To think only the super rich will be able to afford private schools?

[donniedarko89]

I live in a fairly affluent area, full of private schools. We are comfortable, not wealthy, and considered private for secondary eventually (and who knows, with the cost of living crisis), while enriching the state primary's offer with lots of extra clubs and activities. Noticing that more and more families are doing the same, even high-earners who would in the past have gone private by default. Are private schools going to become only for the ultra rich, especially if the fees spike up with a Labour government?

Lol. What sort of school did you go to?

@SnackSizeRaisin Childcare for full time working parents is 60 hours a week from age 1 to 4.5. So 30 hrs in term time for 2-3s is welcome but it's only 37% of costs for the year

The conservatives brought it in so they should be rewarded. They didn't bring it in during the last labour government did they?

An elite all girls private school.

People will always spend to give their dc as much as possible. If not private schools then private tutors. You can't legislate against advantage

I highly doubt Labour will do what a lot of people seem to be anticipating, promised in the manifesto or not.

They can’t just strip private schools of charitable status, that would be up to the charity commission. The charity commission that private schools have already won against in court, setting the precedent that it up to the schools themselves to decide the public benefit they provide. They could attempt it, but they would need time, money to pay the significant legal fees, and the will to fight it. Even then victory would be far from guaranteed, if not unlikely.

Bear in mind Keir Starmer also has said in regards to private schools:
“I think private schools add a huge amount to our country, I think there are very good private schools and there is no case for abolishing them.”. Tbh it reads like gesture politics.

Tutoring is affordable to many more and simply doesn’t give anywhere near the same advantage anyway. How could it for an hour a week?Aside from that many are simply shite.

The fewer children privately educated the better. We need more contextualisation against private schools too.

I know that. Not sure what your point is? My point is that most parents of preschoolers can't afford to put them in FT nursery and will curtail their working hours accordingly. In my family my 3 year old uses only free hours and we work around that. I actually don't know anyone who puts their child in nursery 60.hours a week, even the doctors, lawyers etc only really do 3 days max, or the free hours in a preschool.

I guess the reason they don't give 60 hours free (apart from the cost to the taxpayer) is that young children are better off at home with their parents or family members.

By that logic I'm going to vote Labour to reward them for the NHS being invented. I would like to punish the Tories for Brexit. So will not be voting Tory

Did they teach you that Labour policies are communist?

@SnackSizeRaisin I definitely agree on this point, but I do think some choose private schools in order to buy an advantage, and I'm just saying it is not always that much of an advantage nowadays.
I was also responding to someone who was pointing out the other reasons people might choose to go private and saying this isn't a realistic option for many.

Imagine being richer than 93% of the country and whining about how you're not that rich.

Just been reading up on contextual offers. You would need to live in a poor area, go to a poor school, be on free school meals, and/or have neither parent previously attended university, be in care or be a carer, or be disabled. Plus it applies to only very limited courses. So in virtually all cases where parents are in a position to choose private school, it is likely to give the child an advantage when getting into a good university. It's disingenuous to claim that state school pupils get in with lower grades.

I know plenty of people still having their annual family all inclusive that costs 5/6k plus have new cars, motorbikes, gym memberships etc. some people prioritise school fees and reading the teacher threads about the problems with employing specialist teachers, lack of Sen support etc I can see why. You do r have to be super rich to afford school fees, the majority are a fraction of the 50k quoted!

It depends on the university. And the criteria for schools isn’t that they’re ‘poor’. It’s low continuation to higher education. So if they teach a lot of vocational courses (plus a levels) where students aren’t aiming for uni they can qualify despite being high quality establishments. Loads of people will
have been on FSM temporarily due to covid. Contextual offers are also offered on lots of courses at some unis.

You can pay for private school from a teacher salary and have money left over and live off your partner's similar wage. That makes you super rich on this thread but basically on the breadline on a thread about teacher strikes. Go figure.

People compare fees to nursery fees. But they aren't - as lots like us just about survive nursery fees and use savings etc. They use the free hours asap. They are relieved when the DC go to school. It's not the next 12 years

Pretty much this.

In London, certainly, the idea of middle income people ‘making choices and economising’ to send kids to private school is a myth.

It’s either genuinely not high earners with significant bursaries or people with significant means.

Where I am (Australia) it's a similar situation. However, private enrolments are climbing (60/40 I think), despite the current climate.

I find it's priorities, and options, though. I have worked with women who said they returned to work soley to pay school fees (eats entire wage) and they live a frugal life & drive old clapped out cars and never buy themselves new clothes.

Then people like myself & DH who will pay private for secondary only, because the public option (were strictly catchment managed) is horrific, and we are paying off our house beforehand to afford it.

A friend will send her kids to that same public high school because they can't afford the fees... they're leaving on their second overseas trip this year, in a few weeks (equivalent so far of two years worth of fees).

So, for some it's wealth and some it's priorities.

Weren't you listening? We've all got to get used to being poorer.

DH and I have much higher than ‘average’ household income but very far from rich and absolutely could not afford private school.

A quick look online shows that all of these countries have private schools, a higher percentage than the UK, and some are partly state funded.

Whilst this is absolutely true, our experience was that the nursery years have been by far the most challenging financially. We were younger and earning less and we had a mortgage. 10 years down the line our income is much higher, the mortgage is paid off and private school fees are only a bit higher than nursery. I appreciate this might not be the case for everyone.

See, this is how skewed some people's perceptions are. £900 a MONTH for a cheap no-frills (not "thrills" as some posters have written on here!) private school place.

If you can afford this, you're wealthy. If you can afford a more expensive school, you are ultra wealthy.

Anyway, my heart doesn't bleed for you, how strange.

I went to private school but my parents sacrificed for it - we had no holidays, and we had no carpets on our concrete floors and no tiles in the bathroom. I never wanted to bring my friends home but the education was excellent. Just saying - not all private school kids have wealthy parents.