Fee increase

[SchoolFeePain]

So I’ve put it here to hopefully cut down on the diamond shoes comments…

Is anyone else just staggered by the fee increases this year?! Fees have gone up 11% for us, 9% last year. We’ve cut back and cut back, DS is starting Y11 so realistically we can’t move him for a year but then DD moves to Y11 the September afterwards.

@babybird123 clearly envious

The school may offer help especially for your older child. My inlaws sent dh and his sister to private school. They couldn't afford sixth form and had withdrawn him to leave at the end of term but then school 'found' a scholarship so they could keep him.

Contextual offers are radically altering state to private overall % of major unis.

Schools on the contextual lists are in the 'crappy postcodes' (much of the Uk, quite offensive) so do apply for both.

Oxford, UCL many others Ive looked at for medicine are included. Not sure its worth paying to firstly have to achieve more highly, then secondly be a second choice after a state candidate.

medmentor.co.uk/blog/which-medical-schools-have-contextual-offers

I can’t help but feel if you are concerned about the price of travel sickness pills you need to think urgently about taking your DD out now. Your local state schools may not be good but if the nearest good school has space they do have to offer it to you. Catchments only apply for the main points of entry. Also speak to the school . Explain you cannot afford it and have to remove DD now andDSi in 1 year. See what their response is. No school is worth killing yourself financially for.

That sounds awful.

My DS is at a minor non-selective independent school, not fashionable at all, but with lovely teachers, a nice community and good results.

Our fees have gone up £200 for the autumn term, so £600 for year 11, and they gave us a full term's warning.

Yes we have had an increase on boarding school fees of 20% and of course when Labour come in that will be another automatic 20% increase. Oh well. Still wouldn’t change.

@Singingthesong ,

That is kind of along the lines of what I posted earlier. You are fairly insensitive to fed level, and may even view paying additional fees as conferring prestige on the school, and bragging rights for you (although I doubt you consciously think it or would ever say it).

Do you ever wonder why fee increases are so much more than inflation, where the money is going, or if it is offering value?

This is the issue for ‘middle class’ parents. They are being priced out by the rich who really don’t care about the fees.

Yes they are which is why the labour policy is just a policy of envy. It won’t affect schools like our DC’s, just smaller ones whose pupils will be plunged into the state system

Is there an option for none boarding ?

is there local private that does that option if not .

Are fee’s out of line with other private schools ?

he only places with spaces are schools that ‘require improvement’.

Go have a look at it. You might be better off sending her here and paying for tutoring on top rather than stay in private.

Typically the government through money at "requires improvement" schools and they turn around within a few years.

The standard of teaching is also much higher, I think the OP will be pleasantly surprised if she decides to move her DC. Even the so call "top" independent schools have some very weak teachers. DS can see now how little some of them did , the results are due to parents tutoring more than anything else.

I went from my state sixth form to university and there were a couple of kids from very 'good' schools there. They didn't get the marks at their schools so went to crammers to get the same A levels I got for free.

They did get eating disorders and drug problems though.

What you're paying for is small class sizes and selecting out 'problem' children. State school and tutors will have the same results academically and better socially.

I wouldn't rule out the requires improvement school without looking at it. One of my dc is at an RI school. Kids in the top sets get very good grades and the last interim Ofsted inspection indicated that it is on track to go back to being 'good' again. It's not ideal, but schools can feel very different in reality to on paper.

What you're paying for is small class sizes and selecting out 'problem' children. State school and tutors will have the same results academically and better socially.

I absolutely agree with this. The curriculum is the exact same at any school and they all go on to the same universities. If you're really struggling financially, please go and see some state schools - it's not the inferior gap some people think it is.

@roses2 ,

It is not quite that simple.

The gap between what private schools can pay teachers and what state schools can pay teachers is increasing at pace.

This means that private schools will have decent physicists and mathematicians teaching those subjects, whereas state schools are really struggling to hire them. This also helps with Oxbridge/Imperial preparation too.

The downside of private schools, though, is much though they talk about resilience, the desire to get the best results leads to a lot of spoon feeding, so it is true that, with the same A level results, state school pupils perform better at uni.

I think that for a bright, genuinely resilient, child, state school is a far better preparation for life. OTOH, they won’t support struggling children (either emotionally or intellectually) to the same extent, so it is far easier to fail.

I work in a private school. All bar one of the teachers is qualified (and she is a native speaker of the language she teaches and has been teaching 30 years, and much better than any state school teacher teaching a language they don’t actually speak them self, as happens regularly in state primaries with MFL). All bar 2 have also worked in state schools as well as this private school, and trained on the same courses as state teachers would have done.

meanwhile, while state schools technically have to employ teachers who are qualified (if under LA control), there literally aren’t enough teachers so more and more TAs are put in front of classes, at least part time.

There are some amazing teachers at my private school. There are also some who are just ok. The same was also true of state schools I’ve worked in. Behaviour at my current school is basically not even a consideration, everyone just behaves. This means children can do well even with average teachers as they can concentrate. At the last state school I worked in, behaviour was so poor that children struggled to make progress even with outstanding teachers, as the teacher spent more time outside the classroom dealing with issues than they did supporting those who wanted to learn.

Just to add some balance to the ‘private school teachers aren’t even qualified, state teachers are’ and ‘state teaching is better’ arguments! 🙂

That said, my daughter is about to start in a state school as we just can’t justify the fees for prep even with a discount. Unfortunately all those fee increases are unlikely to be going ti staff!! OP, it really feels like you can’t afford it anymore - so contact the school and say you may have to leave at Christmas - my school would find a bursary for you short term. And seriously look at moving your daughter now.

I agree with moving your daughter asap, then your son can go to a state 6th form and within a year you’ll have at least ?40k per year fun spending money? No brainer for me. Just get a tutor if the state option isn’t quite cutting it.

No favourite subject is grim… is there nowhere else?

This isn’t true at all. We all train at the same place - uni or some train on the job. Private do not have to develop their teachers so to speak whereas in state we all have to have lesson obs or drop ins, performance mgmt and training schedules. State have ofsted hanging over them and have to provide so much with v little resource. Don’t always assume paying is buying you a better set of teaching but it is inaccurate to say they (teachers) are taught differently.

I think ours go up 7% in September, but there was a change in the small print of the contract (which I suspect most parents haven't noticed) allowing them to put up school fees without a term's notice / mid year. Until now they have only been able to put fees up at the start of the academic year after a full term's notice. We are planning on leaving next summer as we can't be put in a position where we are potentially expected to take on unquantified fee increases at little notice. Even though there would be the ability to leave at that point, pulling kids out of their school midway through public exams isn't a prospect I am willing to risk facing.

@CurlewKate It can and does happen. I know a ( now ex) deputy head who along with the head teacher who was struck off for 5 years for changing SATS answers. That was in Birmingham in 2014.

DS will be leaving his boarding school after GCSES next year. We don't want to comitt to the 6th form , this is partly due to fee increases but also because we have lost trust in the school.

I have taught in independent boarding schools for 20+ years and those increases seem outrageous to me. Is the school struggling for numbers? In your position, I would ask for a meeting with the bursar and say that you are considering withdrawing both children. They might be able to offer some remission or at least a payment plan. You’ve nothing to lose and I know of several families who have done this in the past year at my school.

@listsandbudgets Yes- there was another case in Kent in, I think,2001.....

There have been cases over a long period of time. In fact I seem to recall one reported last year. I only mentioned the 2014 one because I personally knew the deputy head in question . I imagine that there are other instances but they are not csigjt / reported on.

Happened in a couple of schools I know and still going on. Nothing is done about it.