We can’t afford to live anymore

[ThatNavyPoster]

Private school fees are killing me.

We can’t afford to live anymore. I don’t know what to do. On paper my husband and I make good money, but for the past year we’ve been drowning financially.

We send our daughter to a private school. She was attending the local village school from reception to year 3, she was the only brown child in her school. Some of the older children were calling her the P word (we are not from Pakistani, not that it would be excusable if we were) and some children in her class were making comments about her skin colour and curly hair. Our daughter had been very withdrawn the whole of year 2 and 3, we put it down to post Covid disruption.

We did not expect this, my husband and his family have been in this village forever, generations are buried in the village church. Im brown, I was born in this country and so was my Mum.

We had no idea of the bullying until I picked our daughter up from school and she had cut her hair and coloured her hands with pink pen. She said she didn’t want to have curly hair or brown skin. We tried to work with the school to address the bullying, it continued all through year 3, she was becoming so distressed and started refusing to go to school.

For year 4 we moved her to a school a 45 min drive away, in a bigger town, hoping it would be more diverse. The drive was costing us £400 in petrol a month, plus £450 in wrap around care. My husband and I considered moving, he has been in the village his whole life, he has siblings and nieces/nephews here, we were helping provide care for his elderly grandparents, despite this, he agreed to move closer to the new school. Then the bullying with the p word started again, my daughter was told “go back to your country”.

We moved her to the private school 30 mins drive from our house at the beginning of year 5, she was a different child almost overnight. It’s more ethnically diverse than either of the 2 state schools, there has been no racist bullying and she has some lovely friends. She’s now in year 7. In order to afford it we don’t eat out or go on holiday, we drive a 15 year old car and rent an EV through work. We rent out our granny annexe.

We have decent paying jobs in the NHS, but we’re drowning, over the past year our outgoings have increased by close to £1000/ month due to energy price increases (we’re on LPG oil due to being in the countryside), food price rises, petrol, vat on school fees/school fee rises. We can’t afford to live anymore.

The autumn budget tax rises will finish us off by the time they are all implemented. We are not eligible for any benefits except tax free childcare. We are not eligible for any business and the school doesn’t do scholarships. The only thing left to cut is the school fees, and I am coming to the realisation that my daughter will have to go back into the system that made her hate herself because of the colour of her skin. That thought is killing me, but the school fees are killing me. I can’t see a way out.

The village I live in is welcoming too. I think most people are. It think it can happen anywhere. It just takes one influential bully and a failure by the school to tackle it. But she’s happy now. They just need a school fee plan.

So sorry your child has been subjected to this.
one of my DC school friends was subjected to abuse at primary. This was not racial but due to her hair colour. The group of children in the class were confident in numbers. ( around 6 of them ) and made their lives hell. Their parents like you struggled to get any help at school. However she preserved and went to the governors. And also the LA. She fought hard and was Successful at getting plans but in place in school. This worked and the children were punished. Her DC is probably one of the most popular kids at school now. I know this is not racism but her DC learnt resilience in what is a cruel world.
you should not have to struggle. Have a look at high schools. Ask about there policies and try one.
I wish you and your DC all the best.

Very few villages have a secondary school.

This doesn’t seem workable OP. Where is the nearest good size city that could move to?

Can you stop being so dismissive. You let one brown kid ride your pony, that doesn't negate racism. Just stop.

This!

As pp have suggested the starting point is talking to the school. Apparently private schools are losing pupils and some are struggling, so they might prefer to take reduced fees rather than lose a pupil.

As others have said, you can afford to live, you just can’t afford everything you want to.
If the private school is your tip top priority, then I think you will need to consider moving to live somewhere cheaper so that you can afford it (or, move to live somewhere where there are better, ie not racist schools).
Sorry about the bullying, I would be raising it with the school governors as the school culture will never change if diversity is bullied out. Shocking.

Which Autumn Budget tax rises will affect you? And which will affect you before 2028?

I appreciate where you’re coming from as I’m in a rural area and the local state school is not at all ethnically diverse, whereas the fee paying school 30 mins away is. It’s a very noticeable difference.

30 minutes away from school is quite a way though and as she gets older you would be very likely to find that it becomes a bit of a barrier to her spending time independently with friends (it does not sound as though she will have any in your village, having left the village primary). So there really is a positive side to moving/changing school. Plus the financial strain must be making home a fraught place.

if you can save meaningful money by downsizing, I would as a starting point look at doing that (no more granny annexe!) and moving a lot closer to the private school.

If that’s not possible then it looks as though a move will be needed anyway to find a more diverse local state secondary - unless of course the local secondary is more diverse than the primary was? Have you been to look at it? Talked to parents with children there? It may not be nearly as worrying as you fear given your primary experience.

Given the distances you’re travelling I would not necessarily assume this change is going to be a negative step. My children did travel 25-30 minutes (more at rush hour) to an (ethically diverse) fee paying school. As they grew older I really realised the downsides of this (mainly not having local friends, plus my being constantly worried about money) and have often thought I should have downsized & moved closer to the school, or else sent them to the local state secondary. The local state secondary is not ethnically diverse, but I think that would have been much less of an issue as they grew older, and it would have given them local friends and a much better sense of home & community.

Fee paying isn’t always the best option - bear in mind also that if your daughter is academically a high achiever it may be much more difficult to get into a good university as a private school applicant.

This is a stressful time but really need not be all negative.

Why not look at other relatively nearby village schools? If you’re prepared to travel 45 mins there are surely others within that range.

My DS goes to a village school where there is 1 non-white pupil. Ironically that pupil travels from a diverse area to the village because their parents didn’t want them being subjected to the social issues that are prevalent in the diverse area.

I have got to on know the parents fairly well and they are thrilled with the school and the experience their DC is getting vs their peers who live nearby in the diverse area.

The point I’m making is that you have likely stumbled across a few bad apples and that has understandably tainted your view of similar schools. Your alternative shouldn’t have to be restricted only to private schools. Have a look at other village schools and I reckon you may well be surprised what you find.

We are losing our much loved Asian community to the gammon.

And also to the much-loved-on-here but financially-pointless-to-the-government VAT levy on private schools which had removed the option for many to send their kids to a more inclusive environment. I'd seriously be considering taking my money to Dubai and ending up with more of it in my pocket!

Downsizing is a slow option and doesn't sort out the immediate problem - and it costs money.

Options:

• I think that now she is secondary age it is worth having a really good look at the state secondaries. They will have a wider catchment than the village school and might be more diverse. Even if they are not, then hopefully they might have more robust policies about bullying and racism. I appreciate that another school move is not ideal now that she has established friendships.
• Talk with her current school - are there subject scholarships that she could apply for? - my GC have scholarships at their private school, one academic, the other drama. There will be others for sport and other subjects. It does not cover the full cost, but might create enough slack to ease your situation.
• Discuss with her school your current circumstances. They will be keen to keep you now that fewer parents can afford private with the loss of tax relief. They may be ready to be a boit flexible.
• Take out a loan for the fees. Not ideal of course, but not unreasonable in the circumstances.

In the end the problem lay with the village school not addressing the bullying. This does not mean that a local state secondary school would be so lax.

Oh, so it’s ok for people who live in towns and cities to say the place they live in isn’t racist, but not ok for people who live in villages to say that.

My daughter’s friend still lives here. The parents have become good family friends. She’s just as much part of the local community as anyone else. No one describes her as brown. They use her name. This idea that villages are endemically racist is totally false. And it’s not my pony. There’s a lady in the village who is about 80 who will teach anyone almost free of charge in return for substantial help. Her parents didn’t have the time, so I said I would help twice as much if both girls could go together. She’s still riding and old enough to help out now (which is expected once they are teenagers). My daughter isn’t into riding any more, but they are still good friends.

Whoever the culprit was will have been a child who didn’t know any better because they have ignorant unpleasant parents, not the OP’s extensive network of family in the village.

I think you’ll find racism in primary is more common than you think. During primary school kids come into contact with hundreds of other kids but it just takes one kid from one racist family to make a child with mixed heritage feel that they are less than others due to the colour of their skin and that feeling or doubt about themselves can stick with them life.

I am technically ‘brown” with a very white English hubby and have two kids one white and one “brown”. I am not Indian - I have some Portuguese Malaysian thrown in with Irish. But the kids in my children’s school thought I was Indian and we had one girl tease my daughter about being Indian - ignoring my daughter saying she was not Indian but of Malaysian heritage / telling my daughter she smelled etc. her shoes / her breath. My daughter was not dirty or smelly - I was a stay at home mum with a generous household budget from hubby and plenty of time to make sure she was clean. These little odd comments went on for five years on and off - not enough to report a single comment once a term but enough over time for it to be clear it was racist. Eventually when the girl started telling my daughter she was Indian I had concrete evidence the comments were racist so was able to speak to the school - but my daughter knows her skin colour makes her different and you can’t change that.

my white son then started getting racist comments about my skin colour through play station messages. He was being sent images of Indians through his messages from another kid in school. And written comments about skin colour. And another little boy in my son’s friendship group made comments about me too. My son’s 10 year old friends were having discussions in the playground about if these comments were racist towards me or not - my 50 something degreed-educated self was mortified my skin colour was a topic of conversation and I certainly felt ‘less than’ because of the colour of my skin and their perception of my heritage.

so three kids in primary targeted my children / my skin colour. I felt terrible my kids were being builled because of me. I’d being darkening my hair but I let it go back to a colour more like my natural colour and I stopped going to watch my son’s football matches. I couldn’t bare the thought of my skin colour affecting my son’s life and I felt anxious people were talking about me behind my back.

It doesn’t take a lot of racist comments for it to affect that persons sense of self worth.

Just stop.

Lots of schools offer temporary bursaries until a house sells.

I've only skimmed through the replies, sorry if I repeat anything!

YOU shouldn't have to move out of your area if there's racists in that area - that's backward thinking for anyone that's suggested that!

Firstly, I am so sorry your daughter has experienced that, and for the hardship it's caused for wanting to do the best for your daughter.

You've done an amazing job of keeping her in the school she's thrived in for this long and she's nearly at the finish line, it must be a massive worry.

Will she be in this school until she is 16 or 18? Could a remortgage to free up some money cover the costs? Or would the repayments on a long term loan be lower than what you pay now? (Some lenders can do long term loans with low APR) and then attend a city/local college thereafter? Even if you just get the GCSE's out the way where she is now.

Downsizing might be an option but you'd need to factor in stamp duty, solicitors fees, moving costs etc. [Edited post to add this].

Depending on your NHS roles, could either of you do any bank work / private work to boost your income?

Good Luck x

You stop. I made a comment broadly identical to everyone else who said that their children go to a school in an area that has not had these problems. You picked on me because we live in a small rural community and it doesn’t fit your nasty narrative that rural Britain is inaccessible to ethnic minorities. It’s not true.

I am so sorry to read what your dd went through as a little girl. The school should have dealt with it immediately. I would firstly write to her current school and explain your circumstances like you have here. There maybe assistance you don’t know about. Would you consider selling your house and downsizing to release equity? Or is it somewhere you could rent out and you guys rent somewhere cheaper? If she’s already in year 7, if there are good colleges near by (usually v diverse) you are only looking at 4 years. You also mention you both work for the nhs. If medical is there an option to tske on some private work too? Finally, are there little savings to chop - cleaner? Gardener? Smaller used run about car rather than your ev? Pre loved uniform for dd? It all adds up and is just 4 years. Good luck

I am south asian heritage and my children are dual / mixed. I think the issue is you live in an area that is not right for your child. Depending on how strongly you feel about her continuing at the same school you may need a second job. I have had two jobs pre- covid, and it's made a massive financial difference to me.

Not really if you're in ops situation or maybe u think u should let the child go back to state school and deal with racism every f*ing day. I guess you're a really nice lovely person. Go you.

Op has several choices as options. Not having everything you want exactly the way you want it is just a fact of life for lots of us.

Your daughter may need to be in a state school with a far more diverse catchment area.

In Y7 she’ll be at a secondary school, which is going to be bigger and hopefully more diverse. She’s also older, has had time to regain confidence, and will be better equipped to report and deal with any bullies she does come across. You can’t afford to keep her at her current school but I also don’t think you need to any more.