School fees have risen by 19% in the space of 12 months

[Findingfactsaboutfees]

AIBU to think this is outrageous ?! Fees are exorbitant anyhow and in the last 12 months we have had an increase of 19% by way of 2 increases in a 12 month period. Fees per year for the senior school are £16690 per year and do not include state of the art facilities as other local schools do. The junior school fees aren't much less either! This is a school in the north of England. If you are paying for education, where are you based and how much do you pay? I wonder whether it is comparable.

Private education will only be for the ultra-rich if fees continue to rise at the rate that they are. It is unsustainable for most working professionals who are comfortable but not ultra-wealthy! Parents locally have tried to take their children out but can't as there are no state school places to be had within a 12 mile radius. The only other option is home schooling which isn't possible when the parents are working full time. We're not yet at the point where we are thinking of taking our child out of school but hearing the plight of those who are in the process of trying to is worrying. I've always been a labour voter but if they do go ahead with the introduction of VAT, I fear it's going to get even worse.

Thank you so much.

i propose a weekly clap.

This is what my husband and I do for a living. We don’t use private schooling. Our kids get the advantage (and it is a MASSIVE one) of well-educated, wealthy parents. They have a HUGE head start.

In terms of wrap around care - there are no schools or child care settings that offer the kind of long anti-social hours we work. Zero. Your friends must have had had very limited working hours compared to most critical care specialists if they used school or child care to care for their children.

We do need doctors. That doesn’t mean doctors need private schools.

That is a big hike OP but still, that school is cheap, as they go. In London, you would be looking at 8-9k per term minimum.

It is what it is. I'm not sure why you're coming in AIBU with this though as you will inevitably incite the usual comments. There is a secondary education board where you might have received more relevant comparisons.

The only solution I can think of is that parents of fee-paying school children boycott the fee-paying schools. Education authorities would have to then find these children places in the local comprehensives, the anti-feral injection of high ability and breeding would, like a stimulating breeze, lift the character of the local comps, and the already wealthy parents of the ex-private school brigade would liquidise more money to access the ski resorts three or four more times a year. The parents of the ex-private school brigade, should they be concerned about future university places, could then further help social mobility by moving to an 8 bedroom house in Clacton-on-Sea and accessing contextual offers. Everybody wins.

Pity the state schools that are having to cope with an influx of children from the private sector. Those state schools are already managing (well they are not managing) on a shoestring budget, and now they will have to find space for even more students.

Add to that the challenges that mid year transfers often bring as the children find it difficult to settle. And, I'm sorry to say it, some of the children coming in from the private sector also come in with a 'better than you' attitude - not just to their peers, but also to the teachers.

Many people opt in for private schooling for various reasons. After all, who would want to spend that much money? Sometimes it's not that easy to change your jobs (both parents), move somewhere else where your child can attend the state school because the state school nearby you is failing miserably or the fact that you've already tried it where your child has been bullied relentlessly. Also Not everyone works in companies where they can change their jobs/transfer, people have their own businesses in the area where it's not that simple to uproot your home and business so instead, you just suck up the fees and send your child to private school, again for various reasons where the local state option is usually a failure. If it makes you feel better op, private school is nearly 9k in London for 1 term.

Real classy, reminding all those of us born poor that we have no power or agency in what’s supposed to be our country. We don’t need your reminders, we have it inculcated in us from birth.

We have to pay for private schooling, but it is specialist. It’s £32,000, in the SW and y7.

Independent schools have longer days. My DD’s state primary was 9-3, the private school they moved to is 8.30-4.15, so works out as far more teaching per year. They also have optional Saturday morning activities (matches, art workshops etc).

My DS goes to a "secondary up the road". The school pays for extra tuition because of his needs and they want him to get 4+ in his subjects because it will benefit their figures. He finishes at 4.30pm on Monday - Thursday, covering maths and English in that extra hour after school.
They offer masterclasses for students aspiring for 7-9s because these will impact their value added figures.
They are all over every student and how important that student's attainment is to their school figures.
Meanwhile, one of the privates nearby employs teachers who aren't qualified.

Given that state schools are finding it harder and harder to remain within budget, I’m not surprised that private schools have increased their fees. A state school has no option other than see if they can cut back or fundraise via parents. The government won’t give them the money despite increases to everything. So the private schools have an option and are using it.

I was born into poverty and couldn't comfortably send my children to private school but I'm not bitter about it or blaming parents who can and do give their children a better chance, what is that achieving? What are you doing to improve schools in your area bar probably holding the mythological belief that if private schools closed it would solve all of the problems in education?

No, because that kind of person goes to public school. They would not even be impacted. The majority of private schools are not full of rich people at all. They are middle class people, many of whom sacrifice other things to pay for it. They won't be whisking anywhere. They will possibly be looking for a new house in the catchment area of a good state school, but they will be very much here, not abroad.

Most if not all of these parents will pay a load of tax as well whilst not taking up a state school space, are they moaning about that? No.

Do you ever think though, if your children move abroad, this will have been a bit of a waste of money? In other countries it’s only the university that is really of any interest on a cv, not the schools as they are all free.

that probably doesn’t make any sense, but I often think that when I read these threads about private schools, people in other countries won’t have an actual clue if the school was free or fee paying, and it is so much money to spend on it.

I think I might start another thread about private schools. Because there are only two started this morning. It's because it's such a great place to post and the responses are so helpful and relevant..

Continuing to engage with this interesting fantasy...Schools' budgets increase with each student - although this is always one year behind, so that would be a nightmare - so the money would follow the influx.
I used to teach in a secondary sixth form. One year we had an influx of students from one of the local private schools who hadn't got the grades to continue into that school's sixth form, so they came to us.
They were a nightmare. Of the 4, only 1 'survived'. So there is sometimes truth to that entitled, brattish behaviour.
On the whole, though, students who came to us from private education were bloody brilliant and impacted in only positive ways on our own students. Their independent learning skills were impressive and our 'own' students bucked their ideas up no end once they realised that this is what they would be up again if they wanted those university places.

Many are non profit making.

This is what our UTC does, they are sitting Maths in year 12.

I think it's the framing of a choice to use private schools as somehow compelled and/or moral ('the local schools were just too bad', or the frequent use of 'sacrifices' when describing affording it - as if others could have it too if they only made the same 'sacrifices', but they're clearly too wedded to their fags, booze and flatscreen TVs), that gets people's backs up, combined with the genuine, bewildered sense of unfairness some people appear to feel as it moves out of their reach, when that same unfairness didn't trouble them when it was already out of the reach of others.

My younger two go to 'private' schools - the middle one (secondary) because we didn't feel the state option (which his older brother attends happily and successfully) would suit him, the youngest (primary) partly because the catchment school for her is in fact terrible (but we own that and I have offered my volunteering services at that school) and partly as a proactive choice for her current school. We're not in the UK, the schools are not in the state system because they are faith-based, but they are mainly state-funded with a modest, income-linked parental contribution that ensures everyone genuinely pays what they can afford (I think it starts at under 20 euro/month, and if you can't afford that you don't pay at all) - with a corresponding socio-economic mix. If fees were to be put up drastically across the board, they would be different schools altogether - not the inclusive ones we signed up to. If you sign up to a by its nature exclusive system, there is always the risk that that circle of exclusivity will tighten and leave you on the outside. But it doesn't seem right or logical to me to then complain that's unfair.

My heart bleeds.

We all pay tax for lots of things we may not use.

Loads of children with doctor parents at my DC’s private school. Many of them are first generation immigrants. If the 20% VAT on school fees is brought in it will be another reason for them to leave the NHS and move to another country with more affordable school fees, such as Australia which subsidises private schools. As others have said, be careful that the politics of envy doesn’t bite you in the bottom.

Imagine complaining your fees going up but people are having to survive on wages less than your annual fees.

Fees per year for the senior school are £16690

Most people could only dream about having that amount of money left after all their essential bills and living costs had been covered.

If you can't afford it - join the club.