Can't afford school fees

[Theemptyvase]

I've just found out that my DC is no longer entitled to a free place at her private school.

She's 6 years old and has now completed two years of school and, having found it very hard the first year, she has now settled down and is getting on very well indeed.

There's a possibility that a place will once again become available in a year or two, so we are deciding whether to try to pay the fees ourselves in the hope that:
A) a free place once again becomes available, or
B) in a year or two she'll have the confidence to move school with less trauma

She's made so much progress at her school and become so much more comfortable in her own skin that I'm loathe to move her (despite the alternative school being absolutely fine). We can pay the fees ourself but it will be with quite some sacrifice - we'll be able to afford the mortgage, insurance, food albeit with being much more careful at the supermarket etc, but we'll have no savings and the luxuries will have to go.

I'm strongly inclined to believe that a really positive school experience is worth these sacrifices, but I know I'm biased on these matters. Please could anyone with experience of fee problems and/or shy/sensitive children please offer their advice?

For voting; YANBU to pay school fees. YABU - man up and send her to the other school.

Thanks

No fees for your child is a benefit which is priced into the teacher's salaries, just like any other benefit. You can't just take it away.

You can expressly remove it as a benefit for new joiners.

The true cost to the school is a lot less than the fees, as others have said, and there are great benefits to having happy staff that do not need time for school pick ups etc

If a couple of grand will bankrupt the school, then its not a viable business.

Same applies to other cases, like " well if we pay our people the minimum wage, then we will go bust, so we have to pay them less". NO, you have a contract with an employee that you cannot breach. You can't take away people's remuneration to fund the rest of the business.

@Glovesick

No fees for your child is a benefit which is priced into the teacher's salaries, just like any other benefit. You can't just take it away.

You can expressly remove it as a benefit for new joiners.

The true cost to the school is a lot less than the fees, as others have said, and there are great benefits to having happy staff that do not need time for school pick ups etc

If a couple of grand will bankrupt the school, then its not a viable business.

Same applies to other cases, like " well if we pay our people the minimum wage, then we will go bust, so we have to pay them less". NO, you have a contract with an employee that you cannot breach. You can't take away people's remuneration to fund the rest of the business.

It wasn’t in the contract

You can take benefits away even in a contract. Lots of legal ways of doing so. I don’t think the posters suggesting the OP takes legal advice are really very helpful. This school sounds like it’s on its knees and I’d be looking for a new job OP!

If a couple of grand will bankrupt the school, then its not a viable business.

Op has suggested it is as high as 10% pupils. Her dc is young but fees for a y6 pupils could be 12k+. Even if the school is small , one form entry, say 150 pupils that is costing the school over £150k.

Our local prep gave a 10% discount per contracted day, so 50% for most ft staff. At one stage there were so many staff children in one year group they had to add a class, which had a knock on effect on full fee pupils as the opportunities within an expanded year group (sports teams, drama etc) were relatively more limited. I think staff fee policy changed after then

@Glovesick

No fees for your child is a benefit which is priced into the teacher's salaries, just like any other benefit. You can't just take it away.

You can expressly remove it as a benefit for new joiners.

The true cost to the school is a lot less than the fees, as others have said, and there are great benefits to having happy staff that do not need time for school pick ups etc

If a couple of grand will bankrupt the school, then its not a viable business.

Same applies to other cases, like " well if we pay our people the minimum wage, then we will go bust, so we have to pay them less". NO, you have a contract with an employee that you cannot breach. You can't take away people's remuneration to fund the rest of the business.

This!

If they've done this, it suggests the school is in deep trouble financially. Don't be surprised if it announces it's closing in the next few months.
Several schools have already gone under.

Tbh I’d be looking for a new job.

No fees for your child is a benefit which is priced into the teacher's salaries, just like any other benefit. You can't just take it away.

Well, it's not actually.

Unless the school has its own payscale which is unusual for a very small prep school, she will be paid on the national scale. The school doesn't put her on a lower point of the scale to allow for not paying school fees. Look at it this way- if the fees are £10K pa they are not going to reduce her salary by that amount.

I don't think the OP is coming back anyway.

What I find odd slightly is that an educational professional needs to ask anon posters for advice on how to educate her child.

And the predictable row over of the morality of private v state starts....

You don't need a benefit to be written down in black and white in a contract. If it has always been there, it becomes a term of the contract even without writing it down.

It is priced in to the salary. Not as expressly as you put it, I.e. equivalent to an extra £10k because it doesn't actually cost the school £10k. It is a pretty standard benefit in private schools that you can send your kid there for free or reduced fees. This is to attract talented teachers, which you can either do by higher salaries or more benefits. Not every teacher has kids, so a bit like enhanced mat pay, not everyone takes it.

You can take away benefits legally, but there is a process you have to follow.

You can't fund a business long term by taking away benefits or pay cuts. If it's on its knees, then a lot more needs to be done to ensure long term viability.

If you start taking away benefits (which in accounting terms are not significant) talented teachers leave, quality goes down, parents won't pay the fees.

I am anti private schools BTW, but believe in treating employees fairly.

Pepper v Hart established that as long as teachers were only charged the marginal cost of the extra pupil - 15% then it was not a benefit in kind taxable at their highest rate. If places are free to teachers it is. That is why my son's father's prep school charged us 15% of fees from age 4 to 12. We knew a couple with 3 children one at the prep school and another a leading boarding school where they had 3 children educated from from at 4 to 18 and free accommdation for all 5 of the family at the boarding house - quite some perks! Probably worth £120k a year (£200k before tax)....

However we know many many other teachers where the particular school gives you a tiny discount off only

If it’s “priced into the salary”, it means staff without children are effectively paid less. More unfairness.

All my DC currently at private school. I don’t begrudge the staff’s children one little bit. I don’t care that the staff with DC are doing things that we cannot even begin to afford.

The key to this, like any big decision is that once you’ve made it, you just have to roll with it and stop ruminating over the what ifs.

It’s really tough for us financially and given the crap I’ve just taken from parents over a horrible leavers’ party situation (see other thread) today, I do sometimes feel as though going private was the wrong call for us. We are permanently stressed about money and we cannot do the enrichment that we would be dying to do for the kids. And often if they don’t do the extra speech and drama and music etc then they get sidelined in school productions.

But then I look at the fact that they love their school, their friendships, would be devastated to be pulled out and also, TBH, the fact that the quality of teaching and effort put in over lockdown was so good and I know that it’s the right decision.

Our car is 10 years old, we cannot afford holidays, music lessons or holiday activities but we are doing the very best we can to give the children the very best start and education that we can. And when I saw one of my kids cry their eyes out earlier because they were so devastated to be leaving a school and community that they have considered as family over the past 6 years, I know that it was worth it and I would do it all over again, despite the stress.

I would worry about the school's viability if they are doing this. I would assume it is near to last result (risking upsetting their employees).

Resort!

I am still here, but aside from a few helpful posters the conversation has largely moved on from the original question.

To clarify, it's not at all the matter of private vs state that's bothering me, it's moving my child out of a class where she is settled and happy and putting her in another one which might go well or might not.

As an aside I love this "woe is me our car is ten years old"

Most people I know have old cars, ours is about 21 years old?

21!!

You’re actually able to afford fees but don’t want to forgo or give up certain lifestyle. It’s not a stark cannot afford this situation. You’ve said you can afford mortgage & basics but need to forgo “luxuries”. The point of luxuries is they are extraneous, over and above basics. Now if you chose to maintain current lifestyle, you’ll need to terminate the private school and enrol did in a state school

Apologies, haven't RTFT except your own posts, OP.

You seem to be looking several years down the line, assuming that the school will still be there. Though I know nothing of the workings of private schools, it appears to me that the school is about to close. They have suddenly and completely withdrawn a significant benefit from staff, which I doubt is even legal. Whether or not it was in your written into your contract, surely the fact that neither you nor other staff were ever billed for your children's school fees indicates that there was an understanding this was a perk of the job.

If they go under, you will lose your income and perhaps it will be tough to find a new job partway through the year. How will your family's finances look in this case? You'll have to move your dd to a new school mid-year. On top of that, you will be out of pocket for some fees - you said something about an upfront payment; will you even get that back if they go bust?

This seems a particularly inopportune time to be taking on an unnecessary expense.

@Lemonmelonsun

As an aside I love this "woe is me our car is ten years old"

Most people I know have old cars, ours is about 21 years old?

21!!

I was thinking that. Mine is 18 and I'm only thinking of replacing it because I need something bigger for reasons connected to my self employment.

DP bought a new (to him) car and that was 10 years old, and he didn't consider himself hard done by either!

@Lemonmelonsun

As an aside I love this "woe is me our car is ten years old"

Most people I know have old cars, ours is about 21 years old?

21!!

It's an oft-repeated MN trope. That one sends one's DC to private school, sacrificing the new cars that all those brash state school parents drive. It makes me laugh every time!

The term we spent time looking at private provision at the tail end of DS's primary years we visited many schools in SW London and I have never seen so many shiny vehicles!

But to be more helpful to OP - I think the divide partly opens up because people want to demonstrate that actually if your child has half a wit about about them they'll be absolutely fine in state school. That is certainly my experience - one outgoing child and one no so much. Both academic high achievers (literally all A stars at GCSE and A level in old money) and Cambridge and Durham at the end of it. That is my experience. It could be yours too, without the difficult choices.

We can pay the fees ourself but it will be with quite some sacrifice - we'll be able to afford the mortgage, insurance, food albeit with being much more careful at the supermarket etc, but we'll have no savings and the luxuries will have to go.
So you CAN afford the fees. You just have to do what most parents do if they want private education, which is budget and cut back accordingly.

The bigger question is what the financial picture of the school is because if it's in trouble then should an announcement or rumour of closure happen all the parents will be trying to find places at good state schools.

Are you willing to make the financial sacrifices for a school that might not be there in several years?

And yes, underpinning all this is the seemingly precarious situation of the school itself. And the somewhat last minute pulling of the free schooling. Honestly. That would sit very uneasily with me

Sorry if I am repeating what others have said...

I too would be worried about the long term viability of the school. Particularly as they want a large chunk of the fees up front from staff - I’d accept that is the norm for non- staff families but surely a monthly salary deduction would be more straightforward & affordable. That hints at cash flow problems.

How many staff are going to be affected by this? Could they compromise & offer a 50% deduction? Replacing staff is a pain, not to mention expensive. Should be some room to negotiate. Unless it’s also a ploy to get rid of experienced staff & hire cheaper ones...

I think that’s pretty poor of the school to do that. By offering a place in the first place was a commitment to that child. I think I’d be questioning it strongly.

I can see pros and cons to both options but financial pressure can be very stressful and could make life worse. Children at that age often adapt well to change. But it is a hard decision. Good luck with it OP.

It depends if it could happen again. Moving her now age 6 won’t be too traumatic.

If you have to move her age 9/10 or into state secondary because you lose your job, or the free place disappears it will be.

It is hard to move from private to state, I don’t know a parent that has done it easily.

If you can’t be absolutely sure you can afford it forever move her now.