to find it incredibly irritating when in certain circles school fees are talked about as if they are a necessity, not a choice?

[emkana]

Like Emma Thomson currently on the Women programme on BBC 4, or very often in the "Style" section of the Sunday Times.

Well its true- if you decide to have something/use a service then to pay for it IS a neccesity! Doesnt meant what you are paying for IS a neccesity is it?

No bursaries for people up to £40,000 here- my children's schools consider needy to be £20,000 or less. Which is at it should be.

And yes the single mums of my daughter's friends must get maintenance from their child's father to be able to afford the fees.

Semantics. OP clearly talking about the decision to use the private schools, not paying-once-you're-in-them.

Is it?
Though OP gives very little away about what they actually mean.
Having a mortgage isnt a neccesity, having a car isn't a neccesity, sending your kids to ballet isn't a neccesity for SOME people..I dont see why people saying they have to pay school fees doesnt mean for them it is indeed a necessity

Really haven't a clue what you're trying to say.

Some things ARE neccesity for some people, for others they are not. Thats life.

I dont get WHY some people are so loathe to accept that some things although they may not agree with them are necessary for others.

neccesity
nessicity
neccessity
necessity

Oh boohoo fecking hoo I mispelt the damn word cries

RedRedWine1980 - it depends what you mean by necessery doesn't it?

Tut tut- you know it's necessary

Necessities are purely subjective though- my uncle for instance feels it is necessary to buy a new horse every month, for me having the internet is necessary and for others it's a luxury.

I'm a single mum, ds has been at a couple of private schools. I earn slightly above the national average, when you deduct the rent I pay, bills and food then his fees are covered. I don't drive, I buy clothes in the sales, we have yet to o on a holiday though. I also lived off benefits when he was first born, £100 a week and I am alot better off now. With a strict budget it can be done. The school he was offered had a 25% GCSE A to C pass rate in 2007, a 42% A to C pass rate in 2008, the school he's going to in September has a 100% A to C pass rate. I choose to send him to a private school so he can learn. It's my choice, once he's there his fees are a necessity.

Oh, the 42% pass rate in 2008 was just a target, I can't find anything to say they reached it.

What are the necessities of life - assuming, so we don't get ridiculous, that we are talking about the civilised Western world here? Grocery bills, utlities, rent/mortgage, council tax, transport (either public or your own), unless you are a hermit, and clothing?...

School fees are not like these things. There is a tendency for some of the chattering classes to lump them in together. We can debate endlessly whether they are moral, if they buy you added quality or if education should be considered a commodity - but surely on this one point (that they are optional, not a necessity of life) we must agree?

They are a luxury item. Obviously some people feel a stronger compulsion to use them than others, driven by supposed horrors of the state system (almost always exaggerated). But that's not the same as their being a necessity. And that is the OP's point.

I don't accept the view that necessity is a subjective term.
It's a bit of a teenage response really (I'm thinking of 15 year olds telling me an iphone is a necessity).
The things that are real necessities are probably most closely described in the Declaration of Human Rights (or Rights of the Child). Medical care, food, clean water, shelter etc.

A child's education (to me) is a necessity. Children are full of potential, every one of them and I think I'd be failing my son if I sent him to a school where only 25% of the year managed to get the GCSE's that any employer asks for. Every school should be a good school but in the real world they are not. He's a really bright boy, I couldn't send him to a school where the children have told ofsted that they do not feel safe at school. I look at what I have coming in, I look at what I have going out, I save a little for a rainy day and the rest I can spend on school fees/trips out etc. I can't take it with me when I die so I'd rather invest it in his future.

Unfortunately in the society in which we live, necessities are relative and not absolute. Because the absolutes are all taken care of. So we get to worry about the relative stuff. Self-indulgent of course.

True. For some people a necessity is a car, holidays, dishwasher etc. It's different for everyone.

Lots of people in our society worry about the absolutes, still. I'm and at the suggestion that this is not the case. Just how out of touch is the average mumsnetter?

Lots of people in our society worry about the absolutes, still. I'm and at the suggestion that this is not the case. Just how out of touch is the average mumsnetter?

We all have our little world's iggi, there's people who can hardly make ends meet and there's people who are alot better off but sheltered away from the problems of others. You could say it's out of touch or ignorant or selfish, people's paths don't often cross though so it's easy to get into the mindset of the middle classes or the upper middle classes, ladies who lunch and wear a string of pearls etc (appologies to anyone who fits into my stereotype).

Ouch at out of touch

Okay so how many people starve to death in the UK, then? Every year?

There's plenty of people who struggle to pay for the basics Quattrocento - scrimping and saving so you can pay the electric AND do a food shop is not the same as scrimping and saving so you can pay the school fees and go on holiday.

How many people do not have a roof over their head?
How many eat poor diets that contribute to heart disease?
How many turn to loan sharks for help that turns into violence and intimidation?
How many are stuck in a spiral of increasing debt?
How many elderly people choose between heat and food in the winter?
I don't have a clue what the answer is to those questions, but I still think for Quattro to say the absolutes are taken care of in our society is tosh.