Can we afford private school?

[Zorigami]

Hi, looking at putting DC's in private school - primary at this stage. Combined fees would be £17k pa but I am sure there are loads of extra's. Based on our household income, it will be a squeeze and will have to apply for bursary and look for better paying job etc.

What other extra's should I be looking at to try and work it out affordability. Uniform will no doubt be expensive.

And yes I know state schools are fine - just not our local ones.

Thanks.

Walthamstowe Hall is not 26k either. Honestly do check the fact before making these statements fees aren't exactly open to intrepration (unlike exam results) and it is very easy to do after all.

Oh sorry. Tonbridge is only £29.5k for day not £34k. My error.

I meant Sevenoaks schools not walthamstow hall which is also in sevenoaks.

MrsFlorick You seem to have DM reporting tendencies. I've just checked for Tonbridge - £9,072 a term (which does not make £29,500). As HG points out that is for the extended 6-7 day timetable and facilities of a boarding school. Very expensive but does n't need further exaggeration. Sevenoaks school £20,630 for day pupils.

Ds started in reception this year and we pay around 3k per term. Uniform was sound 250 in school uniform shop and an additional £50/70 for other bits elsewhere.
Fees include lunch, and school day 8-5pm including tea, (X some people pick up at 3.30, but until 5 is included) you can have 7.30-6pm day but pay a bit extra for this.
Not many trips out yet, but I assume in reception there are less than in later years?

Primary schools are around 10K a year and secondaries's fees rise steeply, from 14k to 20k per year. Bursaries are not frequently offered if ever, for primary, it is more a secondary thing.

I think the reason that people are commenting on the fees in OP seeming cheap is because that is £8-9K per child (the £17k is the combined fees).

So that is only just over one set of day fees at the schools mentioned (Harberdashers Girls is £13.5-14.1k per pupil per term).

OP: you cannot be sure of securing a bursary, but that's not a reason to try. You do need to be realistic about your chances of securing one though, as some schools have far more bursary applicants than they can possibly make offers to, even if they would have been more than happy with the children as pupils.

Fee inflation is the one to watch out for. Allow 5% per year in your planning. School fees have outstripped all other indices since about 2000, and show no sign of slowing down.

Move to greater manchester where the fees are cheaper. Small preps are around £6k- £7k per child per year. The bigger well regarded independents (withington girls and Manchester grammar school etc) are between £11k and £12 k per year at senior level (don't know about the prep dept fees). I even know of one decent prep where the fees are less than £5k per year.

And remember that bursaries are few and far between at prep stage.

The primary my son goes to is never more than 3k a term (cheaper now as son is in the nursery). And we are just outside of London.

Also they don't do skiing holidays at ours , just pgl in Dorset or Calais in the last year.
Uniform outlay at start was about 300 quid. Coat and blazer most expensive.
M and s for non logo bits.
School trips tend to be £20 a go (one a term) and lunch is about 3.50 a day.

So yes a few are very expensive - usually those connected to boarding schools (and on the whole the boarding schools get worse exam results than the selective day schools by the way so you pay extra for worse results and if sent away to harm your child). The day schools are perfectly affordable.

The day schools are perfectly affordable.

They are not affordable to the majority, not even the ones I mentioned which are significantly cheaper than others around the country.

I pay £9k for one prep and £12,500 for the other. The cheaper one has lunch on top but clubs included, the more expensive includes lunch but not clubs. My extras for each school is around £200 a term including breakfast and after school clubs. Residential are compulsory from year 3 and about £150. Fees increase hugely at secondary, one goes up to £16k pa and the other to £21k pa. uniform for the cheaper one is mainly available on the high street apart from sports kit and blazer, the more expensive one is only available in the uniform shop but it's very good quality and lasts until it's grown out of and there's lots of handing down uniforms to friends and siblings.

A couple marry. They both work full time and both earn say the average pay of £24k a year. Then they have a child. So either they lose a whole income = almost two sets of school fees or they pay full time childcare for 2 children. Either way those costs/losses which they have to fund for the first 4 years are not too different from 2 sets of school fees. Thus that kind of couple could usually afford school fees if they have been losing a full income (and then that person goes back to full time work) or else if they have been paying for 2 full time nursery places.,

At the risk of being shouted out of the forum, I (and all, bar one, of the mums I know at our prep school), simply don't look too far ahead when calculating the school fees. We pay in whatever way we can, monthly, termly or annually (sometimes, especially with siblings, there can be a discount doing it that way). It just makes it feel more affordable - "I have to find £X this month" rather than "I need £100,000 + over the next x years". If you chose the private route then we all know it's very, very expensive, but sometimes looking at it in a different way, especially as nobody knows what the future will hold, helps.

Waiting for the voices of dissent now ..... :)

Pointing out the obvious but to pay the £17pa (plus extras) you need to earn around £25k gross just for the school fees. As everyone says this will head north with time. But as also pointed out its no more than you may have already been paying for nursery / nanny...

Our plan A is to stick with state for primary school and switch to private for secondary school. This gives us a few years to save before the school fees start hitting us.
Good luck!

Yikes - tempted to move out of London now. We are paying almost double the OP - £15k a year for DS prep and £18k a year for DD's.

Oddly whilst DS's fees are lower they include everything but music lessons whilst we have to pay for DD's clubs too. Her uniform is ludicrously expensive too and can only be bought from the school .

It gets worse later on. The London day options all seem to be around £21-24k per year (although we are focusing on the super-selective schools so I suppose being so in demand allows them to charge more). The boarding options we are considering are about £35k a year.

I'm in the east midlands with two DC at private school.

Primary is around £10,500 per annum (this year)
Secondary is around £14k per annum

The fees go up 5-6 percent every year.

On top of that lunch is around £250ish a term. Trips are around £200ish unless you chose to send your DC on the ski trips etc (ski trip is about £1k a year). Uniform is around £200 once you factor in all the compulsory sports kit items. 90 per cent of the children learn a musical instrument and the cost of a half hour lesson is about £20 a week. Drama is charged separately. After school club is charged separately.

I would think very carefully about it. At my DCs school there have been a number of children leave due to affordability which is such a shame for them. Will you be able to afford the senior school fees? In your position I would speak to the bursar about bursaries in advance so that you have a better understanding of the chances of success.

Outer London day though is more like £15k by the way. Even sixth form habs girls is £15k.

DeoGratias - my DC's preps aren't central London. Those are fees for outer edges of SW London. I think you are right though and the Croydon schools are about £18k.

We are Staffordshire

Years 1 and 2 work out just over 3000 per term. That includes compulsory extras which they class as books food insurance other bits but all after school care. This was a big decider for us as at other schools it was chargeable.

Ballet 120 per term
Piano 200 per term
Riding and other extras can all mount up.

Uniform quite expensive but everyone uses used shop on site. Great for all extra curricular bits too.

It gets really expensive in senior.

I'm trying not to think about it

We pay 4,250 a term (Yr8) but that doesn't include lunches which are compulsory until Yr9.

On top we pay for uniform which only has one - online - supplier so quite expensive for all the kit. In addition we have to pay for various school trips (sporting weekends, theatre, ballet), which - although not compulsory - are taken up by all classmates so about 1,000 a year. We don't go on the annual ski trip (yet) which is 3,500 (to Vermont).

Most clubs are free but we do pay extra for fencing. We don't send her to riding, golf or ski clubs as they are also extra.

The most important thing to note is that fees go up as you move through school and you have to allow for increases due to inflation.

OMG ski trip to Vermont? you have to be kidding? Cant they go to the Alps? My bro was telling his son's new school they go skiing in the US!... arrgg..

OP what are the state schools like near you? We went with the decision to go state for now as while fees for one would have been ok, we would have found two stressful (although Dc2 still a few years away!) Dc1 is at infant school then the plan is prep and 11+. Is this an option for you? If we didn't have 11+ as an option then I think we would do state plus tutors in primary then move to private for secondary, based on the assumption that it when it is really worth it. DH and I were both privately educated and it took me a long time to get my head around state (partic the 30 kids in a class) but to give it its dues DC1 loves it and is very engaged. The worst thing for us would be putting kids into private then having to take them out down the line. If it's going to be a push for you, then I would start them off in state and then when you have a better paid job move them. Which is why I asked what the state schools are like

deogratis I understand your theory but many people on average incomes have family to help out with childcare or work opposite shift patterns to reduce the childcare bill or they save for a few years before having children to enable them to afford childcare or they have their children a few years apart so they only have to full one full time set of childcare fees at a time. Simply saying it is the same costs as childcare is therefore a bit simplistic.

A family with two people earning £24k each (as per your example) would really struggle to spend one of the salaries just on school fees because that would mean only having around £1600 per month for all household costs and food, clothing etc which for a family of 4 is very tight on a long term basis.
I still think the vast majority of families cannot afford two full sets of private school fees.