some stuff on ebay, for peanuts. The rest has been provided via the lost property cupboard in his house at school, at no cost at all. He has to have a smart jacket and trousers, which I bought in a charity shop for £2 and £4.50 respectively (the school tailor charges about £200 for this privilege). DD's uniform has all come from friends/the second hand shop. There is absolutely no shame in this. Nobody knows or cares.

FWIW we have 2 children in private school and earn £180k between us - it still doesn't feel easy - just had a letter about next year's cricket tour for ds(13) in Dubai!

Sorely your husband could get a job as the children are getting older? I'd say go for it, you'll always regret it if you don't and you have the ability between you to increase your household income. Very best wishes for your decision process !

I think there is a high probability that independent school fees will increase by more than people are anticipating over the next few years.

In September this year, employers’
Teachers’ pensions contributions are increasing by 43% - some of this massive cost increase will have to be psssed onto parents.

In Scotland, independent schools have had their charitable status removed which means they no longer get business rates relief of 80%. This will likely happen in England too in the not to distant future.

Brexit means that the UK government will be able to apply VAT to school fees (in the EU education is currently an exempt supply). If labour get in to power they have stated they will implement this as a policy.

All of these pose major threats to independent schools’ finances and I would be very wary in your shoes about the impact on future fees and affordability.

With no savings, no property of your own and an uncertain income, this really seems a terrible idea. Private schools can be very enticing, it’s easy to get carried away, but the reality is you cannot afford it.

Certainly in Scotland they are removing charity tax relief which will add ££££s to school fees. England may follow suit.

If your DC is clever, they will do well wherever they are. If they find certain subjects difficult, there is always a tutor option which is massively cheaper than school fees. You are also paying for the opportunity to take part in wide -ranging extra curricular activities - if these don't appeal to your DC it makes it even less worth it.

My son has just got an Oxford offer from an ordinary comp. He claims many of those at the interview processes were state educated and few were privately educated. It may be that in the future, private education stands to disadvantage those who apply to university, if academic profiles are equal.

We made a lot of sacrifices to send our DCs to private school, as did most of the other parents, too. We all thought it was worth it.
Your DD wants to go. Your DS may not want to go or may not get offered a place. Why hold her back when he may not even get the chance to go?

I'd probably say take a risk on the newer local school if it's just that there's no results yet that puts you off. Does it have a nice feel, organised, good mix of experience of staff? If so probably far better than your struggling local. Then get saving what you would have spent in school fees and look at buying near a 'better' school in your area OR spending it on public school fees later if the newer local school ends up being crap, you could send her private in yr9 ready for GCSE?

What a difficult decision!

I think it's mostly a practical question. Have you really done a proper budget to see if the balance after school fees (plus extras) is enough. Would you be ok or would you be stressing about paying the next bill?

If ok I'd do it!

If not I'd move

I went to private school scrimped for by my self employed parents. There was always anxiety about recessions etc. But I'm glad they managed it as it transformed my opportunities (just speaking personally and it was the 80s)

My siblings didn't go but I was the youngest so was a bit different from your situation.

But will you be happy for DS to go to local school? Maybe you should think again about moving at some point

On the one hand, I’d say your problem is a shit catchment school rather than a private v state decision. On the other, it really sounds like you’ve got your heart set on this school for your dd.

I had a similar issue with really bad local state school. I looked at the grammar and the private schools in the area and in the end made the decision to move house instead. We paid more money for a smaller house in the catchment of a really great state school, but the extra money was a lot less than what it would have cost to send our 2 children to private school.

I think you need to be very realistic about the implications of spending such a huge proportion of your family income on school fees. Your family might end up making a much bigger sacrifice than you anticipate.

Also there will be plenty of kids who don't go skiing etc etc unless it's really posh