Private school - what fee reduction have you been given for the summer term?

[BunsyGirl]

I would just like to get an idea of what (if any) fee reductions people are being offered for the summer term. We have been offered £150 discount per child to cover lunches. I am not particularly happy as our fees cover 8-6 wrap around care. I have been told that another local private school is offering a 10% reduction and their hours are shorter as after school care is an optional extra. I don’t want to get into a debate about whether we should get a fee reduction or not. I just want to get an idea of what fee reductions are being offered.

@DreamingofBrie There are plenty of teachers saying that fees should be paid in full...if they are expecting that then clearly they are expecting to be paid in full...otherwise their schools are going to be ramping up the profits considerably!

25% reduction. I think there will be a fair few parents who will be paying in full though.

BunsyGirl I think we're talking at cross-purposes so I'm not going to engage with you anymore, I hope you understand. I think we are upsetting each other, and neither of us needs that.

Yes, I do have experience of a school, plenty of it.

Jesus! It’s only been a week. You really want to sack the non-essential right now? How heartless.
The majority of private schools have 3/4 weeks for Easter now(not mine)
Maybe let’s just keep everyone on, keep them as busy as possible. There will be lots of juggling and reorganisation. All of those employee will be useful. Let’s not forget Any symptoms are off for 14 days.
There’s key workers children to be looked after too.

None, other than lunches. But we are getting way more tuition than normal as Y13 would normally be on study leave after 2 weeks but have now been told they'll be taught until the end of term. Which they are delighted about, as you can imagine.

You don’t need teaching assistants, sports coaches, cleaning staff, receptionists, librarians, laboratory staff, security guards, cooks and other catering staff, midday assistants, grounds staff, marketing staff etc. to set work.

No, but you do need lots of them - not all, but most - to make sure there's a school there after this. Security guards and grounds staff are pretty vital, unless you want the place to fall into an expensive mess to fix, I would imagine the marketing staff are working overtime given the much more challenging recruitment situation, lab staff are probably still coming in if there are any animals, and they also will have recently been sorting out how to make sure everything is safe while the building is empty.

I also think it's a bit grim that your so eager to see the staff saving money on its lowest paid staff. You talk about your DH's colleagues taking a 20% pay cut - I'm willing to bet that 20% is more than the whole salary of any of the people you've listed here.

*you're so eager

I don’t think anyone is talking about sacking staff. But schools should absolutely be using the furlough scheme to ensure the staff who cannot work next term are protected. I expect in the main that will be non-teaching staff. The whole point of furlough is to prevent (or defer) redundancy and take the burden off employers. I’d hope schools would pass that saving onto parents where possible, partly because it’s the right thing to do and partly because they’re more likely to retain pupils if they are seen to be sensitive to the situation.

@LisaSimpsonsbff You made a big assumption there didn’t you! DH earns loads doesn’t he because our children go to private school! WRONG!!! I pay the school fees. He is self employed and is seeing his earnings dwindle. His former colleagues have had a 20% cut across the board. Some of them were on minimum wage.

@RedAdmiral2020 Yes, I wasn’t talking about sacking any staff. I was talking about furloughing. I strongly suspect that is what my DC’s school will do but then not pass on any cost savings to the parents. They have form for this.

I will be finding a new school for my DC’s as I have had enough. I am not asking for a free term. I am requesting a small discount to reflect that we are not getting what we are paying for - wrap around care 8-6 - and to help the fact that DH’s income is on the decline and he gets no help whatsoever as he is a director of a small limited company.

@LisaSimpsonsbff Just to clarify, none of my husband’s former colleagues earned more than £25k per year (in South East). Some earned considerably less than that. Obviously they can’t pay them less than minimum wage but those that were just over are now on minimum wage.

Well, in that case I'm even more surprised at your total lack of empathy for the low paid. I note you didn't respond to my actual point...

And I can't really work out why you were sending your children to an educational establishment that you distrust in the first case.

@tulipsrus There are around 20 key worker children going into school out of a total of 1300 pupils.

I’m coming off this thread now. I wanted to know what discounts were being offered. It has show that 10-25% is the norm for those schools who have offered discounts. That’s all I wanted to know.

I'm a teacher in an independent day school and I am still planning all my lessons, being present online for the duration of each lesson, marking work from each lesson as it is completed, chasing up pupils who haven't submitted work or haven't understood how/where to upload it, liaising with SEN and pastoral staff about pupils who appear to be struggling, communicating by email with individuals I am concerned about, trying to educate myself about new ways I could do things for my classes next term when we are still working remotely etc. Last week I worked just as hard as, if not harder than, normal. In addition to that I was in school 2 of the 5 days - one to gather vital resources and get a bit of training on delivery learning online, and one as I was rostered to look after key worker children. Because the key worker children are there, which was a government decision by which the school has to abide (even though I am hearing some independent schools didn't), the buildings still need to be maintained and cleaned, lunches served (especially as I believe there is a contract with the lunch providers so we would be paying for them anyway). I think the teaching and maintenance staff are more than earning their usual salaries. The office staff are clearly still necessary. The only people who may be doing less would be the academic support staff who don't have responsibility for planning lessons or marking. If the school were to furlough those staff, it's likely they would go elsewhere for September. I honestly don't see that there are many savings the school can make over this next period, so apart from lunches I don't really see how the schools can offer much of a discount to parents - although I must stress I don't know what has been offered to parents, as my own children are state educated (because those of us teaching your children and often moving heaven and earth to accommodate somewhat... ahem... demanding parents can't actually afford school fees for our own kids on what we earn - did you realise that?).

@LisaSimpsonsbff Because it has changed since DC1 joined 7 years ago and I wanted him to have continuity of education and finish his time at the prep.

They made a number of staff in the prep school redundant at the end of last year and blamed it on financial reasons, despite the fact that their reserves went up by £500k that year alone. It’s bull shit and I have had enough of the way that they treat people. As far as not caring about others, I am looking at the whole picture. Parents have been threatened that their children will be removed at the end of April if they don’t pay up and will never be allowed to return. This is not my children. I have already paid our fees for the term. This is about other people’s children. Some of their parents will now be earning little or nothing as they are directors of self employed companies and can not get any government help. It is not an unreasonable request for the school to furlough staff that it doesn’t need at this moment.

BunsyGirl I have heard from a friend that the GDST have offered Years 3-13 10 per cent off, nursery completely free, and year R-2 30 per cent off (which I assume is to acknowledge the amount of parental supervision required).

Yesterday we got an email saying no fees for nursery or Reception, 30% reduction for Y1-Y4 and 10% reduction for Y5+ plus a hardship fund. I think a lot of parents must have made a fuss.

Any reduction will help me as I have a 90% bursary for my Y7 daughter and always struggle with fees for Y6 daughter who will have a 90% bursary from September.

I suppose my attitude to this would depend on the school. Our school is fairly low fees as school fees go. A small school that doesn't run a massive profit and does lots for the community. So while I appreciate any reduction I also understand as a business they need to keep going. And honestly 90% of the staff are fab and I want them to keep their jobs.

However, if the fees were high and included a lot of extras, or I wasn't happy with the school, I might feel differently.

And BunsyGirl schools are backtracking on what they may have said previously re entire fees being payable etc. It is a really tricky situation for everyone. I really hope your school changes its stance! Given what you said I would be tempted to let them know your thoughts.

I would hope the school would keep all staff employed. I presume they have contracts which ought to be honoured. The last thing I want is for the support staff to suffer at a time like this. Our school has offered to change payment terms for those in difficulty so that fees are paid over 4 months.

@biscuitsneeded you seem to be unaware that if parents aren't earning what they usually do, they will also leave come september and those staff will be out of a job anyway. Heads / bursars have the tough balancing act of worrying about whether they will have to replace staff or kids in September and at this point, it looks like support staff will be much more easily replaced than new bums on seats. I'd imagine that a number of those signed up to start in September will drop out if parental earnings are affected.
Aside from catering, there will be savings to be made in general supplies of physical materials, maintenance staff will be cut to a bare minimum & the rest furloughed, some office staff too, the cost of trips / outings for which extras aren't charged, building projects will be cut and maintenance kept to a minimum. There are savings to be made, and a smart head teacher will pass them on to parents if they want to hang on to them and generate a huge amount of goodwill in doing so. Private schools are businesses and in any commercial entity they'll sacrifice some staff to ensure there's enough custom to keep the wheels turning.

I'm also unsure why support teaching staff should be any different to any other furloughed staff, private school parents or not, in thinking that they should be treated differently and kept on full pay at a cost to their employer for not doing any work (as there is none for them to do) when there's a government scheme in place to cover precisely their situation?

it's brutal, but it's exactly what the parents (your customers) are facing. If you hate the idea of "ahem... demanding parents" (aka your customers) so much, maybe private education isn't for you?

@Randomnessembraced This is correct for GDST schools plus a refund for lunch charges. The CEO also wrote a letter explaining that there could have been further reductions but they are putting those funds into a hardship fund for parents who need help which is great. Our school delivered a full timetable plus homework this week which was actually too much for us and other working parents to deliver (plus entertain younger children!). School listened to feedback and have pared back for this week.

Interesting in a straw poll with friends in four other local (2 of which are much more expensive) private schools none of those are giving reductions. I am very impressed with GDST.

@Hermanhermit. No I'm not unaware that parents may also be adjusting to a loss of income, and I fully realise that this is a difficult time for everyone. I'm just saying that I can't see where a school can make that many savings. You're right of course that support staff could be furloughed. But those individuals really don't earn much and I don't think it would make a huge difference to the discount parents might be hoping for. Many private schools are run in such a way that any surplus gets put back into the school. Nobody is getting rich on fat profits - there just aren't any! And you're right that I shouldn't be moaning about parents - after all there are as many lovely ones as there are demanding ones - but sometimes it feels like we work our arses off for modest salaries but parents don't appreciate how hard we work or how relatively little we earn! So it's tough to read threads where people are resenting paying fees, when teachers, with almost no notice, have scrambled to learn new skills, prepared full lessons, remained accessible at all times to pupils and are often 'live-marking' as the lesson proceeds.

biscuitsneeded I am a parent at a fee-paying school and I fully agree with you.

There is an email thread going around among my year group at the moment, parents lobbying for support to launch a legal campaign for a reduction in fees next term. They want support staff and PE teachers furloughed with their income covered by the govt.

I’m finding it a bit disturbing really. I’m from a teaching family and I genuinely think hardly any parents understand how much work teachers do. They are so undervalued. The idea of making support staff (cleaners, secretaries, teaching assistants, caretakers, gardeners) temporarily redundant to save a couple of hundred quid per family is tasteless.

Nobody know how long schools will be closed. How is a headteacher supposed to calculate the rebate? Unless their heating bill is paid weekly?? I think the private schools that are offering discounts must have a decent reserve fund to cover this.

If we don’t pay fees now, some of us at smaller preps may have no school to return to in September.

I have heard of a school which is asking those who can to pay in full and offering a discount to anyone suffering hardship. This seems a more thoughtful way of operating.

trust me, we fully appreciate it when the teaching continues but the difference between our two schools, with one expecting full fees for setting worksheets that aren't marked & no interactive provision, is stark. A lot of parents struggle to make fees and are in the same position as the school - what do they cut so they can continue to operate? Where the teachers are doing what you're doing, there's no resentment at all. I find it bizarre that the school which is providing all bells and whistles is the one which is able to offer generous discounts. Anyway - sorry. Peace & love & here's to being open in September