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

I'm shocked that so many posters think that private school fees are the same across the UK. This is why VAT impacts middle income homes disproportionately. Where I live you can earn what OP does and send your kids to private school. As shocking as that sounds.

It's too far in the future to plan. Schools can change rapidly - outstanding becomes 'requires improvement' and vice versa.

But I don't think a joint income of £120k is enough to privately educate two children. Even now the average cost is £18k p.a. + VAT each (the private secondary schools in my area are £20k+ pa), plus uniforms, plus extra curricular activities, plus school trips etc. And fees don't stay static. They generally increase each year, sometimes by a significant amount.

Well yes. Any state school's results will be primarily influenced by the cohort.
A school getting 90% at Grade 5 or above has a well above average cohort, probably all children from affluent middle class homes with educated, involved parents.

Your local school with its 50% of Grade 5 or above is still getting above national average results. They may actually be a really good school (what is Progress 8, for example? What are the progression rates by prior attainment?)

What you are paying for in private school is peer group. What you are paying for by living in a house in a school catchment with expensive houses is peer group.

I'd assumed that was what your post was about. You seem to be surprised that the "outstanding" comp's results are not purely down to the school.

Not read whole thread but those fees are very low, we are in London and paying £10k per child per term for secondary as of this year thanks to the VAT.

Hence why I said 'comfortably'. On £120k it would be a struggle.

Again. Not everyone lives in London. I pay £4.5k a term

We’re in a very similar position OP.

We love our house and really do not want the upheaval of having to move 2 miles down the road to get into a better catchment. We’d easily have to pay an extra £200k+ for a like-for-like. We’ve only got one DC so far, and it would be cheaper to send her to private for secondary than it would be to move.

I went to your average state school. I hated the constant low-level disruptions and the feel of the race to the bottom. I’m not necessarily bothered about grades per se but the lack of career aspirations/soft skills/opportunities outside of the classroom. The local secondary to here gives the same vibes to mine.

We’re also going to church as a plan C. It will be a long commute for DC/no friends in the local area so not ideal.

We stayed put and paid for Private.
We would have had to move into a smaller house in a not so nice area (we are a postcode anomaly for school purposes) to get into the closest "good" school that I don't really rate either. We would also have had to look at moving DS's Primary for DD to attend a decent Secondary.
We love our house, neighbours and area so we really didn't want to move and it doesn't always work anyway, when we moved here we WERE in the catchment for the good Secondary but a huge house building project pushed us out.

Ours (Yorkshire) is around £15k per year at Secondary
Its excellent

I've had a look and yikes- 5-8% on free school meals. I knew it was middle class but not quite that much so!

@Gijjjj these threads are always exasperating. I was in your position 18 months ago but DS was already 8. Posters pile on saying you must be wrong, £15k can't be the fees because they pay more (despite the fact you have obviously found this out) you need to earn £300k a year to even consider it, uniform costs £1000s...I could go on. Honestly it's wild.

We earn £160k. We have an average house, mortgage of £1.4K, one car (not fancy), have a couple of normal holidays. DS fees are £14k a year. I kitted him out with all the required branded stuff for about £300 at the start of term, second hand. That's me buying multiples so will take me into next year too. He can wear any trousers, shirt, v-neck so that's from supermarket. His sports are included in fees. He can take a packed lunch. He has a mandatory trip next year which is costing £400.

Do your research, do your sums and if it works on paper then great. Other posters are not you!

When we chose a private school, one major consideration was that it offered a broad education. I didn’t want one cheap school trip. Or a cheap looking uniform. I wanted better. I wasn’t looking for state equivalent with smaller classes. I wanted great music and drama. Lots of clubs and opportunities to learn something new. None of that is cheap but the best private schools do way more than state schools. So that’s what you pay for.

I had a quick look out of interest and there are 112 schools (out of 6550) on the government league tables, that have the OP's desired 95% achieving Grade 5 or above in maths and English.
I didn't exhaustively check each one, but it looked like they were mostly (if not all) selective schools.

There’s a list of private secondary schools in Scotland. Only 6 are under £15,000 a year. The schools you actually might have heard of are a lot more but loads are between £16-18,000.

@TizerorFizz my child isn't at a cheap private school. But thanks for the snobbery. As I've mentioned MANY times on this thread, what I pay is the norm in Scotland.

He's in primary. I'm well aware how much secondary costs.

Ours is cheap compared to those in other areas but its excellent and despite being non selective it achieves almost as well as The closest Grammar in terms of exam results.
Expensive isn't always the best

@Hoppinggreen Despite being a private school parent I honestly can see why people loathe private schools and think they're full of snobs. I'm lucky that the school parents I mingle with are all down to earth and are all just doing the best they can. Who knew that only one trip for kids in P6 (age 10) was so frowned upon. I love the fact my kids school doesn't expect all the kids to go on the ski trip and encourages second hand clothes.

The progress 8 score is 0.2

It's evident I need to do more digging and crunching of numbers!

I really am not bothered about peer group as long as lessons are not being disrupted.

Honestly I now see that I looked at just one metric and didn't understand the nuance.

I just felt I wanted my kids to have the same or better than I did but it's more complex than that I see. DH and I obviously attended some of the best performing state schools in the country, not realising it!

I empathise with your conundrum OP!

I've been there... In the end we moved AND put the DC in independent schools however our youngest is at state school as it just seemed a better fit. The ones at independent school have cost us so much money it's hammered us. Independent schools are good in many ways but we ended up having to move them both again for reasons out of our control - one Indy school closed down!!

I think you need a joint income of at least 180K pa in my experience and it seems affordable when they are in reception etc but in a flash they are wanting ski trips, LAMDA, music lessons on top, plus lots of other trips. Uniform and PE kit costs are laughable - about double for basically the same stuff 🙄.

Having experience of a few different schools along with friends who are also in similar situation, we all agree DONT BE FOOLED by the advertising and marketing of private schools... the advertising and reality are usually worlds apart!!

Ask yourself what are the main reasons you think it's better?

For 2 of my DC is was simply their mild SEN and basically came down to the smaller class sizes. Which you don't get in state schools.

I'd also say that the out of school clubs can be more diverse, however, mine only really go to 1 or 2! These can easily be accommodated out of school for much less!

The sports equipment is good at private school although absolutely no better than at my youngest DC state comprehensive where there are 3G pitches and lots of sport fields etc.

A spanner in the works has been that my DH was made redundant a couple of times too which caused so much worry and made things very tight!

One thing I will say, tongue in cheek, is that the staff are often a lot more polite and friendly at private schools, after all, they are a business and want your money! If you leave, that mask slips as we have found....!

If I had my time again I would think really carefully about what it is you think a private school can offer your child and you?

They all vary, some are elitist hot houses and others are small and more nurturing.

We moved from zone 5 in London to a market town in the suburbs- different vibe and it ticked many of our school boxes just by moving there tbh.

Sorry this is a little disjointed, I keep getting interrupted!

Good luck with your decision.

I’d rule out private school on that salary and consider moving areas.
I moved when my DC were toddlers to a decent area thinking it’s unlikely the area will go rapidly downhill. It didn’t and the decision paid off, I didn’t aim for a top school, more of a decent amount above average school.

£15K per year now is on the very low end for secondary, it'll be doublet hat by the time your kids get there, out of taxed income, so that'll take most of your £120k post tax.

There’s a reason Fettes is £37,000 for day pupils. It simply offers more. It’s hardly snobby to work this out.

OP - if you pay, and for 2 dc it’s a stretch for you, why would you not expect to get a lot of bang for your buck! If you are purely avoiding disruption, it’s a huge price to pay.

You have 3 options

1. stay where you are, go to local state school and pay for tutoring 2 ) stay and pay for private education but consider inflation on school fees is always higher than general inflation. For 2 children it likely to cost maybe £300k total over 7 years for both.
2. move and buy a house in an area with good state schools spending £300k extra 9n a house.

I would go for 1 or 3.
We sent 2 privately from 11-18 and if I had my time again, I wouldn't. Youngest left in 2018. From 2006 to 2018 the fees went up from £9k to £16.5k pa. DH was the one who was keen on private education.