private school costs - can average earners afford these?

[coffeeforone]

On the back of a recent thread taking about very cheap private school it got me wondering. If we pay £1500 per month for nursery fees, as most parents in the area do, can we afford private school long term? The fees mentioned in the thread were so much less than this.

Is it an option to consider if we don't get offered our top 3 choices of state primary and are not happy with the school the LA offer?

Currently looking at schools for DS next September, I don't think any of the parents at DS's nursery are considering private education, and neither are us? But I'm now thinking why not? I have done no research at all on independent school costs, I just thought they were well out of the reach of average earners, maybe I'm wrong?

Just out of curiosity...I’ve always wondered what private schools offer compared to state schools?...like my daughter goes to a very small school where there is 8 in her class. So the ratio is good...then my teacher friend worked in a private school and said that she didn’t need extra qualifications to do this?...sorry if I’m missing something and I know this thread is about fees!

then my teacher friend worked in a private school and said that she didn’t need extra qualifications to do this?

Dsis works in a private school. you don't need formal teaching qualifications like you need in a state school. she said a good percentage of the teachers have no teaching qualifications whatsoever and she would never send her own DS to a private school.

having said that, I don't have first hand experience but wondered the same as you, Lou.

For primary I would always do state and then start to use private tutors to top up from year 4 - £12-15K will buy you a lot of private tutoring for a year at say £50 an hour for a top tutor. At 12K that's 240 hours of tutoring over the school year - and you'd never spend that. And 121 tuition will bring greater returns in terms of learning and development. Then you can save for secondary school if you wish. Our kids go private for primary but only because they are in a non UK school - if they hadn't got it - I'd have sent them state and paid for tuition. You can even enroll them at language schools at the weekend with all you're saving and get them learning another language sooner.

There are good & bad teachers at both state & primary schools.

And there are great state schools, and bad private schools.

OP - we waited until the April. It was too late to get a place at the private and the state school allocated wasn’t what I wanted. My advice to you is to get your kid on the private school list now. If you don’t want the place you’ll maybe lose £100.

We got into the private school within a week or so to term starting, but it was a fairly stressful summer! Good luck x

IMO it's a ludicrous amount of money to spend if you're only average earners, and the money would be better spent improving quality of life for the whole family.

If your child is going to thrive, they will do so whichever school you send them to. The vast majority of young people go to state schools, and do perfectly fine. There is no need to stretch yourself beyond belief for a private education.

Another thing to consider when thinking about private school fees is that it is extremely likely that there will be political changes in the next few years that will lead to private schools having to put up their fees or VAT being charged on fees. Only 7% of students are privately educated which is elite however you look at it. Most parties on the political spectrum have spoken about potential changes and I think at the very least in the next five years there will be changes to private schools no longer being able to claim charitable status and their business rates going up as a result. (Some school do not have charitable status so this won’t effect them). One school I know of local to me is already tightening its belt in preparation and now has class sizes of 24 in some years and 18 for some subjects at A-Level. Not really small class sizes!

I don't see the point in private education.
They treat teachers badly apparently.
Students are put under unwanted pressure.

Save your money, send them to state school, exact same curriculum is taught.

lousummerfie...where do you live? Every state school in my area has 30 or more pupils per class.

No, an average earner couldn't afford private school for 2 kids. Average household uk income is c£30k p/a.
Assume fees 2 DC x £12k p/a = £24k needs gross income of about £36k inc. of taxes.....so, no, not doable.

Just out of curiosity...I’ve always wondered what private schools offer compared to state schools?

Significantly smaller class sizes! My eldest could not cope in a large inner city comprehensive (in a thoroughly gentrified area, so a good mix of kids from different socio economic backgrounds) and started school refusing at the beginning of year 8.
He started at a not-particularly-academic private in year 9 and went from a class size of 32 to a class size of 16. Every single member of staff knew his name and he couldn’t fall through any cracks. He got enough good GCSEs to get into a grammar school 6th form and is now at uni. Not bad for a kid that missed most of an academic year (he has ASD, diagnosed at 13).

No one in our family had ever been to fee paying school before and we had a very tight 3 years while he was there but it was worth it for the long term gain. Not sure what else we could’ve done - home education? He’s brighter than I am - I doubt I could’ve adequately facilitated that.

I feel very Diane Abbot about the whole thing because I believe all children should be able to access an appropriate, fully state funded education and that’s not the case right now.

I think if your monthly childcare bill alone is £2645 and you can comfortably afford to pay this and have no problems paying other typical outgoings, then you really cannot call yourselves "average earners".

£5.5k a term here
But almost everything included in that - food, pre and post school care, trips

Until Corbyn gets in and does away with them

Here are the fees for the school my son went but that was many years ago, he is forty next week. The fees were and are fairly typical.
Per term & Annual
Nursery & Reception £4,389 (including lunch) £13,167
Junior School (Year 1 & 2) £4,587 (including lunch) £13,761
Junior School (Year 3 – 6) £4,851 (excluding lunch) £14,553
Senior School £5,868 (excluding lunch) £17,604

It really depends what your local state schools are like. My local State secondary schools are awful, I would never send my kids there. Our local private on the other hand offer a broad variety.

I think if your monthly childcare bill alone is £2645 and you can comfortably afford to pay this and have no problems paying other typical outgoings

Surely your mortgage is at least 1k so you must be bringing in around 6k after deductions to be comfortable therefore not really average.

Again, it depends on your local schools. Our local state school is failing so the independent schools are doing well. However the results are far short of the grammar school. You are most definitely not average earners but even though you can afford private its worth exploring other options.

If you can afford the nursery fees easily then you can afford the fees, depending on what the fees are of course. My nursery fees were £900 a month and it was cheaper than that to use to private school. Not that I think private school is necessarily better, it depends what your options are. I had no good options apart from private school.

There is a prep school near us. I just checked they offer extra hours for the children at £4.75 per hour. Perhaps other private primaries morph into a day care centre in your area. That still leaves you to find the money in the holidays for care though.

What you really really need is kind wealthy and generous Grandparents to fund this.

Know quite a few who do that!..

We paid for private school for 5 years (Yr to Y4), figuring that as we had afforded nursery, we'd afford school. But everything gets more expensive and it's a really long slog to keep going. Add 30% for uniform and compulsory school trips (such as 'a theatre company is visiting next week. Every class will have a 30 minute workshop. £20 will be added to your bill" even though the theatre thing is in school hours!).

As children get bigger, clothes get more expensive, your general food shop goes up. The holidays are 5 weeks longer, with not much childcare available in those weeks. We could afford it on paper, but it became unsustainable at Y5 and we took him out. Much, much happier child now we can afford after school activities and family holidays.
I did ask a friend in an admissions office how people afforded to pay the fees in general: her answer was that people paying from income are very, very rare. Most were paying from the sale of a second home, employer assistance or the most common was grandparents paying in a lump sum up front, thereby getting a better price (avoiding the ~5% annual increase in fees).

These are the things that surprised me, and I wish I'd known beforehand, to make a more informed decision.

We pay £990 per month every month of the year. This is for an excellent private day school in a small city. Fees will rise and eventually we will pay about £1,300 per month. This is still less than the nursery we used to pay. Lunches and most trips are included in this (but not trips abroad).

Ibinez - I was surprised when my teacher friend said it as I just presumed the teachers would need something extra 🤷‍♀️ I do live in a rural community so I can understand that a lot of people have mentioned that most of the state schools have 30 kids in the class- my other daughter went to a school and that was 30,is private school all same sex?

*Toomuchtrouble

You have the choice. Some parents have no option but to send their DC to awful secondary schools. They cannot afford private school, have no savings, inheritance, investments.