To pay for private school instead of moving?

[Gijjjj]

This is a very non urgent conundrum as we have one toddler and one baby on the way.
We live in a reasonably trendy suburb with £140k mortgage left, but expect our household earnings in 2 years time to be around £120k per annum. They are lower at the moment due to part time working / training.
We thought we were ok with kids going to local comp which seemed nice enough but realised the pass rate for getting a 5 in GCSE English and maths is 50%.
Although both state educated we attended schools with over a 95% pass rate, and we felt a bit concerned that we maybe weren't going to be giving our kids the same opportunities we had been afforded.
We looked at a grammar school area but obviously competition is fierce and the comps in the area are then generally worse than the one we are in catchment for now. So could spend a fortune on moving only to not get into grammar.
We thought we could buy a house next to an outstanding state school (with over 90% stats on the same metrics) but we would have to borrow an additional £300k just to have a similar standard of house to what we have now, and that is less convenient in terms of commute and amenities.
We probably would extend the house we are in, but even though £15k per year per child seems galling, would we be best off just paying for private school and enjoying the area we live in otherwise?
Or should we move to an area with better schools?

YANBU - stay put and pay private
YANBU - invest in property rather than fees and move

If I were you I’d start putting money away in an investment account now so that you can aim to cover a chunk of the fees from that rather than relying solely on monthly income. Put away the money you would have used to overpay the mortgage - if you change your mind about schools you can just put it on the mortgage as a lump sum.

As pp’s have said schools can change a lot in 10 years . When dd was born I would have driven 10 miles a day to the next nearest comp rather than let her go to our catchment one . Then a change of head and 8 years later the school was rated outstanding, people moving to the area specifically for the school and it became so oversubscribed that even being in the catchment wasn’t a guarantee of a place.
As others have recommended probably worth saving some ‘ just in case money ‘ but you never know it may all have changed by then.

I imagine someone else has said this, but what unicorn of a private school is this at £15k p.a.?!!! Most I know are c£9k per term (day). Private schools have far outstripped inflation in terms of price rises, even pre the VAT rise. At £120k (pretax?) salary there's no way on god's earth I'd put two through private school with that
It will be cheaper to move to a 'good area', and use some money if needed for tutors etc pre GCSE

Bear in mind the % rates for pass at the local comp will correlate directly to the socioeconomic mix within the school.

If half the kids come from area which are deprived, they are less likely to reach attainment levels, because nobody is doing enough to close the attainment gap for those kids. And schools want to keep their scores as high as they can so they focus on the smart kids.

My daughter is smart, she would get As no matter where she was. If you and your husband are academically smart, the chances are your child will be too. The main thing we looked for in a school was how well supported she would be for her disabilities. Unfortunately, private school was not very good for that.

This was really helpful - the local comp has 28 % on free school meals!
Compared to 8% at the outstanding comp with 90% pass rate!

So it probably reflects the cohort rather than the school itself

I'd be genuinely interested to know where that outstanding comp is - those are phenomenal results!

I agree with the PP who pointed out that 50% at grade 5 and above for Maths and English is better than average. It may be worth drilling down into the figures a little more. For instance, a school near me has 57% at 5 and above for English and Maths, but around 85% at 4 and above for both. So there are a lot of children who fall into the lower-grade pass band, many of whom will only have a 4 for one of the subjects.

Also check out how higher performers at KS2 SATS do at the comp. If there's a critical mass of children getting very good grades, then it's likely that they're being well challenged by the school and buoyed up by the standard among their peers.

@pantheistsboots That is very much the case here. A grade 4 is acceptable for lots of post 16 courses. The other stat to look at is levels of achievers: low, middle and high. What percentages of each? It’s very difficult to shift the low achievers to good results. So what % of middle and high achievers do well? What’s the progress 8? It’s rare for a non grammar to get 90% GCSE at 5 or above. 4 and above, yes.

Looking at the stats for one of the best secondary schools in Bucks, 90% at grade 5 (or even 4) suggests very low numbers of low achievers. It’s the low achievers that reduce the overall percentage. At grade 4, it’s not impossible to get the high % for middle and high achievers, but very hard for low achievers. Only schools like Michaela with very few low achievers get near 90%. Also there’s a degree of selection! It might be self selection or religious but low achievers are a small number at some schools.

I haven’t read the full thread but worth considering if you haven’t already that school fees go up every year quite considerably.
Our fee bill for two kids, one prep one seniors has gone up by £1000 p/m in the past 4 years due to above inflation increases and VAT addition.
This month, we also need to find £900 extra for compulsory sports kit, music lessons and deposits for sports trips. There isn’t a month that goes by that we don’t get another £100 charge for something or other! You really need to factor in big increases, and big extras.

Several private schools in west mids are around £16k p/a so not unheard of.

Ti be honest I would push the decision down the road, schools and areas can change a lot in 8/9 years! I would advise paying off your mortgage then continuing to save the amount your mortgage was each month so you have options when the time does come.

Yanbu and this is what we did.

Start saving right now: while you are still on lower earnings just put 10% of your take-home into savings but when your earnings go up make sure you put 90-100% of the uplift into aavings (it can be less than 100% to allow a little for inflation and any increased costs that come with the increased hours) - then keep increasing your savings rate as much as you can. You'll need to draw down from these savings during the years when you have two sets of fees to pay, but if you start now you will be fine.

Birth rates are so low now that you may get into a state school that you're out of catchment for. The council round here contacted everyone this week in case they hadn't put their primary application in. The reason for this is that there is a shortfall in applications. Birth rates have been falling for a while but it's especially noticeable now. Things could change hugely in the next decade. I wouldn't make any big decisions now!

Don't move just for schools. We moved when our kids were the the age of yours.

By the time we reached secondary, we could no longer get into the outstanding catchment secondary. Which didn't matter anyway because it moved into special measures shortly after.

Ours got into the grammar but if they hadn't the 'dreadful' school was actually doing very well.

I haven’t read all the replies but here are some thoughts.

I went to a comprehensive school that had a very wide socioeconomic mix and I found the disruptive pupils annoying when I was aged 12-13. After that we were streamed and they made no difference to life in the classroom but there was a bit of bullying at break times. At age 16 they all left and it was fine. I have no idea what my school’s stats were for exam results but I could guess that over half didn’t do well enough to even consider staying on.
The other half of us who stayed mostly got into excellent universities and did extremely well in life. I’m sorry to say that we all had similar family backgrounds in terms of parental levels of education and the part of town where we lived. The ones who left came from a different part of town and had a more deprived background. I can’t think of many who successfully crossed that divide. Importantly, I am sure that the naturally intelligent but socially disadvantaged kids did worse than the privileged ones who were actually not as bright as they were. Mostly due to parental support.

We all had the same teachers and the same school facilities. Looking back, I realise that the teachers/SLT maybe weren’t as good as my rose-tinted memories suggest because they clearly did not do enough for those other kids. We were the easy ones.

In your shoes I think I’d be mainly interested in the quality of the school’s facilities (which is too early to say as you are looking ahead ten years) and whether they are able to retain good teachers who will inspire bright children, and most importantly trying to get a handle on the classroom experience- do they stream, do they offer academic subjects, do they control bullying?

What I am trying to say, I think, is that the school results may not really mean much and if your kids are academic they’ll probably be fine there.

On the other hand if they are not academic then paying for private will probably be the right thing to do but you won’t know that for a long time, and also you’d need to find a non-selective private.

Of course you could also pay for private for academic kid if you want all the lovely facilities and all the bells and whistles. That’s what we do, but we are in a very comfortable financial position with only one child and two high incomes. Our decision is based 100% on quality of school experience, not academics and we see it as a luxury.

Grammar area is a non-starter as you say, because if they do not get in they will end up in a school with an overall higher number of kids who do not want to learn.

TL:DR privileged bright kids will do well in any comp so don’t get too hung up on the rating, forget grammar, pay for private if you want a luxury school experience.

Out of interest, what was the socioeconomic mix like in your and your DH’s 95% pass rate comprehensives?

I don't understand why it matters to you that there's a 50% pass rate. It doesn't necessarily mean the teaching is bad. It could simply mean the starting points were much lower. It's not wildly different to the average pass rate for secondaries. It's much higher for KS2 Sats. The gaps widen as kids get older.

There's nothing to say your kids will not do well. In any school with those results, there will be pupils who get 9s and go on to top unis. If at any point you're concerned and you can revisit what to do e.g. tutoring, private, talking to school etc

I think it's great you're thinking about this when kids are so young as you've time to save. We moved into a house 10 yrs ago with a toddler DS and went on to have DD. I assumed the local secondary was totally fine and then as the years progressed realised it wasn't at all. Average grades but lots of disruption. We ended up putting DS in to private last year and DD will move for secondary in 4 years.
We earn a bit more than you (not loads more) and likewise we'd need to add £300k onto our mortgage to move to the fabulous state catchment. I just wish I had thought about it sooner. As it happens I did manage to save more than a years fees before DS started but if I had 10 years of savings that would be great!

Not everyone lives in London. DS's fees are £13k

Your income is not enough for private school.

You don't state your area but it's unlikely your local schools are as bad as your perception

Ps: are you sure you're comparing like with like? The 50 per cent rate tends to be grade 5/6 (C) and above. In the old days pass rates were literally that. If you got an E, you passed

Any private school that cheap is probably not that good and will have probably closed down before then

Again...not everyone lives in London where fees are £10K a term. I'm in Scotland. If you don't believe me do some googling. The only schools that cost that are Fettes and Gordonstoun. Not the day schools that most of the kids up here go to.

Ones that aren't in London. Argh I give up!!

This is excellent advice OP 👇🏻

I'm south west and pay 12k a year for primary. This will double for secondary so I'm shocked that the fees are so low where you are.

Stellar grades aren't everything though. Like you, we're more interested in the learning environment and wanting our child to enjoy their schooling experience. Our local comps are pretty dire. The one closest to us is particularly bad for behavioural issues.

I was state educated at an apparently 'good' school. Except it really wasn't. It was just in an affluent area.

There’s a private grammar near me that has fees of 5k a term plus VAT. I wouldn’t send my kids there because it has the reputation of letting in pretty much anyone who can afford it, despite its alleged “grammar” status. Any results it gets that are better than our local comp is likely due to financial, rather than educational, selection.

My local comp does better than national average but is massive, I was horrified when we first moved here (I went to a small state grammar). My DD got an 8 in her language gcse which they do in yr 9, she didn’t really like the subject but is a reasonably bright girl with supportive parents. If your kids are the same, they’ll probably do well wherever they go. I expect she’ll get 7-9s in her GCSEs.

I would either move or stay put & pay for tuition as needed.