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.

Just over 20% of our take home pay for two children. Extra curricular is on top. We cut back in other areas and ds1 started in KG so we have done 8 years so far. It's worth it for us as the school we were offered was horrendous.

I think people who say private schools aren’t better are missing the whole picture. I’ve worked at both, I’m not against private schools but but I personally wouldn’t choose one over a great comp school, unless I absolutely wouldn’t miss the money.

Those talking about drugs - I’ve seen the worse drug dealings happen in private schools. Children whose parents are wealthy gangsters - parents who have and do pay enough money that drug taking by their children is punished with detention not exclusion. Not all schools I’m sure - but I’ve experienced it so it’s not simple to say it’s tolerated in comp schools but not private.

I’ll stay it again OP, if you are comfortable with that percentage of income being spent on school fees and you really have no viable alternative then proceed. All that matters is your child here.

I’d have thought the percentages would be at least 30-40% if not higher for many families.

Eg day fees at 18kx2 =£36k after tax. If that was 30% you’d be looking at post tax income of £120k so you’d need both parents earning £100k (assuming a 10% pension). Many families will go private earning less than that.

Personally I've not got an issue with private schooling but I do resent the way that prep school educated children suddenly descend upon state grammar schools at the age of 11 often denying equally clever but less priviledged kids a place at one. The whole ethos originally was to enable bright but disadvantaged kids to benefit from a more academic education so clearly the 11 plus is no longer a level playing field. Not sure what the solution is
though !
Also people saying that by forgoing a flash car and fancy holidays they can afford private schooling is a bit disingenuous - I drive an old banger and haven't been abroad for years, still couldn't afford fees and I'm not badly paid by any means !

@k1233

I went out with a guy who went to a very prestigious private school as did his two sisters. Colossal waste of money for their parents. They literally went on to do nothing. No uni, no well paid career. At near on 50 he's still in ad hoc jobs.

Meanwhile me, state education and put myself through two degrees and professional qualifications and a good career. The parents of my ex literally spent 100's of thousands for their education and the kids went nowhere.

No matter how much you pay you cannot make your child have ambition and drive. That is a soley internal characteristic.

We paid ££££ for my stepson to go to an independent secondary school. His sister had the same opportunity and flatly refused to even take the entrance exam.

He got a university place, failed his finals, had to repeat his last year and ended up with an ordinary degree, ie might as well have wasted four years. She also went to university, got a 2:1 and we went to the graduation ceremony for her masters last year.

We completely wasted our money.

I am almost at the end of it. Currently spend one-third of salary. For primary school, paying fees was vastly cheaper and affordable compared to moving into the catchment area of the good schools. Think houses starting at close to £1m while fees over 7 years was £42,000.

I never understand why some people have such strong opinions on this. There are a million and one different senerios - One of the biggest factors is the kids involved. Some kids will do much better at a private school while others don’t.
My kids have experienced both types of schools and there were good and bad things about each.

We are paying just short of £20k for two in primary. We will be pulling them out for secondary. Fees have been going up between 5-7% every year and about to jump more when they lose their charitable status in Scotland and have to pay business rates. Secondary would be over £26k a year for two.

We have a good high school, I’m worried they might get bullied, but the money saved will make a huge difference to our quality of life.

Actually, I had a chat with a teacher the other day. Many parents in Scotland pull their kids out of private high school In the final year and send them to state, this is because there are quotas on university and many in private are struggling to get a place. So they spend a year at state and get a place The Scottish system is odd in that you can get enough to get to uni in the first year of secondary and the final year is often just kicking about.

I think that people who judge Private school purely on what jobs the dc who go there ultimately get are missing the point
Our main motivation is for our DC to have a positive experience at school and not be worried about being picked on for being smart or being in class with 13 year old drug dealers or being taught by teachers worn down by lack of discipline and resources. I want the to get the opportunity to listen to motivational speakers, be taken to amazing events and be surrounded by people who (mostly) have high aspirations
A good State school CAN give them all that too but unfortunately the only one we had available doesnt
. DH was actually quite anti Private school, he didn’t see the need and went to an excellent Comp. He changed his mind after visiting both the Comp and the Private schools and could see the difference. I would be quite happy for my DC to go to one of these Good State Secondaries everyone talks about but it wasn’t an option and moving closer to one would have cost more than the school fees we will pay

The very bright will tend to do well in state and private. But private can achieve much better results for children of average ability.

I was interested in your OP as for me, one definition of 'rich' would be the ability to send the kids to private school - even if you are making 'sacrifices' (many of which most people have to make just to eat and pay the bills?). I can't afford that so can't really answer the question directly but for me the question is not so much about percentage as about what you are actually left with after essential outgoings. Percentages of differing fees can be deceptive. If you pay 40% but are fortunate enough to have no mortgage and the fees are at a higher cost school you could still be left with much more than most families are living off anyway. I'd look at actual amounts and try and imagine living life at that level of income rather than worrying about percentages.

My children go to a private school. It really depends where you are in the country but the uniform here is nowhere near £800!

Some things to consider: don't assume because it's a private school that it's great, do your homework, when was the last ISI inspection and what did it say?
What are the class sizes? Too small and your children won't have enough choice with who to be friends with, too big and you might as well stick with state.

My situation: never, ever considered private education, until secondary school choice needed to be made. No grammars at all in our county, one very good Catholic school in walking distance but despite ace-ing the entrance exam we weren't offered a place because we're not Catholic. That left us with one state school choice and it's appalling, new head every 12 months, gang violence issues and terrible results stats. So for us, there was no choice, the private school is amazing. It's so much more than the quality of the education, its a real community, the sport, the drama, the trips, the extra curricular activities etc. It was (for us anyway!) a massive financial commitment but I have never regretted it for a moment. Its the difference between night and day, if like us you don't have the option of a decent state school.

I think it is a bit of a fallacy to say a bright child will do well in a state school. A bright child will probably do better than their peers but if the state school is poor then they will not fulfill their potential.

Private schools are not a panacea, it is entirely fair to say that bullying and drugs can be an issue. The school does have more autonomy to deal with it but it is still there. I read an article from someone who worked in a well known private school (not named) which said beware any school that tells you bullying isn’t an issue... it might mean they are bad at dealing with it rather than it doesn’t exist.

We spend around 25% of net income for two which will be dropping down in a year. We have a pretty decent buffer saved to cover fees if needed. For our DC, for multiple reasons, it was the right choice. The school fits their needs and interests better than the local state schools.

@Katharinablum 11+ the answer would be to stop the tutoring. or make tutoring pointless. all tutoring, not just done by indy school parents. its rife here, standard practice for most who want their kids to go to grammar. the best kid for me at our local grammar is the son of an old friend, he's a mechanic and told me "I'm thick as mince, fuck knows where our lad got his brains from or how he passed his 11+". he definitely wasn't tutored and is doing very well there and in life, much better than the over-tutored kids of the feverish competitive middle classes who are being tutored through the school once they get there to keep pace.

tutoring for 11+ is a racket. the most popular tutors hereabouts give all children the same work irrespective of individual knowledge, strengths or weaknesses, then test and weed out to maintain their 100% pass rate. the whole thing stinks. academic selection - don't make me laugh.

we visited a grammar and it was such an uncomfortable experience. although DC are brainy the amount of parents physically shoving one another, starting conversations in order to compare children (sizing up the opposition) at open day put us right off. it felt like a collective madness.

tutoring winds me up. can you tell?

sorry I mean tutoring for 11+ is rife, not tutoring at the indy. most board there anyway, when would they get the opportunity.

@notasportymum this is a serious question, why do you not agree with tutoring but independent schools are ok? Aren’t both just different ways of paying for your child’s education?

If it is a decent school, I think you should go for it. The current circumstances have been extremely challenging for children - disruption to education, lockdown, fear of catching Covid, social distancing, state schools struggling with their limited budgets, etc. Even if it's just for a year and you review the decision for the following year, it could be worth it.

I hope your chosen school has a boarding house, so they can quarantine on-site if necessary. Also, have you budgeted for ad-hoc flexi-boarding? Staying the occasional Friday night and/or weekend is popular among some kids - they get to do the weekend activities with their friends.

If my dc at Private school needed external tutors I would be very unhappy about it. I pay the school to teach them and unless there is a very good reason the school can’t give them everything they need for that I would be thinking it’s not the right school for them

@HarrietM87 the difference for me - 11+ tutoring I have witnessed has been less about the DC and more about the parents fierce determination to send the DC to that particular school. I'm not lying when I say some local parents were decided on grammar before their DC could even hold a pencil. And the grammars do what they do but if you have an artistic/musical/sporty DC don't kid yourself the school will nurture that ahead of academic results. Grammars do what they say on the tin.

As Indy parents we looked at what was going on with our DC, why everything was going wrong for them at state school and chose a school to fit them. So, t'other way round. The right fit might have been a different state school but it wasn't in our case. Different ways of paying for education? We're parents don't we all pay in one way or another 🤷‍♀️. Having kids is not a cheap option

BiL is a tutor (London area) takes pupils for GCSE from some really famous schools. Wealthy parents throw money at the problem, but they're poor in other ways. Will we tutor for exams - fuck no.

"Sounds like a stretch, but education from a good independent school is a totally different league to the state sector.*

A delusion fostered by independent schools. They would say that wouldn't they.

My sons all went to a rural state comprehensive, where they obtained top academic grades and took their pick of UK universities. Where they found themselves themselves better prepared both academically and socially, than entrants from "top" independent schools.

We have saved the fee element. We have guessed 2.5k a year for extras uniforms, trips, extracurricular equipment, buses, lunches, PTA events,

@Caplin

Actually, I had a chat with a teacher the other day. Many parents in Scotland pull their kids out of private high school In the final year and send them to state, this is because there are quotas on university and many in private are struggling to get a place. So they spend a year at state and get a place The Scottish system is odd in that you can get enough to get to uni in the first year of secondary and the final year is often just kicking about.

That is absolute tosh from start to finish.

Those threads are so pointless. Some think it is a waste of money and some dont. It snoknto disagree.
What I would say is: a bad private school (amd there are a few of those) is a very expensive amd damaging education; a bad state school is a horrible place to have to go to but for a lot of kids it is a reality in which they have no control over; a good/great state school is fantastic if you can get in ie. catchment and house price; and a good/great private school is fantastic too if you can pay the fees.
So either you pay the catchment or you pay the fees. It is a choice. There is no right or wrong.

Ultimately most of the children today are VERY lucky to have parents who care. Most we ll do well in whatever industry they choose.

The OP asked for the proportion income spent in fees. For us it is less than 10%. It is a choice to spend that and so far we re very happy with the value for money.

But looking at fees only is painting a very very small picture of private education and I am not talking about uniforms and school trips. I am talking about everything else. If you are in a nice family oriented school like us you and your children will make lifelong friends so then you add costs of experiences (birthday parties, talking a group of kids to pizza to celebrate winning a tournament, or go ape, or whatever), cost of petrol (lots of matches, expectation from the school for parents to help if minibus is busy elsewhere, etc), lost of driving around (granted we carpool but when we had to change the car i upgraded to a 7 seaters and my car is rarely empty), lots of time taken by school (concert, plays, matches, etc luckily for me I am free lance so I can be very flexible at a moments notice), lots of week end aways (we dont go to all), dinner parties (we re invited and we invite back), lots of kids activities in and out of school, and so many more.

We have great fun and wouldnt change anything for the world but it is time consuming and yes expensive.

So please do the sums. And if you have a good / great state school you can have the same experience with like minded parents for less money 😉

About 10% of our income.

I wasn't entirely sure at first being state educated myself, but I absolutely would do it again, and I'd sacrifice other things to do it.

You can get second hand uniform (most kids do irrespective of income) and we haven't yet had any bills beyond fees apart from £10 for an annual book fair which we authorise in advance.

The comparison between our school and the local state is quite stark. And when I look back at my own schooling I can see that it was actually really poor quality.

And the difference in approach following Corona has only confirmed that for us it's the right choice.