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?

Du Monde B- I think I was asking just in reference to the difference between the state school my daughter is in with 8 in her class and a teacher with the same teaching qualification 🤷‍♀️

But I suppose it depends the area you live and what schools are available

Oh no, lots of independent schools are co-educational now. Not all and some take opposite sex in the Vlth form.

We always paid out of our income but we only had one child so it wasn't too difficult.

I have nothing against private school,I was just curious what the money was actually buying in terms of value

I would never send a child to a school in either sector with 8 in a class.

OP, I'm not quite sure what to say (have NC for this).

I have two DC. Disclaimer is that I am absolutely committed to independent education come Hell or high water. I thought about this before I had them (I have no experience of state schools in my family, and XH has none in his, so there is a degree of ignorance at play too).

We live in an area with decent state schools.

Anyway.

DC1 is at a boarding school where the full fees are now over 40K pa (and would be worth every penny, if we could afford it). Fortunately he has a scholarship and bursary, so costs about £1,300K per month including extras (XH pays this).

DC2 is at a day school, where the fees are about £16K pa. XH and I share this, with me paying the bulk (£1,200 per month).

I earn about 30K pa. XH about 40K. But, having started the DC on this route, we are both absolutely committed to seeing them through (they are now Year 11 and Year 13, so we have almost got there). I don't know whether you would call this an 'average' income, but I'm giving you an idea.

Uniform is all second-hand. I don't remember ever buying anything new. So it's a minimal cost. Fortunately most people do the same, even if they could afford to do otherwise. Weirdly, there's a bit of a thing at independent schools that the only people who buy new uniform are people with either only one child, or people with money to chuck away.

That's the positive side.

The negative side is that you would have to be prepared to do without absolutely everything. No holidays, no new clothes that don't come from a charity shop, no holiday activities. I have a car, on a PCP scheme (covered by my Child Benefit payments). I am happy to do this, because my DC's schools are brilliant and I am determined to give them the experience that I had, come what may. However, they have to put up with rather boring school holidays as a result. We live in an eternal renovation project which I can't afford to finish. I hang around supermarkets at discount time to save money. We don't do school trips etc as we can't afford them. But I am happy to suck that up.

It would be lovely to have it all ways, and pay the fees without thinking, and go on holiday and send them on school trips. But something has to give, unless you are super-rich.

Lou, most state schools have 30-32 in a class (my son’s state secondary had 30, and 10 classes per year = 300 x 5 years = 1500 kids = teachers can’t really get to know hardly any of them, they get out sheets of passport sized photos on parents evening to remind them which kid they are talking about!) - 8 is very unusual.

@EmilyBicchieri how do you afford to pay the bulk of £1200 if your taking home under 2k & that's before pension provision?

Do you get benefits?

The very poor don't receive bursaries unless it's government funded, these are few and far between at certain schools.

I'm interested to know what these schools are, and why the government is funding private education for some children (other than children with SEND that need to attend suitable schools, that are not provided by the state).
I am also intrigued by parents who are on incomes that they know cannot fund private education, who nevertheless apply for places for their children; how can they be confident that bursaries or scholarships will be forthcoming? Imagine being a child who passed an entrance exam and got a place at a school, and then being told you can't go because your parents were hoping somebody else would pay the fees, but actually they won't, or not enough of them.

No pension provision, Snotty. No benefits, either. Would love to be eligible, but am self employed, so am not.

Burtrandrussell- and that’s because...?

The very poor don't receive bursaries unless it's government funded

Not my experience. DC1's bursary is funded entirely by the school. The government plays no role at all. We had to fill in massive forms (like a s/e tax return, but a million times worse), but only for the school, who made the decision.

Agree, Artie. We made sure the bursary was in place before getting DC1's hopes up. We had to apply for all these things three years ahead of entry. DC1 also had to take the entrance exams/interview, obviously, but we were dealing with the other stuff. We were pretty sure he would get a scholarship, but kept it all very, very low key, just in case we weren't successful with the bursary application.

I have considered this. There's a small private school near us, which is cheaper than most private schools. It is actually less than we have paid in nursery fees. However, when our youngest started at nursery our oldest was at school. We never had our children so close in age that we were paying nursery fees for both.

It's having two children which makes it a stretch too far.

@EmilyBicchieri do you have a
mortgage, it must be incredibly low? Are you nervous about the lack of pension?

I didn't go to private school but good catholic schools & I've never felt it held me back. I just don't really understand the mentality of huge sacrifices if the state provision is good & the child doesn't have SEN.

Average people where I'm from can't afford private education, we are a single income house hold and although technically we could afford it (for the 1 child we have) but after mortgage payments we be left with about 10k for the entire year, that wouldn't be a very fun life for any of us. Our primary schools aren't very good and the secondary is awful, so we're home educating and applying for secondary scholarship if he doesn't get in that way we will continue home ed.

Snotty, DC1 does in fact have SEN, though I can't and won't use that as an excuse reason to go down this route, as I am aware that my own prejudices and experiences come into play here.

My situation is perhaps slightly different as I own my own house so have no mortgage (said house is absolutely tiny, but it's mine post-divorce). I am very a bit nervous about pensions, but generally think that school fees will probably have killed me before I get to pensionable age. [no MN smiley for 'hollow laugh']

Well that explains why it's more affordable for you & most people probably have rent/mortgage to factor in. I appreciate your honesty.

I was just considering the private school question. In September next year our childcare bill will go down, as our youngest will qualify for free hours. I look forward to having some more cash. Could do up the house, part-exchange the car, sign up the children to some more extra-curricular classes. Maybe even a tutor for oldest.

The thought of school fees full me with horror. It'd be a continuous treadmill. We could probably just about afford it, but I'd prefer not to. Also if one of us lost our job, or had to give up work for poor health, we couldn't do it. It's just too much stress. If we felt we had no other option then we'd consider it.

Emily
Of course, apologies I forgot there were other funded private school models.
Aren't there state funded boarding schools too?

The school where I work costs £6.2k per term, so your £1,500 a month would just about cover one child's compulsory fees.
But on top of that is uniform (lots of it!). Then there are trips, outings, after school activities etc, which can add at least another couple of hundred pounds a term.
Over all, you'd need to allow for £20k per child per year at today's prices - and expect that to rise at least in line with inflation every year.

Some of my happiest family memories are from our holidays & they are so expensive these days, but I don't want to give them up

Some of the ideas about private school in this thread are way out.

Ours are at a good rural Prep. Lunches included. Second hand uniform is absolutely normal. I have never ever heard parent language competing over the size of their holiday house. Our last family holiday was a caravan trip to wales. We were not the only ones. Yes there's the odd kid who goes to Dubai 1st class but most are wealthy but normal families.

The school day is 8.15am - 3.45pm. From year 2 they can do 3 (free) clubs a week till 4.45. Wraparound care provided by the school is fab and you can use the tax free childcare towards it. Swimming is included.

Personally in your shoes I'd go Gazelle for 3 years putting by the equivalent into my mortgage and or investments/savings. If I can do that I'd go private in a heartbeat.

Where I live, there are a lot of people send their kids to the local private primary schools, then they go to the Grammar schools after, it sort of gives them a head start on their 11 plus I think. None of mine went to private, and my daughter went to Grammar school, there were more privately educated girls there than mot, so my son is at a mixed school and is very happy.

What are the advantages? Every parent will have different views on it. I felt it was money well spent (I I paid for five children although for 7 years for one of the five we just paid 15% of the fees as his father taught at the same prep school - even allowing for that it was quite a lot. When the twins left their school after 6th form 2 years ago it was about £18k a year I paid, may be £17k as they had a small music scholarship each.

What did I want from the schools? I wanted academic selectionf rom age 5. I wanted single sex. We are a very music family so I wanted good choirs, where boy trebles can sing in latin complex church music when quite youjng (a very niche requirement) and good orchestras and choirs. I wanted a good physical requirement - lakes, fields, swimming pools, parents' choirs, other parents with whom I would have things in common. High academic standards.

For teenagers a peer group where just about everyone goes to good universities because everyone has an above average IQ.There are obviously also private schools for those who are not very bright taht are other than money "comprehensive" or in a sense "secondary modern" in intake too but that was not what we needed.

I also was very ambitious for work ad web both work very hard indeed so I knew my income would increase over the years too. I was paying school fees from about age 27 but had been working full time since I was 21 as a lawyer so was in a sense ahead of most people my age as I graduated in law at 20. I picked my career in part because I wanted to afford school fees, a nice house etc etc.

And at the other scale, read through the thread

Xenia, You are one stinking rich wonder woman.
I'm the complete opposite, but in awe