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?

Sibling discount? I’m confused.... what sibling is this? Surely the wrap around care for the prep school will be in addition to the fees mentioned and not included otherwise why would anyone choose the state school at all?

I'm confused. You are on mat leave with your second and they gave given you a discount already for two? Surely the baby wont be going for a few more years? Unless it has a baby nursery too?

Wow can't believe the prep school is so cheap.

But yes we applied to our first choice primary and got in and turned it down for our local cheaper prep for before and after school care. We knew our child would need child care from 8 - up to 6 pm some days and we didn't want him going somewhere away from school with kids he didn't know. We also preferred somewhere with more structure.

It was completely the best place for him and we were so happy to have the option of childcare.

And he's gone to the local secondary and settled in really well

I’m pretty sure I know the school you mean (it has a lovely slogan!) - my friends dc went there and loved it. Fab school
My older dc went to a tiny private primary (which cost just under £2000 per term) with 45 students and it was really lovely. Academically excellent and very nurturing. Most children from there went to grammar school and a couple went private secondary schools.

Divebar I have 2 kids. The school has an attached nursery. One kid is currently at nursery, one signed up to start soon . They have applied the discount to our fees already and this discount will continue if DC go to the school (e.g. one is in the school the other in the nursery.

My child’s school is 6700 per term for years 3-6. Then goes up to 7500 per term

Where is this school that only charges that? Up north maybe?

Even the Montessori school here is £1500 per term....

TabbyMumz yes, a baby nursery.

I would be very wary of a private school charging those fees. Particularly as you say it includes wrap round care. I don’t see how they can pay staff or do anything really. And remember if it goes bust you’re left stranded with two kids and no school place and no child care...

apple0pie that's great to hear.

I'd be very concerned about the standard of education and care on such low fees

I know the school and it’s most recent full ISI report states that it’s an excellent school. Nothing at all to be concerned about.

If I hadn’t moved to the south I’ve have sent mine there OP

You guys are good sleuths!

CanICelebrate good to hear.

The fees seem low for the juniors, so to think the infants is even less and has all the extras included seems crazy.

I would wonder as to why they aren't charging the infants for the breakfast / after school club or holiday care.

@Joerev are you in London? That's similar cost per term to my DCs future prep school.

OP I can't believe those fees are so cheap!! I'd say go for it if it's affordable for you!

Weirdly similar to where DD went to nursery (school fees identical). My concern with the school there (not that it was an option financially) was that it was very small, often with only two or three girls per class. I could imagine fallings out and drama aplenty as they went through the school! Also would worry about how a child who had been in such a small school would manage at high school.

Those charges for holiday club sound extortionate - I pay £22 for the 10 hour day and there are cheaper options around.

Sil did this when her boys were young. She was paying a very large house payment amount for full time nursery for her boys who were a year apart.
Then one was starting full time school and to have the nursery drop him to school and pick him up after school was nearly as much as full time for the younger child.
She went private, using their nursery for younger one and school for older, dropped off in the moring and picked up at night, no worries about them having to travel to afterschool care. With the sibling discount her cost only rose slightly but all school holidays were also covered. She kept them their till high school age.

@summedup. You’d think so right? But no. We are in the the south.

@summedup. We send all 3 of ours there. It’s a wonderful school. Well worth it in my opinion.

I don't get this! How are those fees possible - state schools get around £4,700 per pupil at primary level so how are those independent school fees possible when they include wrap around care etc? 65 pupils paying that (amounts to next to nothing overall. Mind is boggled.

We're £6,600 per term in Y3 here. Wrap around and lunch included and not many other extras. But that's over twice your annual fee for one term here!

How many children per class? So how many year groups mixed in a single class?

Are all the teachers qualified?

Just by some basic Maths:
20 children per class, assuming 2-3 year groups in each class.
£2700 per child, probably less if many get sibling discount, so we will say £50,000 per class for the school to spend.

• On teacher's salaries and pensions
• On heating, lighting etc
• On consumables and books
• Apparently, on wrap-around care (so additional staff salaries) and meals

The only real place to cut that is in the staff salary / pensions. So they are either using very cheap teachers, or not paying their pension / NI or something? Or there is very significant cross-subsidy from the juniors?

20 per class - so 3 classes in all - would seem to be the smallest class size at which this would possibly work. If the class sizes are smaller, the Maths gets even stranger.

i would ask to see their accounts - should be published if a charity - or guarantees of financial viability at least if a family business, before signing up.

Have seen several small cheap private primary schools, of the 'been open for many many years, lovely environment' type, closed down over the last few years.

With regard to how they’d cope in secondary school, my dc’s small school prepared them really well and they went from about 10 students in year group to comparatively large independent boys’ schools and have done very well at settling in.
I think you should definitely go for it @Yeahthatthing

cantkeepawayforever I think its just the nursery that is 2700 pa. I imagine its subsidised by the older years which are about 6k pa. I agree it seems incredibly cheap.

Sibling discount was 5% at my DD's old school. I would urge you to double check your figures before you commit.