Would you be confident committing to private school in this situation?

[shicho]

No mortgage, income circa 3k a month, maintenance 880 a month. I paid off my mortgage last year so have no savings now. Dd due to start school in a year and I’ve always had my heart set on private… do people do this in this sort of situation? Do you consider it too risky? For context the fees are 18k a year at the moment

In your situation its fine

I wouldn’t, personally. Maybe for senior school, but not all the way through from reception. You’re a single income household and child maintenance cannot be guaranteed. It would make me very nervous (and I don’t value private education enough to take that risk).

How secure is your job? I would think it's a bit risky committing to 15 years. I'd save and then do 11+ entry, you could then pay for the first couple of years with savings.

I would go state for primary and save up and do private for secondary, or from year 3.

I think you have to be prepared for the worst-case scenario - what if you lose your job, become sick, or stop receiving maintenance? If I were going to make that sort of commitment I'd also want to have 9-12 months of expenses in a savings pot.

Yes, as long as you are happy to make sacrifices with holidays/eating out etc. I have sent my children to private, couldn’t really afford it but got by, absolutely don’t regret it one bit.

State ‘till 8 is what we did. Age 8, not year 8. That will save you nearly £100k

This is really interesting. Me and my partner wanted to send our daughter private. Lovely little school in the area. Combined income of £10k pm. Mortgage £2.2k. Bills £0.8k. So £7k left after everything. We agreed not too because we’d like a second child. So after 2 x lots of private school fees we would only have left us around £3k a month (assuming 20%Vat uplift).

This would need to cover extra curricular (£300pm), 11+ tutoring (£300pm) holidays, clothes, expensive school trips, expensive uniforms, birthday parties, Christmas presents etc… not to mention our food bill and family days out, petrol etc…
we felt £3k a month didn’t leave us enough contingency for redundancy, unforeseen circumstances and savings.

So we’re going to do what we can to get her into local grammar and then reconsider private when she’s 11 if she doesn’t get inTo a local grammar.

That being said… we are moving to get her into the best state school in the area, outstanding, small classes, high grammar intake. If we couldn’t do this then we would have decided differently. So depends on your circumstances!

Is that £18k without 20% VAT? As soon as Labour get in they will be £21,300 and will increase by between 5-10% each year.

No - I think you'd be massively pushing it.

What about extras like uniforms, transport, school trips, activities, extra holiday care?

Have You looked at the increase in fees in secondary school? Could you pay that? Could you still manage if maintenance stopped?

Seems like a waste of money for primary. You'd be struggling to afford the extra curriculars or other life experiences.

You'd be best going state plus music lessons and some kind of other activity sport, language, dance, horse riding etc as they get into juniors. Save up for secondary then you can afford the trips etc that won't be cheap. You can also afford some holidays and days out such as the theatre which add to cultural capital and enhance education.

You probably could afford it but have a good look at the local state primaries- they may surprise you with how good they are. And then save for private secondary when you will have a much better idea of what suits your child.

Have you checked if you would qualify for a bursary?

On your income and as a single income family I think you would be taking a big risk.

Fees will go up every year, there are lots of hidden costs, you could lose your job and you have no savings to fall back on.

That sounds pretty on the edge for me,

Do you work full time at present? Would your ex contribute anything additional to fees?

I guess you could try saving the equivalent amount each month for the next year or so and see how that goes and that can help inform your decision as well as building a safety net of savings?

£3k a month is £36k a year. With maintenance that’s around £45k. That sounds pretty tight without a scholarship or bursary of some kind, bearing in mind that fees increase as they get older. If you have your heart set on private school I’d suggest state for primary and then private for secondary. That will give you time to save.

School fees letter arrived today. Carefully timed as always a week into term so you can't give notice for September without being liable for a terms fees.

They've gone up 6-8% so I'm looking at £42k pa for two kids before Labour do their thing. Frankly it's crippling us and we/I have a higher income than that you describe for yourself. Local secondary options are very poor and we have one child with SEN which is why we are here at all. I genuinely don't know what we are going to do and I'd still vote the Tories out. I'd happily send my kids to a state school if I thought they'd thrive.

Unless you have appalling state options I would start in state and plan for extra tuition and flexibility later on. They will spend the first few years learning to share toys, alphabet, fine motor skills and rudimentary music skills. Your money would be better spent on skilled wrap around childcare, working part time so you can supplement with home schooling or kumon maths or similar.

I think that's way too tight. You'd be committing 50% of your take-home pay to school fees. And that's before you even factor in VAT, and all of the extra costs. School uniform, extracurricular activities, school trips. Yes, you also get maintenance, but if you or your ex lose your job, you are very, very exposed.

However, if you want to go ahead, I recommend that you have at least one year's fees in a saving account somewhere so that you don't have to take your child out of school on short notice if your finances change. That would buy you time to figure things out without disruption school.

Could her father contribute? If he's paying 880 per month, he must be on a decent salary.

Wait until secondary and save/pay for really good extra curriculars (especially French or other language lessons). Unless your local schools are truly horrific it makes no difference. Going to state school at least for a while in my experience creates nicer, more rounded children too. Mine all went private at 11/13 depending and werent really behind or anything. The only issue we had was the foreign language gap and things like latin.

Why does it have to be private? There are some equally excellent state schools and the money saved could really benefit your dd.

If you can afford to set that money aside you could weigh up private education versus state education plus over 200k towards uni and a house deposit- or 100k+ if you go with state school and extra clubs/music etc

You could save enough for your child to go to uni without tuition fees or student loans potentially saving them 100s of ££ each month when they are earning - and they could still have money left for a house deposit.

As to whether you can afford private school do you have £1500 spare each month? This is of course only going to go up and there will be additional costs on top. How much are your bills Inc annual bills like house and car insurance /holidays /birthdays /Xmas /food / household maintenance. Do you have savings as a back up plan? If you are a frugal person perhaps you can do it - it seems tight to me.

Just to add that fees have gone up 25% over the past three years alone.
State schools are struggling to recruit as salaries in real terms are at 2010 levels. I doubt they are much better in private schools to be honest but discipline and other pressures are reduced. There are smaller classes and more Sen support. Plus less dicking around with the curriculum I’m guessing too so lesson planning must be easier.
Any government is going to have to address salaries and there is talk of Autumn strikes. That will put upward pressure on private school salaries too. So I think annual
increases well above inflation are probably guaranteed for a decade.

If your whole income is £3k pm you cannot afford private school. The £880pm seems to make it just about affordable but your Ex could wriggle out of it - often happens. Your home could need major maintenance. Fees will be 20% higher soon even disregarding inflation. I would expect £5k pm income and a year or two of fees saved in the bank should be the minimum.

Send your child to state primary and put £1000pm into savings over the next 7 years. You will then be able to afford private senior school.

I have grown up privately educated child. If I was doing it again I would do state primary until end of key stage two then go private. It's a huge financial commitment and you need to build up a reserve. It's not just fees but uniform and there's loads of that, hot lunches are often charged as extra, trips, extracurricular, transport if they go on the bus.