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.

"The way you construct your "arguments" tells anybody with postgraduate degrees (and above) that you have a very poor education."

Ah the irony that you have posted that ad hominem attack. You are funny.

Oh and I'm not in the UK, another assumption that you made.

You fail to answer questions and just type twaddle, it is rather amusing.

Keep trying.

This is a fun game. I also do this for a living, was privately educated (including boarding) abroad and I am unshackled by a British passport, am a net taxpayer despite committing the cardinal sin of sending my kids to state schools while having considered sending them private before deciding that a life of financial precariousness was not in their best interests when we have adequate state options available.

I'm unclear whether than qualifies me for an opinion or not. Fortunately I've not expressed one beyond my very strong view that state admissions need wholesale reforms.

I'm really just here for the fact-checking on my favourite hits on these threads: packed and growing state school population (really no), that this is an unpopular policy (polling suggests not) and a new favourite, that the Independent Schools Council is an independent voice in this debate.

It is rather fun to watch them dig a hole for themselves.

So good at critical thinking, but makes fallacious arguments repeatedly.

😂

Oh, also here for the idea that in word problems in maths, it's really important to read the full question. Is that an opinion? It might be.

ThinkingGobling, the % of private school parents doing what you do here is going to be absolutely tiny.

The majority will suck up the increase in fees (which will probably be less than expected, because it does look like private schools across the UK are finally waking up to the need to be more frugal in the way they run schools, after years of wasteful spending on things like souped-up facilities and taking parents for granted).

A minority will drift away from private schooling (mostly at primary level) or not start in the first place, but the figures won't be massive and by the time we start to see private school kids migrating to the state sector, the numbers of pupils in general will be on the decline for demographic reasons and the kids will probably be (mildly) welcomed.

Nothing very exciting will happen either way.

By the way, kids have been shifting from private to state in a small way already, over the past half decade. I see the 7% figure being bandied about here, but it's actually only just over 6% now.

I actually use a private secondary school in another (rich) country (following a government-run elementary school), and it's affordable. I find the fees at UK private schools - and the rises in fees - pretty shocking and feel that there has been astonishing complacency about this for decades. A bit of belt-tightening and fat-trimming might not go amiss.

Mostly likely we will see private schools adopt different strategies - some will shift towards being more affordable schools aimed mainly at parents who have missed a good state school place, some will focus on being nurturing places for kids with SEN, and some will double down and become luxurious money pits for the truly rich.

I work in them.

The greed of the rich is specifically blocking the lives of the poor. There are finite resources available to us: current distribution methods are centralising resources away from lower class working people, and giving it to the rich, for no better reason than that they were born rich, as were their fathers and their fathers (and I do mean fathers, in Britain). Learn some history and sociology, or look at contemporary societies elsewhere.

You’re brave to write this as there will be so many haters on here! We pay fees in London and our daughter’s school is one of the cheaper ones in the area. It’s £16,500 for infants (she’s 6). The labour VAT thing is bonkers, it will drive people out of private schools and put a lot of pressure on state school places. If people want to spend their money like this why not let them!

Read the room. Some people are struggling to feed their kids. Don’t pay it then! Ffs

Given the primary school population is already shrinking, the secondary population will peak next year, and in ten years the state sector will have shrunk by nearly a million pupils, where is this pressure coming from?

Some London boroughs are feeling the problem particularly acutely already and schools are merging or closing.

What people are increasingly failing to point out is that the “top paying” jobs in London at least, hundreds of thousands if not million(s) a year, are increasingly offered to a more global, multi passport holding educated elite, many were educated abroad (whether state or private), have multiple language skills (something the U.K. is terrible at in state education itself), have been to elite unis here or the equivalents abroad. Often to master level or beyond. Those of us who work in IT or the City of London know this.

It is an international elite people seem to be annoyed about and they give zero hoots what you do about private schools in the U.K. as there are alternatives elsewhere.
Unfortunately the rich getting richer and hogging capital is a global issue. And the U.K. standard of living going down and the U.K. getting poorer is a U.K. issue. Tech, specialisation, a very driven educated workforce is our only hope going forward. How will we achieve this?

Do you actually know anything about private schools today? A large number of private school parents were not “born rich”, me included. We worked extremely hard at school and our careers, often bullied at state school for working hard, and having to complete a huge amount of school work at home because lessons were so disrupted by pupils messing around. We were certainly not born into rich families. Yes, there are families who come from inherited wealth, but that certainly isn’t the case with a lot of people.

The only “privilege” we were born into was having parents who valued education and encouraged and helped us.

I can’t speak for other boroughs but we’re in Camden and it’s hugely stretched. My daughter didn’t get into any of our four choices for primary and we were given a school that was in special measures which was a 20 min drive away. A lady from our local church actually opened a new
school (when free schools were a thing) because there is such pressure in this area. I suspect it varies from place to place.

Exactly. I don’t think a lot of people realise that competition for highly paid jobs is far more global than it was even a generation ago. They think their children’s greatest competition is against people who attended UK private schools. They are deluded if they think their children’s chances of the highly paying jobs would be increased by reducing or abolishing the private school sector.

" They are deluded if they think their children’s chances of the highly paying jobs would be increased by reducing or abolishing the private school sector."

I don't think anyone suggested this. What was said repeatedly is that there should not be tax breaks on what is in effect a luxury service paid for ( in the vast majority of cases) the most well off households in Britain.

Camden is already experiencing falling pupil numbers. Because of the ways schools are currently funded, parents may not experience this in terms of ease of access to their desired school - but the stereotype of schools bursting at the seams with no physical capacity to even add a single class just isn't in line with reality.

Camden's full dataset, including projections, shows they are currently projecting a 25% surplus in primary spaces in 2030/31 compared to 2020/21.

It's interesting that Camden already appears to be experiencing this at secondary and having to close classes - it suggests that the peak has moved through some of the inner boroughs (where house prices are also a factor in the demographic change) faster than the national average.

What your parents did is really irrelevant to the Champagne Socialist comment. You are a champagne socialist because you claim to be a Labour voter but send your children to private school. The rest of your waffle does not change that.

What about grammar schools? If our DC go to grammars, are we also Champagne Socialists?

And if we end up by default living in a Tory area/set does that also make us Tories? Because you no proper Labour voters would never live in a Tory seat and send their DC to a private/grammar or church school, right?!

In fact, I would like to make the point that if you care about Labour and politics, please sell up now, move your kids to the comp and move into the marginal seats, NOW! Otherwise, you really are not a competitive proper Labour voter.

Wouldn't it be nice to have the option not to send them to a church school?

I read that Hackney is too. A primary is about to close there due to falling numbers.

@Intergalacticcatharsis

Nice strawman

Plenty of people have suggested abolishing them, on here and other threads.

Well thank you @hillaryswankfan

I am thinking of starting a thread. Recommendations of nice safe areas, within commuting distance of Victoria aka Westminster, in marginal seats with a great catchment for a top performing comprehensive and walking distance to the station. Any suggestions?