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?