AIBU, Grandparents reduced Private School Fees Support at the Last Minute.

[LighthouseDreamz]

DS has ASD and ADHD, he is very academic. Between our family, we have discussed for many years that DS will need to attend a private secondary school, as he needs small classes and a school with good pastoral care and that is nurturing. His current class teacher agrees that he will thrive in a small environment and is unlikely to cope in a huge secondary school. Very kindly, DS’s grandparents offered to pay half of the fees, meaning myself and DH can just about afford the other half. They understood this to be approximately £13k a year.

DS has gone for the trial day and 11+ and been offered a place at the school. We’ve paid the £600 deposit as well as the fees for the exam and interview (£200). He was very excited to attend the school.

Yesterday, DS’s grandparents called and said that actually, having gone through their finances, they can only afford a third of the fees. This means that DH and I would be looking at covering £20k between us, which we just can’t afford.

Do I have a chance of getting the deposit back? Is it likely the school will be able to offer any sort of financial assistance or bursary or compassionate support?

My other option is to home educate DS but I literally know nothing about this area.

You might be less sanguine if you knew somw of the autistic kids who have been so traumatised by the transition to secondary that they can't engage in education at all.

There are thought to be around 50,000 DC out of education in this country at the moment.

The other thing is, a disaster school transition quite often pushes the mum out of work.

Of course none of that's inevitable but it's not uncommon either.

@TicklishMintDuckthey are the ones I am talking about :) I teach in one. But then the OP needs aggressively pursue the ehcp route.
We are also surrounded by decent (grammar) schools and comps. Some of the students still wouldn’t cope with them.

@Needlenardlenooif OP goes back to the EHCP route there are other options.
I agree that some children with autism find that transition really difficult. It has to be planned for. Hence why those with an ehcp it starts a year earlier.
My youngest ‘fell apart’ after passing his 11 plus. Managed a term and then stayed in his room for six months. Luckily there are some good special Ed schools and he stayed at one until he was 18.
There are possibilities other than mainstream and Home Ed.

We were in a very similar situation. Our son would not have thrived in state school. We found a private school which promoted smaller classes and we felt would embrace his quirks.

My father offered 35k towards private school fees and was very keen, up until the point that our son was accepted to school when he disappeared off the face of the earth.

We re-mortgaged our house to pay the fees.it took a long time to pay off but it was worth it. I don’t regret it at all.

One thing I did think of is that the bursary forms were sent automatically with the registration forms.we did get a small bursary which did help.

i hope you find a way.

What will the private school offer that state school cannot?
Ok, there will be smaller classes, and less moving around. Apart from that, what else are you hoping for?

My DD is AuDHD. She is incredibly intelligent, however, she struggles with large crowds, loud noises and social communication and expectation.
She also has an EHCP. She was diagnosed via the NHS.
We are also in the SE.
Due to the severity of her struggles, she has been placed in numerous private schools, with the fees paid for by the county Council. Those fees have ranged from £55k to £135k per year.
Not one of those expensive schools served her well. In some cases, they lacked even the most basic knowledge of ASD or ADHD and even with an EHCP and case files as long as your arm, quite often chose to believe the effects or behaviours associated with her ADHD and ASD were a conscious choice.

Every single one of those schools presented extremely well during the interviews and subsequent induction phase.
They would impress upon us that they were well versed in Autism and ADHD, they had experience in teaching children with these diagnoses, and that was very encouraging to hear, until I realised that ime, this almost always meant that they had a very fixed idea of how to manage DD.
It is very rare to come across a placement where they are keen to get to know the individual child in order to work with them, because despite the small class sizes, they are still dealing with a number of children.
Not all ASD or ADHD children will be compliant, and this seems to be much more of an issue if the child is intelligent.

You are either looking at a school where they have a lot of knowledge of ASD and ADHD, in which case, it is likely that there will be disruption in the class, or you are looking at a school that has barely any knowledge of ASD or ADHD in which case there may be much less disruption but they won't have the experience or knowledge to adequately support your DS.

You seem to be stretching yourself very thinly financially for somewhere that quite probably wont offer the support you are looking for, possibly because they can't if they are lacking in experience and knowledge.
It is very easy for a school to say what you want to hear during an interview and a tour of the school.

DD has been educated by private tutor for a while now and is finally making progress, but the experiences she has had at schools has traumatised her and left her with longstanding problems and these were expensive schools with very small class sizes who specialised in ASD and ADHD.

Also, DD has been on Xaggitin XL, medikinet and Vyvanse.
Medikinet was by far the worst of them all in terms of effectiveness at helping the ADHD symptoms and the side effects.
I refused to accept any form of methylphenidate for DD after the Medikinet and she has been prescribed Vyvanse which is helping a lot.
None of the medication has ever changed who she was, it has just helped her to function easier.

Obviously, this is just my experience of privately funded education in the SE with my DD and her journey on medication.
It may be completely different for you and your DS and I sincerely hope you have a good experience, but to stretch yourself so thinly financially, on what imo is a gamble as to whether he thrives or not, seems like you are making costly decisions based on hope rather than reality.

I hope it works well for you and the financial implications don't adversely affect your other children.

Quite.

Are you near Kingswood House School? The fees are higher than your current choice but they do seem to have a good amount of bursaries. Maybe worth a call to see how realistic it is? They did do full bursaries for state kids. Really great for SEN. I would call your chosen school or email asap. Admissions should still be open over the Easter holidays I reckon. At the very least you need to find out when you need to notify them of not taking the place which could be the 1st day of term if you already have signed your child up. I would also recommend revisiting the EHCP just in case your son needs 1:1or any extra support (not just for those academically less able). SEND support in Indy schools can be patchy, they promise a lot but sometimes not delivered so if you are able to make Indy work, you would need to communicate with the teacher / SEND to make sure your son is getting what he needs. I have a child with SEND in an indy setting, the smaller classes/setting/more teacher time are really helping him reach his full potential.

I agree with other posters who say you need to consider your younger children. Even with GP’s original offer the money you had available for your share per year is high. This is presumably being spent at the moment, as I’m guessing if you had tens of thousands in the bank you wouldn’t have your current issue of not being able to afford fees.

So realistically for the younger ones they will have a lower quality of life (from money currently being spent on whatever now being spent on school fees) plus parents with a strained marriage, a father who works an extremely demanding job, and a mother who is working in the evenings. Who will be looking after them?

And you say by the time they reach secondary school you may be able to afford their fees if they also have SEN. Will you be able to afford the assessments etc you’ve paid for for DS in the meantime?

If you quit your job to homeschool this will presumably be even more expensive than what you had been planning on spending to send DS to private school.

If I were you I would post on the SN board on here for advice on pursuing an EHCP.

If you want to pursue the bursary route post a new thread asking what parents are expected to do to free up funds before being entitled to a bursary. Then you have the Easter holidays to check if any of these apply to you, and if so are they doable. E.g. remortgaging to release equity etc.

Such a kind original gesture from GP, thing is 5 (or 7 if you include 6th form), is a long time to commit.

I wonder if they have now fully explored the financials or have my other grandchildren / family members suggested where is their share and maybe they have to commit to others also?
either way speak to the school about a bursary. Some Private schools I hear are struggling as people like you now struggle with the VAT extra amd their numbers are going down. I am sure they’d be interested in what you can afford plus the grades your DS will likely add to their tables.

The vast majority of autistic children are in the state sector. Autism doesn’t mean you don’t automatically manage state secondary school.

Starting a child off in a school the op clearly can’t afford and neither can the grandparents then whipping them out when financial difficulties worsen whilst both parents are working full time including evenings to support it is frankly even more worrying.

But you shouldn’t ever rely on other people’s money for anything, least of all your child’s education. It can disappear in an instant. It’s on you I’m afraid.

I was thinking this. Your figures are very confusing

@M1tz1 A lot of grandparents pay school fees. It’s a way of reducing wealth to reduce liability to IHT.
However, these are generally not flaky decisions, it’s a planned financial strategy and not SEN/sudden need based. It’s often something a family is planning to do. My DD had a boyfriend who was at a top boarding school paid for by granny, As had been the case with his dad.

But parents absolutely shouldn’t rely on this and should have contingency plans. It’s not their money.

Totally agree!

Not sure about this - schools ARE struggling so they need the money. They’re businesses, and if they cut prices for lots of their customers then they will go out of business.

Yes I agree, anecdotally I have heard of partial-bursaries being cut. And instead only the largest bursaries being given to very gifted candidates from disadvantaged backgrounds.

I don't think, as a business, there's much in it for them to give out 10%, 20% bursaries to children who are middle of their cohort (I'm not talking about op's son, just generally) when they could just give the place to someone on the waiting list who can afford it.

This is assuming it's a school that's popular enough to have a waiting list.

Private schools have been doubling their annual fees for decades now and getting away with it. It seems that the chickens have finally come home to roost and they’re running out of customers who can afford their prices.
All the private schools in our city are stuffed with the children of wealthy Russians, Chinese and Americans… which is why they spend millions on facilities like ‘world class’ cricket pitches or theatres that many of the kids won’t actually benefit from - because the people willing to pay £50k + a year expect top notch everything.

One local well known school
has spent millions on a new theatre that any professional company would be proud of. It’s amazing, beautiful. They rent it out to private groups and schools - at a premium - so I have been to a few productions there.
However, I know a teacher at the school and she says the pupils barely get to see the inside of it! They have their end of the year shows etc in it where the parents come to watch but other than that the students aren’t in it beyond dress rehearsal and actual show. They don’t want it getting scuffed up by actual usage as they make a fortune renting it out…

Not Rtft but have read all your updates. Your son sounds identical to mine so completely understand where you’re coming from.

It’s fairly common for grandparents to fund all or part fees in the private system; they should have worked out what they could afford before they offered. However you don’t want to upset them further and lose their contribution altogether. Could you have a conversation about them possibly helping you out with uniform costs, or the ongoing sports kit costs? It was £6-700 for full uniform for mine, plus top ups for seasonal changes, then £100 for sports equipment like hockey sticks, tennis racquets etc. Encourage him away from cricket as that is very expensive for the full kit!

All is not lost. You must ask for a bursary. It’s tricky as the Y7 bursaries will have been given out now, but there may be a pot for in year hardship funds. Sounds like your son would have done well, so he is the sort of child they want. I have 100% bursaries for one of my children and a 50% offer for another so I am speaking from experience. It is super awkward asking, but the bursar is totally used to it and will be understanding. If their pot has gone for this year, you can apply next year and stand a better chance of success if your son is doing well - they would rather keep your child then use the pot for a new child if you see what I mean. They may offer as if about how to deal with the GP contribution, and point you towards charities.

Other options: 1. ask the school if you can pay the full 5 years now. Some allow you to do this and you avoid the year on year increase. You take it out of your mortgage and use the money you would be paying back and the GP money to pay the increased mortgage. This will mean that as time goes on and your husbands salary goes up, you can start overpaying the mortgage. I wouldn’t recommend this as you are tied into a school which may not actually work out for him. But it is an option to consider.

2.don’t send him on any trips, use that earmarked money for the fees. It is normal for bursary children not to go on trips. Seems like you have ear marked 3k for this? He won’t be the only one who doesn’t go. Depending on his level of need, he may not even want to.

3 make cuts everywhere else in your lifestyle. Holidays to the wire. If it really is a choice of home school or this school, it will be worth the sacrifice. We have one annual holiday camping. We know exactly when we’ll have money for holidays again and the kids are aware we have different lifestyles from the peers. Some of their pals are mega loaded; they learn to choose friends who don’t just care about money, which is a skill for life.

4 there are companies that will lend you school fees, with very long repayment terms to make your repayments more manageable. This is expensive because they are paid over a long time, so you end up paying a lot in interest, similar to how mortgages work.

5 for us, our eldest was at the school when our contribution doubled due to large fee increase and then VAT. We dealt with this on 0% credit cards until our salaries increased. Absolutely NOT recommended; we can’t wait for the 50% kid to leave and we can get everything repaid (we got ourselves promoted and can now cope with the fee increases, but no extra to repay the debt we accrued whilst we couldn’t). But, there was no way we would remove them after they had started - they love their school and the local state is terrible, and with their AuDHD they would have got on really badly. They have struggled with autism and have had huge amounts of time off. They now have part time provision but still on track to get 9 GCSEs @ grades 7 and 8 (was originally on track for 11 x 8s and 9s). If we had gone with the EHCP offer the max they could take was 7 GCSEs, and the cohort usually get 4s and 5s.

Even tho my children’s school, as an academically intensive private, isn’t actually very good with neurodivergence understanding, (we are the only EHCP) neither is our state school provision and so it is still our best option. We very much feel that we are paying for our child’s future, and if it cost us our house it would be worth it.

FINALLY - if you do end up sending him to the private school, make sure you get insurance which refunds you in the event of him being sick and missing school. My child missed two full terms for sickness - which was autism related. We had to pay our full contribution which we didn’t quibble as we didn’t want to lose the bursary we did have, or impact our other child on 100% bursary. Ultimately your son may do fantastically, but if he doesn’t and you are stretched, it will feel that much more painful.

Best of luck whatever you do

@southcoastsammy They are not running out of dc! They just recruit from elsewhere. Many Russians aren’t here now.

Theatres - my DDs went to school with a very good theatre. Schools can rent them out for conferences and am dram, but my DDs used it all the time. Both did drama GCSE and the A level drama students always used it for productions. Ditto school productions and house drama and music events. It was used a lot by anyone who took part - and that was lots of DC!

Well they start in the state sector and then drop out into homeschooling, online tutoring or private school. Or they scrape through school not getting the education they need or having a terrible time

Around 25% of home educating families have SEN kids. There’s been a massive rise in homeschooling in past 10 years: 130% from 2013-2018 rising 20% annually ever since. 126,000 children are now in homeschooling.

Equally, there’s been a rise of 160% over the past 5 years in persistent absence of SEN kids from schools. Over 25% of autistic kids are missing at least 10% of school. In one survey by an Autism charity 40% parents of autistic kids said their child’s school did not meet their needs.

So just because SEN kids are shoehorned into mainstream school does not mean it works for the, or that they emerge with the education they need, with the social/emotional experience they need and deserve.

Just be aware op, it’s not an ‘if’ the fees go up, it’s a ‘when’. I believe private school fees tend to increase annually.

it’s very very out of order that more research wasn’t done by grandparents before a place was secured and your ds was informed. There’s never any expectation for gp to
provide but if they say they will then they should absolutely mean it!

Definitely enquire re a bursary.

@Excited101 You are correct about fees increasing every year and often above inflation rate. Plus I’m not sure if it’s solely down to grandparents to understand all the finance if they have not paid fees before. I would have had a family meeting with all finance laid out, snd including what they can afford and for how long and for how many grandchildren.

I'm sorry OP, it's worth asking the school about bursaries, but if you and DH both work full-time and you have younger DC as well, I suspect the answer is that you can't afford this school.

If you have ruled out the 3 local state secondaries, are there any other secondaries in your county or even further that you have considered that might be suitable? If you have to move for them, could you?

DS2 struggled massively with a disruptive class in upper primary. He is happy with a structured routine and rules. We chose an academy with a reputation of being run like a military academy. It has a terrible reputation with some SEN parents because they do not seem to make any adjustments. I suspect DC2 is ND but it absolutely suits him (so far). It's strict and busy and crowded and we're keeping a close eye for if the academic pressures and expectations cause him to struggle. But like your DS he is academically capable and so far doing well. There must be other schools with similarly strict reputations that your DC may do well at.