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.

"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.

Have to agree with the latter. Of course many independent schools are excellent and superior to state schools, but there's a significant minority that have the benefit of the overall reputation of the independent sector without reaching nearly the same quality.

My state school (in special measures for much of my time there) sent five students to Oxbridge (and around 50% to Russel Group) the same year the private school over the road sent none, which was a fairly typical ratio. What the independent sector often gets is average students receiving a better overall standard of education from parents motivated to provide for them.

If you have an academically talented child, I'd incline towards creating a DIY package of enrichment/cultural capital yourself. My sister and I are often assumed to have been privately educated, but really it was a special measures school with a library's worth of books at home, and yes, endless visits to stately homes etc ;)

I have sent my 5 there. Everyone is different in their views on these kinds of things and as to what what others should spend their money on. I am sure it was worth it and am glad we paid. We did have from age 4 - 12 only to pay 15% of fees for one of the 5 children (as his father taught at the same prep school) but mostly it was 100% of fees from 5 - 18 (and I paid 5 sets of university fees/rents too and some post grad fees - still paying -paid some of those last week). My 3 sons won a music scholarship at 13 but that was a minimal discount on the fees.

Thanks for the input and discussion I really appreciate it. I have done home work and it is clearly a really good lovely school with excellent academics, an 'outstanding' isi report.

@Claliscool I would do it in your position, OP. If it's the right school for the DC it's worth it's weight in gold. Hope they enjoy their new school

Thanks @stitchandbitch101👍

Sad thing is if you can't afford private or move into a particular catchment area you have to play the system fairly early on.
We live in a pretty deprived town in the north west with some of the worst performing schools in the country. Awful reputations. Grammar schools aren't an option here (although dp went to one in the 80's before they were abolished), local long established private school way out of our league and our nearest comp had a permanent police presence plus a 33% gsce pass rate so we had to go along the church route.
Such is the demand for places attendance must start around the age of 18 months to get the points so you really need to be organised. Cynical yes but pretty much like the financial sacrifice for private schooling.

@Katharinablum

Sad thing is if you can't afford private or move into a particular catchment area you have to play the system fairly early on. We live in a pretty deprived town in the north west with some of the worst performing schools in the country. Awful reputations. Grammar schools aren't an option here (although dp went to one in the 80's before they were abolished), local long established private school way out of our league and our nearest comp had a permanent police presence plus a 33% gsce pass rate so we had to go along the church route. Such is the demand for places attendance must start around the age of 18 months to get the points so you really need to be organised. Cynical yes but pretty much like the financial sacrifice for private schooling.

It's like the saying goes 'get on your knees or pay those fees'!

Ours is about a third of salary. At the moment it’s worth it and covid has made that even more so as teaching was excellent throughout.

We are considering moving to get into good state schools for secondary though. Think that tutors and a much bigger college fund would probably stand them in better stead for university than private schooling providing we can get them into a school where going to a good university is the underlying expectation of most kids. It’s that social norm that puts me off sending them to the state school they’d be most likely to get into if we stayed here.

We’re in the US, though, and state schooling is very variable and totally dependent on where you live.

My entire salary goes on fees. I’m not entirely sure it’s worth it, unfortunately independent schools are still influenced by the government system, even if it is to a lower extent. But it’s not like we have any other option (I’m not willing to be a homeschooler).

@thecatsthecats in all fairness one of the benefits of private schooling is that parents are less likely to buy into the oxbridge crap (although sadly the quality of staff is slipping dramatically). The only people that I know who accepted their oxbridge places were either state educated, big partners or had a very specific reason for choosing one of those universities. Don’t measure the success of a school by what children do immediately after leaving, look at what happen to them 20-40 years down the line. Parents should be looking for schools that produce students that go on to found highly successful business, end up on the Forbes rich list, win noble prizes or, end up prime minister and so on. Why aim so low?

*bug partiers

Thank you all for your input I really appreciate it... We're all just trying our best for our kids really aren't we, however we do it.

I'd be interested to know if there is anyone who regrets the decision they made, on either side. I think it is hard to critically evaluate your own decisions and think "I really should have taken the financial hit" or "we'd have all been better off not scrimping for school fees".

Ours is roughly a third of take home. Similar to our mortgage but that includes wrap around care as they are still in prep. I think the fees are more like 1/5th. It will be more once they are in Secondary though hopefully our salaries will have gone up to reflect that.

I'm not sure it's a whole lot more for prep than state though, because the wraparound is cheaper at our prep than state and the fees include extra circulars such as music and dance lessons, sports clubs etc, which we would pay for separately if we had chosen state.

Kids cost a fortune whichever way you look at it!

I would love to be in this position.

I have two lovely, bright children (DDs) who love reading, nature, science, history, geography, religion and all of the wonders of the world.

Unfortunately DH and I work in vocational professions that are rewarding in their own way but very poorly paid.

I’m sure everyone thinks their child is bright but their teachers have always told us they are streets ahead.

Concerned about the standard of education at their school (which is a lovely, caring local
Primary with many children who have special needs, English as second language etc) we enquired with some local prep schools.

This was after one of their teachers actually dropped a hint that this might be worth a look.

We booked some appointments and had a look around some terrific schools locally, but when the issue of fees came to be discussed and DH and I mentioned our incomes, the responses were very embarrassed on the part of the Heads.

It was as though we had wasted their time and that it was rude for the likes of us to even be enquiring.

I accept that the world is not equal and that utopian thinking doesn’t get anyone anywhere, but it would be nice not to be met with stuttery embarrassed responses.

We have not told DD’s about our enquiries as we don’t want to show them a world they may never know. We will do our best for them as we can with our little rented house and annual UK based holidays.

At least they are happy rather than being saddled with the adult longing for something they can never have.

@maxdash

I'd be interested to know if there is anyone who regrets the decision they made, on either side. I think it is hard to critically evaluate your own decisions and think "I really should have taken the financial hit" or "we'd have all been better off not scrimping for school fees".

Ours is roughly a third of take home. Similar to our mortgage but that includes wrap around care as they are still in prep. I think the fees are more like 1/5th. It will be more once they are in Secondary though hopefully our salaries will have gone up to reflect that.

I'm not sure it's a whole lot more for prep than state though, because the wraparound is cheaper at our prep than state and the fees include extra circulars such as music and dance lessons, sports clubs etc, which we would pay for separately if we had chosen state.

Kids cost a fortune whichever way you look at it!

We really regret spending the money. I posted why upthread.

I understand why people do this if they live near poor schools, or have children who need particular support (I think they are often better set-up for SEN, for e.g.). But personally, for me school is partly about learning life skills, and that includes getting on with people from all walks of life, being self-motivated, empathy for others from different backgrounds etc. Harder to learn that, imo, at a school where intake will be all be pretty privileged. I might be biased by my own experience though - went to state school, did really well, got into best uni in country, as did my sibling. And it meant my parents weren't esp stressed about £ and had extra to take us on nice holidays, pay for extra curricula stuff etc. Equally had private schools friends who coasted, did drugs and so on, and didn't really fulfill their academic potential. So it has pros and cons. 1/3 of income seems like a huge amount - are you sure the state schools round you are so unsuitable its worth it?

If you invest the money that you're about to spend on education wisely, you can buy your DC's a whole house. Tell me they wouldn't appreciate that.

Maxdash,

I know a few though, strictly speaking, you're right as no one knows the counterfactual.

An extract of my earlier post -

My closest, 'best' private school shared the results of its secondary school entrance exam transparently for the first time and the Y6 parents were generally puzzled to find after 7 years of education from reception to Y6 within that excellent school, the internal cohort did significantly worse than the state external applicants for secondary. Cue lots of justification about statistical anomalies, selective samples of brightest state entrants skewing the sample and so on, plus lots of intangible benefits of school primary education. That led to several families withdrawing their children from progression to secondary at that school and siblings from earlier primary years. The primary school teachers said they felt betrayed by the sharing rather than upset by the under-performance which had been clear for years.

PP's posts reminded me about competition regarding positional goods like designer handbags (bling as well as Hermes) in primary that should have been nipped in the bud and the open drug dealing.

A mix of clinical and close to competitive anorexia in secondary became widely entrenched too.

There are issues with accepting children with next to no English language skills while their parents studied and the impact on the class from disruption and diverted teacher attention.

All in all, several parents had 'had enough' and left with a feeling of an institution in decline.

The one thing to keep in mind is that despite any fluffy communications around charity and children-focused ethos and such like, this is a ruthless commercial institution. I'm aware state, in particular academies in England, have different but equally contentious incentives and policies.

Chickenkatsu,

Here, my estimate is for from half the parents to perhaps two thirds, there is next to no trade off between fees and buying property or positional goods.

Interested to know. All the people stretching themselves to the limit. Did you do state or private. You must have decent jobs to afford it in the first place so is this from a private or state education

Let’s face it- all of us would buy our children the best education if we could.

For some of us it isn’t an issue because we can’t afford it and never will.

For others it isn’t an issue.

If you can spare the cash and still pay the bills, then you can do it.

@Plumbby have you looked into bursaries? Lots of private schools do them. We are a low income family and just secured a 95% bursary for our son at a private school. I think year 3 is when they usually have the new intake. We had to apply from year2.

OP I think if you are willing to make sacrifices for your children's education then you will be ok. You obviously decided you liked the school enough in the beginning. We are a low income family so might not be able to afford extra curricular activities but the idea is that my DS will get all the sporting opportunities as part of the package and therefore we won't be spending on those things outside of school. The state school he was at only did PE twice a week and it wasn't really enough for him. We bought the school uniform new for the start or term but I intend on buying second hand to top it up as we go through the school just like I did at his last school. In the state school we had to pay regularly for school trips but in the private school these are all included in the fees so I'm not worried about extras popping up any more than in the state.

@Katharinablum

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 !

Katherinablum

Getting in to grammar is nothing to do with your financial situation. You can’t buy your way in to a state school. Entrance is on ability. If your good enough to get in - you get in.

My dc are in an international British school.
It is a world away from the good state primary school they attended in the UK.
The school uses UK state school teachers so it isn't that state teachers aren't capable but they need smaller class sizes, specialist teachers and physical space.
Pastoral support is a bigger focus, there is just more time for each child.
I think we will try and continue to provide this schooling for our dc where ever we end up. Despite having been against the idea of private schools previously.

I went to private secondary school in the UK in the 1980s. It served me well. When I put DS1 into private, in a European city, I was absolutely appalled. The fees were huge but so were the subsequent financial demands for ‘voluntary’ contributions. I did not oblige, and am fairly sure that contributed to DS getting kicked out. Since then, all of my DCs have gone to state school, and have done fine.