To ask honestly how much private secondary and sixth form cost you?

[Quantumphysics]

I have two DC, considering private secondary and sixth form after state primary. I’m trying to do some financial planning. Those who send their children to private secondary and sixth form, can you please tell me how much you spend on fees, transport, uniform, books, meals, trips, extracurricular activities? I’m reallt trying to get a realistic idea as to whether this is something we can do. My DCs are 2 years apart and therefore will have several years of paying for two at the same time.

Thanks everyone for your replies. Really helpful. Except for shitholidays comment which was just rude for no reason.

I think we can afford it tbh. Our two are very young so we are planning to save around £20K a year for the next 8-10 years before they both hit secondary school. They are both preschool age now.
Neither of us are super high earners but between us now earn 90K ish but soon that should be more like 140K (more if I went full time). We don’t live in London, and our mortgage isn’t too scary.
Someone mentioned fees of 6K a year which sound very low! I would be interested to know where that was? We would consider moving as we are both professionals with jobs available all around the country.
Where we live they range from 5.5K to 9K per term. But we aren’t planning for the top end of that which would be out of reach I feel.

We have one in private secondary. We osy around 13k a year school fees, 1.5k bus, lunch she makes her own but we top up her lunch account around £25 a month. Uniform around £400 a year, school trips around £500 per year.

Hopey, I do understand what you are saying. I’m state educated myself, as is DH, and not from money. We worked hard to get where we are. But my experience of state wasn’t great and I want to ensure we have options.

Thanks fussy, yes I think the only major expense on top of fees seems to be the bus.

Plinkpink, could you send me details of that school? It sounds reasonable. Am doing research as we wouldn’t mind moving for a school. We definitely wouldn’t do boarding.

We are in Yorkshire
Dd has a 25% scholarship and it costs us £10000 per year. Trips aren’t too bad and neither is uniform. There is no 6th form but we have one of the top 6th form collages on our doorstep luckily

You need to factor in increases of up to 5% per year between fees now and dc joining at 11/13 . Continuing into sixth form cost us no more than y11+annual increase but new entrants paid an additional amount.

We’re looking at private school for our dd in the NW, £11-14k a year on fees depending on the school plus the necessary extras (ie no trips etc) of another £2-3k. Much cheaper than London, but still not cheap.

Thanks all very helpful! Bakingdiva please can you PM me the school?

Here fees are typically £10K a year per child (sibling discount is 10%) but you need to add the extras some you would pay for state school too like lunch and transport, but trips are likely to be more expensive etc. We only did 6th form because of a substantial bursary. I suspect allowing £100k per child is not a bad estimate as prices will rise. Fees vary wildly too, I'm not in London

Our school is reasonable - cheaper than London for sure. For sixth form it’s about £5000 a term including lunch. There’s no uniform today in most sixth forms - usually a business suit. Games kit is about £100. There are no trips unless specific for their course and if a day trip can be less than £100 to several I guess. Our school does an optional charity trip to Africa but the kids raise money for the expenses through the year.
Transport no my kids walk.
So I’d budget about £16,000/year per child or so for my school. In London the ones I’ve looked at are closer to £20,000 plus.

We put our 2 children through London private schools. On balance it was probably worth it, as they have both done well.

I suggest you create a spreadsheet of costs and assume around a 5% annual increase to the fees. The fees do go up relentlessly every year. I always bought school uniform at the excellent 2nd hand shops so that was not an issue. I also chose schools close to where we lived so they didn’t have a long and costly journey to school. Buses in London are free.

School trips were always entirely optional and a friend with DCs at a state school went on far more exotic and expensive trips.

Have you tried this, you can narrow your search, move around the country and get an idea?

www.isc.co.uk/schools/

Thanks a lot, the ones we are possibly planning for are about £5-6K per term. We plan to save up around £180-200K over the next 8-10 years, all being well, and then we will have our income on top, by the time they hit private.

Thanks Nanna, that's a good suggestion.
Stucknoue please PM me your school too! Sounds very reasonable.

Our fees are 18k for the first child and 15.5k for the second and third child they are all in years 7 & 8, this year years 10- 13 are £22k so factor in a bit of an uplift.

I would say main trips are about 2.5k each per year, school lunch for each about 500 per year, uniform about 1k per year each. We are close so no travel costs.

One thing to keep in mind is JC and the labour party are calling for private schools to loose their charity status and therefore loose their VAT exemption status. If he is elected and applies this policy potentially schools will have a 20 percent increase in fees. No one knows whether it does happen schools will try to absorb some of the cost or pass the lot on to parents but I would prepare for the worst and add a few thousand to current costs just incase.

£25k for fees

Approx 5% inflation increase per year. Plus the costs of rising through the school.

Uniform approx £1k per year, another £1k for lunches (canteen system). Extra sports and music £1.5k

I allow £30k per child but have three so realistically we're closer to £100k by time events, trips etc are factored in. So the reality is another 1/3 on top of fees.

There really is so much variation in fees depending on the school and area.

OP do remember that not all independent schools are value for money. Some are totally useless, frankly. Some are worth every penny.

Weigh up what is most important to you - small class sizes; competitive v more nurturing ethos; results; extra curricular opportunities; approach to discipline / behaviour; co-ed v single sex; rural v urban - there are so many factors to take into account when embarking on this, rather than a school being £500 cheaper a year or something.

Also, if any of your DC are particularly academic or have sporting, musical or artistic talents, there are often scholarships available at most schools worth anything from 5% of fees to maybe 100% in some cases. For instance, one of my DC is at a London Day School where about 20% are on some kind of bursary or scholarship and it’s rising.

Some independents are badly run and a total waste of money though so please do be careful!

Depends what private secondary school you choose. Fees can be anywhere from £4.5k per term day to £13.5k per term boarding.
Plus extras

Fee structure at the boys school

If you would consider moving, then move to Ireland! It's not that far, school is almost free here and you could save £200,000. Great schools and no stress.

You ard going to save £20k a year for 10 years. That's amazing. Good luck with it.

Just make sure you factor in annual increases, budget for 10%, will hopefully be less.

They won’t be 5-6k per term by the time your kids go there

For context - my school was £7k per annum
when I left, 15 years on it is now £22k pa and that’s before you factor in the extras...
that’s also a day school.

I’d be assuming at least £65pa for both would be needed if they are small now

Ours is about £17k a year. Uniform is from John Lewis so not massively expensive. Probably allow £500 first year for uniform and sports kit which kust got topped ul as and when. There are many trips and not everyone went on all, some went on none. DS did a battlefields to France in yr9 for about £400 and geography to Iceland in yr 10 for about £750. The fees have recently only been going up by about 3% a year. I will pm fees page.

My daughter's school is about £5.5k a term for Y7, rising to about £7k a term by 6th Form. (Hazy on the figures as she has scholarships and is still on the prep side). That includes lunch, breakfast if she arrives early, and tea if she stays to prep after school

Uniform costs about £600 for a full kit-out. But you only pay that once as everything lasts for ages and you only need to replace the odd bit here and there. Plus you can get 2nd hand stuff fromt he school uniform shop, and sell on your own outgrown stuff, so it's not too painful.

Trips to date have been no worse than state school. A residential at about £100-£200 each year, although I know it'll be worse in seniors (she's Y5 at present).

We pay extra for music lessons, about £200 per term for each instrument. Hopefully she'll get a music scholarship next year to help with that.