To ask how much of your income you spend on school fees? And pls tell me its worth it...

[Claliscool]

Not rich by any means.
Decided to send both children to independent school in September due to all sorts of covid and other reasons. The fees are about one third of our household income. Just bricking it slightly.

I'd love to buy them a house but figure that I can save to help them with a deposit when the time comes

I spent 40% and it was the best decision I made for my DDs education. She went to an independent school from Y7 - Y11 - they do not have a 6th form but if they did she would have stayed on.
We have no regrets, she thrived socially, emotionally (and achieved amazing GCSE results but this wasn’t a priority- her happiness was).
I would make the same decision again. It was worth it and now I don’t feel like we missed out on anything by not having extra cash during those years, (She also went on every trip available),

% is meaningless really. 33% could be easy or destitution. You’d get a better response thinking about what you’ve got available, mortgage costs, other fixed costs etc.

I find it grating when private school parents say they “prioritise education” like the rest of us don’t give a stuff 🙄

@Claliscool

Thanks all... I'd included music lessons, a budget for trips, fee increases and uniform into the figure. I guess education is our number one priority. I was thinking of school fee insurance in case of the worst.

I know from other parents this isn’t worth the paper it’s written on. Many have tried to claim because of COVID and they were having none of it

“ I find it grating when private school parents say they “prioritise education” like the rest of us don’t give a stuff 🙄”

Plenty of people look at their household budget and realise that if they make sacrifices elsewhere then they can stretch to private school. That is prioritising education over other things.

Ours is about 1/3, but I think that’s too simplistic a way of looking at it. You need to work out if you can afford your day to day lifestyle without 1/3 of your income. If you can’t you’ll have problems.

Also, do you have some savings as a buffer?

10% for us for two kids in secondary education, although we do get quite a big fee discount so it would be nearer 15% if not. For most people, it's undoubtedly a lot of money when you tot it up over the years and think what you could have done with that pot of money.

My kids love sport so I feel we get our money's worth over the rugby, hockey and cricket seasons as the facilities, training programs and number of fixtures are great. Academically, we have some excellent state schools so it's a harder choice on that front. In all honesty, I would resent the cost slightly if the kids didn't take advantage of the extracurricular stuff, whether sport, drama, music etc.

We sacrificed hugely to give our two the best education available. In retrospect we could have better spent that money in moving to a top catchment area.

We saved all the fees when we both had really good jobs. 2 recessions and redundancy rounds later, and thank god we did.

I probably wouldn’t bother with expensive fee insurance but I would get life insurance for your highest earner. We always made sure we had at least £150k of life insurance for DH while the DCs were in school just in case the worst happened. I’m glad we had it. These schools have to get by and they tend to show no mercy if you run out of money for any reason, including bereavement.

I should add that uniforms don't have to be a big cost, the three schools we've been to all had second hand uniform shops for normal uniform and sports kit.

To clarify our 10% is just the fees. Trips and sport/music is on top of it

My DC went right through from reception to end of sixth form in the independent sector. We were fortunate to have scholarships and burseries in later years but financially it was a constant worry. Pretty much my first thought when the lockdown was announced was, thank God we're still not paying school fees. Fortunately, the DC benefitted hugely from being in their respective schools (so yes, for us it was worth it) but that isn't always the case. Be prepared to move them if it's really not working - to a different private school, back into the state system, etc. Being one of the less wealthy families, we didn't encounter any problems with snobbery etc. The DC have friends from all different backgrounds from their schools and we made friends (and are still friends) with many of the parents.

My parents sent me to a private school for part of secondary and I wish they hadn't. The fees were a real stretch for them and the school were constantly expecting more money for uniforms, sports, music, charity, fundraisers etc. I felt guilty bringing home the letters. I was always aware I was a lot poorer than the other students. They would be discussing their foreign holidays and second homes when we had only been camping in Wales, I'd never been abroad. It felt like all the girls had horses. I was invited to a friend's house once and she had a swimming pool. I was too embarrassed to ever invite anyone home. Teachers would interrupt me when I asked a question and correct my working class accent (f instead of th, dropped h's etc) in front of everyone. It was mortifying. And then at home kids who had been my friend in primary told me I sounded posh and went to Hogwarts, so I felt like I didn't fit in anywhere.

I knew the sacrifices my parents were making and I felt under a huge amount of pressure to succeed and not to complain which wasn't great for my mental health. There was a huge amount of pressure on all the kids and high rates of eating disorders.

At the end of year 10 my mum was in an accident and ended up in a wheelchair. The school weren't sympathetic in the slightest, after all that time they said pay or leave so I had to leave in the middle of my GCSE's. This was only 14 years ago btw.

IMO if you can't afford the lifestyle you can't afford the school. Send your kids to a comp and spend your money on tutors and music lessons etc.

25% of our monthly income. I won’t deny it feels tough at times but our local state senior schools are not great. And no we can’t relocate (people always suggest that like it’s so easy).
Ds is happy at school that’s what makes it worthwhile.

Are private school children less likely to spread Covid19?

Having used both, I wouldn’t bother, to be honest. Excellent results are mainly down to a selective intake. Bright children can do well anywhere. That’s a big chunk of income on schooling and may confer no real advantage, if it’s a mediocre day school. Children from state sector are more likely to get a good degree when they get to university.

Spend the money on extracurricular support. Music lessons and sports coaching are readily available outside of school.

We struggled and are now out the other side. One has just finished uni with and going to a grad job in September, 1 just finished 1st year at uni. I have no regrets. There is no way our children would have achieved the exam results they did at the local comprehensive. They were both very happy at their school and it suited their personalities- my DD benefitted greatly from the sport on offer.

Overall it is just less of a gamble to place them in a private school - although there are no guarantees of course with any school. If I had my time again I would put them through - and I hope to chip into the fees for future grandchildren.

Not rich by any means.
Average private school fees in the UK are £17k per year per child. For the vast majority of people being able to find that sort of money out of a household budget (average £29k) is not possible.

As PPs have stated, this is not an option for most who simply cannot 'make sacrifices' to afford it.

I work in a field that is child related. What I learned throughout the years is this:

1. If a child is smart and bright, it doesn’t matter at the end of the day what school they attend because they will do well anyway. So sending them to expensive private schools is essentially a waste of money because they would do similarly well in a state school. I am not saying send them to a school where kids carry knives, terrorise teachers and take drugs in the toilet during recess because that is obviously a terrible environment, but they will do fine in a nice state school.
2. Private schools are great at pastoral care, sports, field trips and such but when it comes to actual academic activities, studying and gaining lexical knowledge they are absolutely no better than state schools. Equally, if a child is not bright and academic, they will suddenly not turn into a genius just because you send them to private. In this case they will end up working in a job with a salary that will take them long years to earn back whatever you spent on their private schooling.

1. People who send their kids to private schools (the well-to-do middle classes) essentially do so because they want their children to socialise with kids from the same financial and social background. It is a clique mentality.

1. Most children who attend private schools have private tutors in their homes after school or during the weekend. It is very common in primary in year 5 and 6 and in the final years of secondary. It is an open secret, parents don’t like to admit to this and instruct their children not to talk about this to anyone because they want others to think that their kids are naturally bright and whatever they achieve academically is achieved without any help. If private schools are so great and the parents pay them tens of thousands of pounds every year, then why do they need to pay private tutors on top of it? I don’t have to spell this out...

@topcat2014

Could you not just save the fees and buy them a house? Surely that would be more benefit in life

Yup, my parents did this: saved all the money they would have spent on fees and gave me a deposit. I went to a fairly good state secondary, got good grades because kids with involved parents generally will, have a good career, and generally can’t see how I could have done better out of a private school. Certainly I have several friends who had private educations who I’m on a par with; and others who haven’t done well at all.

40% which is pretty much most of one of our salaries. So we live on the other (reasonable to us) salary. Our outgoings aren't huge though, apart from school fees. Low mortgage, we drive a bog standard car, have one decent holiday a year and don't have gym memberships etc., or go out a huge amount.

We're getting to the final years of school now and think it has definitely been worth it for our children.

What has covid got to do with private vs state school?- wasn’t it ski trips that helped the spread in the UK

Regardless- primary or secondary school? I went to a private school throughout my education and I can tell you it doesn’t make any difference in primary.

Assuming fees of 15000 pa minimum per child I assume you will have about 5k per month to live on.
I assume you can live decently on 5k per month!

@OnlyFoolsnMothers

What has covid got to do with private vs state school?- wasn’t it ski trips that helped the spread in the UK

Regardless- primary or secondary school? I went to a private school throughout my education and I can tell you it doesn’t make any difference in primary.

Well in our case it does. Our prep school is feeder school to one of the top ten grammars in the country.