…In thinking that parents would welcome cheaper, less flashy private schools

[Newbutoldfather]

This is (obviously) occurred to me over VAT, but also in thinking that the cost of private schools has gone up way way beyond inflation.

The school I went to (ok, left 40 years ago) is now 12x what it cost when I went. (General inflation is 3.3x over same period for reference.

So, where has the money gone, given that they can’t make a profit? Not class sizes, which are actually, on average bigger, certainly pre sixth form. Not teachers’ salaries, which have failed to keep up with inflation. I think a lot is around the overall offering and a bloated, overpaid SLT structure. When I say the overall offering, I mean flashy facilities, wrap-around care, a myriad of available sports, a loss making 6th form offering subjects with only a few takers etc etc.

AIBU in thinking there would be massive demand for a ‘basic’ private school, which would maybe cost 1.5-2x a state school (minimum 3x where I live), have excellent academics and good pastoral care, but ‘ordinary’ facilities, a normal 6th form offering and good but limited sports. Or AIBU and most private school parents want expensive facilities and a huge choice of A levels, wrap around care and co-curricular and have no issues with how much it costs?

YANBU.

I wonder sometimes how my old private school managed with just a Head and a Deputy Head. Now they seem to have a million “Assistant Heads” Academic, pastoral, sustainability blah blah blah.

and don’t get me started on Scoolblazer.com. Most ridiculous rip off ever.

Weve Just moved from an old school boarding environment to a much more down to earth day school. The old name boarding school did have incredible facilities but to be frank we didn’t want to pay for some fancy science bit of kit the sixth form has that the only other one is at Cambridge university. We just want small class sizes, lots of sport and music with good behaviour.

I should think the no frills type private schools are the ones that are going to go under with the VAT.

that said, I would have liked to send mine to a no frills private school when they were younger.

We went private as our dc was getting very lost when he moved from toddler room to the pre school section at nursery. Our local class sizes are at 30, his class is 16.

In terms of Ryan air style, most schools are like that to an extent: wrap around care, music lessons, trips etc all cost extra. Theres a major consciousness in the school to buy second hand uniform (the bulk wear bought second hand but things like blazers are probably older). A lot of the neutral items eg boys trousers can be bought from where ever.

My dc is incredibly sporty sports every day keeps him balanced.

There is one a bit like you describe near us. No swimming pool etc and a lot cheaper than the other privates.

Newbutoldfather, it’s the annual fee. Beats me how they do it too.

To add in the school has a small garden and so pays the local primary to use their swimming pool, the secondary school to use their sports hall etc.

If there was a middle ground where I live between state and Dauntseys at £24k a year, I'd consider it.

I went to private school. It was £1300 a term. It still is this price, as I know because my sister is now a teacher there. There are two in my local area which are similar. There was 15 in my class and 30 in my year at its maximum and it was run out of a converted old mansion house in its own grounds. I loved it. The other one is in a series of terraced houses which were knocked through into a larger building in the centre of the city.
Private schools can be affordable if you don’t want all the bells and whistles.

But surely it's the extra bits that people want?
Have to say the provision during the pandemic was when I felt the fees were justified. I had friends with kids in state school leading up to GCSEs who got a few sheets of work that's it. Mine got a full day of online lessons every day. They even did games - exercises the kids could do in their rooms.
While the quality of education is the number one reason, the other stuff is also valued and strip that away and many may decide it's not worth it.

Don't be persuaded that they are non profit making entities, there's many a way to disguise profit distribution!

Also it's a facilities arms race, to get the well heeled parents to sign up you once needed a field and a gym, then a small pool, then a 25m pool now I see Olympic sized pools being talked of, a local school is bragging about stables, shooting, then there's the theatre and music programme, and recently ish they built a boarding house to attract those lucrative overseas students, thus school isn't a big name school, it was set up for distinct purposes and meets none of them now because that very demographic can't afford it!

@mitogoshi ,

I don’t agree that you can secretly distribute funds, unless you are fully criminal.

I do totally agree with the arms race part though…

Not necessarily- what is getting lost in the debate is that in addition to private to state, some parents will chose "expensive private to cheaper private" especially where there is an existing hierarchy of private options and very varying state options (where there are good and bad schools and the good ones are oversubscribed). I am definitely seeing this in the leavers' destinations at my DC's primary school this year

I think no frills private (say for sake or argument 10k a year incl. VAT) would actually work as a business model, especially for secondary and especially if the schools can implement something like a 4 day in-person week through use of technology and more independent study. However, I think it would actually increase educational inequality because one way to make a cheap model work is to remove anything that costs you extra money, like kids with additional needs or who aren't keeping pace and need extra support. It would expand affordability whilst at the same time reducing accessibility to certain demographics.

Many Gdst schools in the past were as you describe op. Im not sure if that’s the case now

When my youngest started school we chose private primarily because of the hours. At the time none of our local state primaries had any kind of wraparound care and normal school hours were just not compatible with my work. But other than that, apart from being in a lovely old house with extensive grounds it didn't offer a lot more than state, so I guess it might fit your "no frills" model. It closed some years ago, predominantly because a lot of parents (us included) realised that it didn't represent very good value for money. It was a perfectly good school and my DC were happy there. There was nothing "wrong" with it, but 3 lots of even relatively low school fees add up to lots of money and we just weren't getting enough over and above our local state schools to justify that expense, especially once some of the state schools started breakfast and after school clubs. So we moved, along with lots of other parents in similar positions and the school went under. I can think of at least 2 other similar schools in our area who have gone the same way in recent years.
Admittedly we have very good state provision where we are which obviously has a big influence. In areas with poor state schools there may be more of a demand for the kind of schools you describe but you still need a critical mass of parents with that amount of money available. Since more affluent areas tend to have better state schools anyway it seems unlikely that there would be many areas where it would work. And you'd need the pupils to be fairly local as otherwise adding the cost of travel would price out people who can only just afford the fees.
It seems to me that at the moment it is smaller, less expensive independents that are struggling whilst the really high end ones continue to thrive so adding more at "entry level" is unlikely to work.

@runningpram ,

Up to a point. I think there are lots of exceptions and I am sure they do exist, but they are few and far between, certainly none near me.

I do think it is interesting that in the VAT debate I don’t think I have read a single post about looking at cheaper private options, either remaining or being forced to go into the state sector.

In that case this school is running on half the average per head state school budget with class sizes 50% smaller than a state school. It's the school equivalent of a MN chicken.

Also to not increase fees for 20 years despite inflation just wouldn't work.

They must have another source of income like a charitable/ religious endowment fund.

I think there are a few less swanky private schools with lower fees. However they're probably going to be the first to go to the wall, because part of the reason parents have chosen them will be affordability.

Wrap-around care is important for very many families, especially those who need both parents working full-time to afford the fees. Take away the wrap-around care and you significantly bump up the overall costs for those families.

If you don't offer a good range of A-levels, you will just lose students to other providers, state or private.

Facilities - they've already got the land, they may make quite a bit of money out of hiring the facilities out of term.

Having said that, I'm sure there are lots of savings that could be made. Maybe we'll see that when the VAT change comes in, particularly in the less expensive establishments.

There is a school like this neat me. Runs in a converted high street building costs something like £300 a month doesn't have the facilities of most private schools but does have small class sizes. However, the leadership team are mainly people who have been involved in failing schools in the past (free schools etc) and staff retention is terrible. I worked in education for many years and no way would I send my kids there.

My kids go to a private school and the fees (for secondary only, two children) are just over a third of what we would need to add to the value of our house to buy a comparable house in the catchment area of the outstanding school in my large town (not that we could get a mortgage that big!).

Lots of middle income families can afford private school, some with some family help, but only the highest earners can be assured of a home in the catchment areas of the best schools. I suppose it’s an example of needing to be very rich to save money (Grimes Boot Theory).

Id rather have decent state schools for everyone.

One barrier is that you'd need to set it up such a school from scratch so would probably lose money until the school was full and that could take a long time as new schools generally fill from the bottom rather than launching all years simultaneously. You'd need to be really sure the demand was there. Also you'd still need to charge VAT and you'd have to pay out your investors around 5-10% p.a. which would compress your margins somewhat.

I think it's doable but it would need to be launched with a lot of planning and forethought as to the model and location (would probably need to be a chain to get the economies of scale for admin etc). I think it would probably also work best at secondary level only.

@whynosummer - absolutely. I went to private school because my parents could stretch to the termly fees, but could never find the huge lump sum needed to move us into the catchment of the better state schools. If we’d been richer I’d have gone to state school.

@lanthanum ,

I am mainly talking about secondary here, as that is a sector I know well, and the more expensive one.

I do think secondary school pupils don’t need wrap around care, especially Year 9 and up, so it is not a necessity.

Again, I am dubious about the ‘need’ for things like Art History and obscure languages, often with 1-2 on average per 6th form class. And it is not just the range, it is the being able to accommodate RE, Physics and Dt for instance (to choose a random obscure combination). You need far more teachers to be able to do this.

But fundamentally, across the sector, 12 x over 40 years vs 3.3 x for general inflation, that is an enormous gap! The money has gone somewhere..

Private schools in France are heavily state subsidised.

Teachers are paid for by the state and there are also contributions from local authorities. The parental contribution is just a small top up.

Compare that to the hysteria we see in the UK with people erroneously claiming private schools are subsidised by the state sector. They’d have a fit if we adopted the French model.

But surely most people chose private partly as it buys you a different demographic of students and parents? Not just for academics and sports.
Lowering the cost kind of loses that and any old riff raft can join!