Wibu to consider private school due to wrap around care costs?end

[Yeahthatthing]

School application time for DC1. We have good local state primary schools and I always assumed that he'd go to one of them. But I've been looking in to the wrap around care and it's going to be a £14.50 a day for the cheapest option. So around £2700 per year. Which is the same price as the prep school attached to his current nursery.

The prep school has the breakfast and after school club onsite and run by the teaching assistants and lunch time supervisor where as the local wrap around care is off site with a 'walking bus' arrangement.

We will absolutely need wrap around care.

Also the local holiday club is school hours at £25 per day and wrap around care needed before/ after that as well (so £39 per day) where as the prep school has onsite holiday provision at £25 per day, full hours.

Seems ludicrous that a private school will be a cheaper option?!? What am I missing?

So WiBU to send him to private primaryfor financial reasons?

I mean eventually they’ll both be in juniors, obviously right now they’re nursery age

BBC article.
www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-46180290

I found it as well op. looks a fantastic school and if you can afford it I’d chose it for the 100% entrance pass rate for the local city grammars. BUT i think my point still stands that you’ll need to be able to afford the £8000+ a year for both your DCs when they are both in junior school. Also it says on their website that’s excluding after school clubs and breakfast club when they’re in juniors so that’s going to be an added cost.

Goingbacktokansascity yes, I knew what you meant. I'm currently on mat leave but when in work we could afford it. It's not really about money per se. I just couldn't believe that private school could be cheaper. We've never considered it before as our local state schools have good reputations.

Wow I thought DS was at a cheap prep at £2700 per term. £2700 per year is really cheap.

How it operates on less money than state schools get would be my concern.

Sorry if this has been said already but don't forget that private schools have much longer holidays (I swear they are out of school more than in school 😂) so you must factor in that childcare will rank the price up.

MillicentMartha I'll ask

I can't believe the wrap around care is included! Nothing is included in our fees, even lunch is extra.

My wraparound care costs are £4,800 total per year and that's for 2 children.

Nearest private school is £28,000 per year for 2 children.

So no I would not.

Our fees are £3999 per term and an extra £800 for wrap around fees. That's full time.

Still works out around similar to current nursery fees and the school holiday club is cheaper than nursery fees.

Just a random thought.
If you're on mat leave, will you be able to afford to put 3 children through this school in the future?

Can't believe how cheap that school is , was convinced OP was going to come back and she had make a mistake and it was per term.

I'd be very concerned about the standard of education and care on such low fees. That's less than the government gives state schools per child, and their sums are done on classes with 30 children.
Something doesn't add up here.

Is it a religious school? The only one with close to that in fees here (midlands) is £4200 a year and fundamentalist Christian and gets shed loads of cash from their parent org in the USA. I have had to go there for work reasons and it's a scary place, teaching the bible as history etc

OP if it's the one I've found based on the information you gave then lunch is mandatory and extra, and all the wraparound and holiday care is extra as well, according to the website. Sorry. It does look lovely though!

But why wouldn’t you send your child to a state school which will invest more in their education, have better facilities and a more diverse peer group? The local state school will probably spend about £3500 on your dc in a year, and have qualified teachers.

Maybe it's the feeling that if you're paying out all that money you might as well see something for it? Wraparound care can be expensive and it's basically a holding pen with cereal and snacks. If you can get a private education for the same money I can see that would be tempting.

"But why wouldn’t you send your child to a state school which will invest more in their education, have better facilities and a more diverse peer group? The local state school will probably spend about £3500 on your dc in a year, and have qualified teachers."...

Why do you think state schools invest more in education? If that was the case, there would be no need for private schools, and Eton wouldnt exist. State schools certainly dont have better facilities.

Parsimon this is why I'm asking for opinions. I hadn't considered private school before. There's lots of benefits of state school. There are virtually no benefits of wrap around care in our area. As someone said on here, it's basically a holding pen.

At this school the wrap around care is sports clubs, library sessions, homework help, coding club, music lessons. All on site.

Goingbacktokansascity I think you've found the right one. The website is very misleading. In juniors lunch and wrap around care is extra, but despite what it says, in infants it's all included and the fees are less than stated. From what I can gather it's because they get an influx of students at juniors (local schools are often infant and junior desperate) because of wanting to get kids in to the grammars in the next county. So they can charge more for juniors. But I'm going to speak with them and clarify the exact costs before signing up obviously!

To the poster asking about a 3rd kid, I'm on mat leave with DC2, we've just signed them up with the nursery and they've applied the discount (which is off the total bill not just the second child's fees!).
*

*separate not desperate!

Private schools have much longer holidays

greathat not this one. Which is both good and bad!

I think given their pass rate it's definitely worth looking at as the education can't be terrible if they're getting all the kids into grammars, especially given the amount of children who have additional needs and EAL according to the latest report (ie not a massive amount but shows they don't cherry pick and also can get them through the 11+).

And yeah the after school care looks organised and focused. Certainly compared to the £5.50 I paid for mine to run around the playground in the dark and go on iPads every day.