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.

It’s not selfish of the GPs to have now reevaluated their finances and said they can’t afford it. If they can’t they can’t. That is what happens when you want other people to pay a large amount annually towards your own expenses. Most parents working full time can’t afford private schools. The state provides SEN help.

Expecting anyone else to pay for your luxuries is foolhardy, TBH. It’ll always be unreliable.

I think it’s worth gently stepping back and looking at the bigger picture here. A child’s success isn’t determined solely by the school they attend—if they’re going to thrive, they will do so in the right environment for them. While a private school might open certain doors, it’s also important to consider whether your child’s additional needs could make accessing those opportunities more challenging rather than easier.
I’ve been following this discussion for a few days now, and I say this with kindness—it might help to take a more realistic view of the situation.
It’s also not fair to place blame on the grandparents. What looks affordable on paper isn’t always manageable in reality. They may be balancing retirement, health concerns, care costs, other family responsibilities, and financial pressures we don’t fully see. There’s often far more to consider than just whether they can pay.
Another thing to think about is fairness between your children. How might your younger child feel in the future if one was given a private education and the other wasn’t? These decisions can have long-term emotional impacts. And of course, inheritance is never guaranteed—many people don’t receive anything at all.
Most importantly, a private education won’t necessarily resolve the underlying challenges. Investing in the right support, life skills, and coping strategies may be far more beneficial in the long run. The goal is to help your child navigate the real world confidently, rather than trying to reshape the world around them.
You’re not alone in this—many families of children with additional needs face similar decisions. Sometimes the most valuable thing we can do is focus on giving our children the tools they need to thrive in the world as it is.

Ps - I wrote out a massive reply but didnt want it to sound harsh to asked AI to re write what id written.

As above. Having worked in education for
many years, I truly believe that the richer experience - with genuine competition, opportunities, diversity, and one that prepares children for the modern world and workplace - is in state school not the rarefied atmosphere of private school. Unless of course, you are very rich and will pave your children’s way through life with your money and hand them opportunities throughout life with that money and your networks. Which many parents using private schools do, but it doesn’t seem as if OP can given £26k ish fees is beyond their reach.
Not a lot of money in the private school
world at all.

You have to pay to advertise on Mumsnet. I'll report your post and MNHQ can point you in the right direction.

Already done - several times as they seem to be repeat offenders 🙄

@Moonnstarz This is a huge danger. Same for all siblings is our motto. DDs boyfriend and one other sibling went to uni and an inheritance was used to help pay. Third dc didn’t go and had all the inheritance for a house deposit. Two siblings aren’t happy.

You were lucky, but it doesn’t mean that your parents didn’t take a risk!

Treating siblings uneveningly can lead to all sorts of problems and harm their relationship, regardless of the reasons for treating them differently. Even if the intentions in the 1st place were good.

Agree. And while @LighthouseDreamz says the other grandchildren are adults and understand that her DS has different needs, her DH sibling (brother? Sister?) might feel frustrated that their children weren't given the chance to go to private school/grandparents didn't offer to pay for them so it's actually the parents who have pointed out to the grandparents that their children weren't given help for school so why should their brothers kids get money for this.
If the grandparents cannot provide the same for everyone then it is a no go for me.

They didn’t take any risk. I know many families where the grandparents have paid a portion of the fees, in one case all of them for 5 grandchildren. OP’s in laws have displayed an abnormal level of flakiness.

Of course they took a risk. What would have happened if one of the grandparents had dropped dead with the consequent drop in income making it impossible?

I have a bright child she was put forward and we let her do the tests for a private primary school and she was offered a scholarship that covered about 75% of the fees and the rest we could afford.

We thought long and hard and decided against it for two main reasons which in short is the same one.

My daughter would be one of the less well off kids in the school and whilst the other kids were having holidays in the or house in Barbados and getting pony’s she would be getting a bike and a week at Butlins. The second is that bullying we believe to be worse at public schools and than state schools and there is a lot of social and class bullying and this is something that we felt would outweigh the positives of a superior education. We had moved house to be on the capture area for an outstanding school and we actually moved again when she was in year two and moved very close to a superb primary school.

we live in Kent so she breezed the 11plus and got into a very good grammar school and she is looking at 8 grade 8’s or better and 3 other grades.

you mentioned that your son did the 11+ which I assume means you are also in Kent have a look at that grammar schools, yes you are mistaken likely too late for this year generally but they will have kids drop out, we had friends whose twins appealed their 11+ and got offered places in August !

one thing you really need to do though is ensure your son does not “tell off other kids” it does not matter what the reason he has for doing this, but if he can’t get a grip on this it will make his school life worse in any environment than not doing it and being in the worst state school. This I would argue is as important as anything else you do regarding his education.

The same applies to the parents. Any parent can die, be diagnosed with life-changing disease, or lose their job.

My aunt dropped dead, my grandmother did not. But in any case she had already put the money in trust so it would have continued in the event of her death.

Most parents have life insurance. Most grandparents don’t.

Grandparents can set up a trust or pay the money upfront if there is concern.

The most common cause for not being able to continue to cover school fees ime is job loss or divorce.

They can’t pay the money upfront if it’s coming out of income and if it’s not there are inheritance tax implications.

It’s quite unusual for gps of secondary aged children to still be working, I don’t know anyone whose gps contributed out of earned income.

There are IHT implications whenever a parent dies, and school fees are a good way of passing on inheritance ahead of time and reducing IHT on death. By directly paying fees or gifting funds the size of the taxable estate is reduced.

I didn’t say earned income. There are a lot of people with very generous pensions and dividends from investments. We definitely wouldn’t be paying something like school fees from capital and I think most of my generation is the same. Capital is sacrosanct.

Flakiness is harsh! As always we only ever get one side of the story on MN, would love to hear the kind of pressure the GPs were under to show favor to this one grandchild over other children and grandchildren.
Probably best that they put their foot down now rather than in a year’s time.

Sorry, but that’s clearly nonsense! Most of my aunts and uncles married and has kids young, as did my parents and many were grandparents in their late 40s and early 50s.
We have a lot of farmers, engineers and medical people in the family to who don’t have a ‘normal’ retirement age either - mostly out of lifestyle choice.

Fees can come out of retirement income utilising the £3000 tax exemption, so a potential total of £6000 for gps. In practice though, trusts are considered a better method, particularly for larger sums, as they address education costs & IHT liability simultaneously. They allow for tax planning & benefit to the gc while retaining an element of protection and control over trust assets.

For some people education is sacrosanct.

That may be nonsense in your demographic, yours is nonsense in mine. I don’t know anyone who married that young from my or my parents’ generation and I have never met a grandparent in their 50s.

The average age of marriage is currently over 30. 33 for women, 35 for men.

Sure but there are risks everywhere. OP has weighed up the risks, expected costs and benefits and decided on balance private school feels less risky for them. Personally I would weight some of them a bit differently I think, but we must all make our own judgements. When you have a child with SEN sometimes you find yourself making all sorts of compromises you never thought you'd make, and going places you never thought you'd go. Having to rely on a bursary intrinsically involves. bit more risk too I think - even if they give you a pie e of paper saying the bursary is guaranteed, if the school's finances fail I would always presume there is a risk o lf it being withdrawn. But I bet for OP that feels less risky than state school.

One risk I think is often ignored is the risk that a private school can just turn round at any point and stop taking your money. If they don't like your child, if the child's MH dips, or their face doesn't fit or their grades drop they can be out on their ear. Ability to pay isn't always enough. This is not part of the sales pitch - at most it's sold as a benefit "any disruptive children will be removed so yours won't have to put up with them" but parents of autistic children can find themselves on the wrong side of this even if their children continue to jump through every hoop to their best ability. But compromises do sometimes have to be made and this needs to be weighed up with everything else.

Just to add schools can change very quickly. Our local state school is amazing academically but had a poor rep for SEN. We had to pull our son out of it. Now, with the drop in birth rate, brand new SENCo, new Head I am hearing its SEN support has improved massively. Doesn't mean DS could have stayed there, but it does mean parents like me who pulled their children out under the old regime are at risk of giving outdated info to potential future parents.

@Aluna Yes. But same for all dc! Not just for university or school. Some families have only ever used private schools and want to keep that going but where this isn’t the case, the money should be given to all with flexibility around use.