What is the TRUE cost of private school?

[ElenyaTuesday]

I hope someone can help me here. We have decided to look at private senior schools for ds1 for next year. The fees are around £11,000pa which is just about manageable. My main worry is the cost of everything else - what else would we have to budget for? I know that music tuition and exam fees aren't included but are there other common costs at private school that we need to consider?
Thanks.

Good point about pensions. Those of us who work int he private sector therefore pay more tax to fund state teachers' pensions whilst our own pensions are depleted and not protected as state ones are whilst also funding to protect the pensions of teachers in the private sector, all because of the damage labour has done to pensions in general.

Trips to museums, zoos etc seem to be included at DS schools (Forest in Snaresbrook)

We do get solidly ripped off for school uniform though. Compulsory, and very expensive. Got a note the other day snottily telling us that the kids must wear uniform trunks in the pool.
They are more expensive that the dearest designer swimwear.

Good grief - I've got a spreadsheet going now!! I've included inflation of about 6%pa. I've had another look at the school websites - books are definitely included - phew! Unfortunately schools are not particularly forthcoming about the additional costs, are they? It's all photos of beautiful grounds and old buildings (or nasty 1960s building in one case!). I have to factor in the really long holidays as well.
I am really, really shocked at mum2sons message about "clothes from Tesco" - particularly as I buy my children's clothes there (and at Sainsburys) . I don't want ds1 to be a pompous, annoying brat. The children I have seen from the schools on my list seem fairly okay, though.

DS has clothes from TESCO and GAP too

but as he wears uniform every day

Only 3 non-uniform days a year

A lot of sensible parents in private schools because they're paying for fees buy cheap clothes. Mine have had stuff from the local Oxfam shop. I don't think most children are that bothered about clothes until they reach a certain age and uniforms remove all that showing off over clothes thing.

I have paid school fees for the last 19 years and I know what's on bills each time. Our typical one would be term's fees, school lunches, (in our case school coach daily) and £10 school magazine or photos although you don't have to buy those. May be once per child per secondary career one voluntary ski trip or French exchange. Our also chose to learn an instrument in school so we would be paying for that too but that's out of choice. On red nose day they just took in £1 for charity and £1 for tuck shop - voluntary. I don't think most extras really add a huge amount. I'd worry more about affording the basic fees. Try to get them to choose friends who aren't well off perhaps too. I often felt we earned more than most, more than the local Indian shop keepers putting every last penny into the private school fees etc so I never felt having to keep up with other parents but some schools are just kind of flashy so avoid those.

DC - does the expensive bit of uniform include the horrid washed out blue jumpers which just spoil the whole look of the uniform takes any resemblance of smartness away

Xenia - just as well teachers get decent pensions even if the private sector is taxed to pay for it as the salaries and bonuses paid to those in the city are pushing up house prices to beyond what a teacher can afford. So even if a parent can afford to live in a decent catchment area or pay the fees the teacher has to live miles away

Thanks Xenia. I know the closest school takes 60% of its children from state primaries so most of the parents should be fairly ordinary like us. One of the others is a boarding school plus has a prep school so I think the pupil profile is quite different there. Once we've had a good look round all of them we should have a better idea which one (if any!!) suits ds1.

Yes, true. It's part of the deal. It's why my brother works for the NHS - the good pension, at least in part. If you start tinkering with that part of the deal then you undermine part of the basis on which people picked that job in the first place.

But we are ending up with two tier pension provision - private sector workers often only on the £20k a year average wage working beyond 65 because their pensions are hugely inadequate and public sector colleagues often better paid anyway whose pensions are well protected.

Uniform (including various sports'kit) always works out expensive (as mentioned already on thread) mainly because you have to buy from the school shop as opposed to mothercare/tescos/asda/sainsbury's etc etc. but I think most school shops have what they refer to as 'nearly new" (so 2nd hand !) clothes that you can buy - mine are happy to do that at the moment.

School lunches are included in our fees, as are the majority of after school activities.

We have to pay extra for some after school activities, but only those where expert tuition is needed so eg horse-riding, mountaineering, karate, etc etc. Included in fees are various during and after school activites such as dance, football, rugby, tennis, swimming, basketball and the usual "mainstream" sports such as hockey, netball, rounders, & cricket. I guess, if you worked it out you'd be looking to budget an extra 20% of the annual fee for 'extras" but that would depend on what DC chose as activities.

EYT - best decision we've ever made tbh, particularly when what would have been our DS's senior school was featured on national news recently with 'vistors' to the school carrying out a violent hammer assault on one of the pupils.........

confusedandignorant, I'm not the right person to judge school uniforms. I think they're all shite, and exist merely to pander to some teachers egos and parents who mistake style for substance.
If uniforms are so good I ask:
How many parents like wearing them
How many teachers wear mortarboard and gown, and what their reaction would be if they had to pay rip-off prices to buy them ?

Also if uniforms are so good, why not have one. The army and police nearly manage this. Stick badges on for each school, vastly cheaper.

Xenia, I fear that "tinkering" with state employees pensions is pretty close to inevitable. Both Labour ant Conservatives have a shameful record in this regard.
The tories transferred people out of state schemes, labour protested, right up until the point where fixing that meant that they would have to tax Daily Mail readers, at which point they said it was "impossible".

pensions, probably. My brother in the NHS says they have robbed him of £250k of his pension by averaging his doctor's salary over a 40 year career rather than final salary. As yo don't earn much for 10 - 15 years it is a massive change which does not affect lower paid NHS earners whose starting salary is much what they end up on at 65.

Back to the question ... Cartons of milk at morning break is an extra at my childs school.

Music lessons (after yr4) are an extra along with buying instruments and music books. They dont have to go down that line tho.

yes and as a junior doctor works 169 hours a week can save a lot as they don't have time to go out and spend any

I dont' think £27k is very much at all. My daughter is graduating and starting on more than that. We;re talking about a very very few people who have the skills and exam results to become doctors. Most of us could never manage it. They mostly don't do it for the money as those who graduate with them and go into the City etc earn a lot more on average.

I was shocked in the year I worked in a private school to find that children with special needs had to pay extra for learning support. There were a number of dyslexic children who had weekly sessions and their parents were billed for them. Check this - I was horrified as assumed as with state sector children who needed extra support should have a right to that support

I have 3 children at different independent schools.Fees range from £2000 aterm for the little one to £3500 for the 13 year old.The oldest and middle have both had some support.ds2 currently get 2 hours 1:1 a week plus classromm support and some group support like learning skill we have never had to pay extra for any of this

Confusedandignorant, following the introduction of the European Working Time Directive (EWTD) in 2004, junior doctors are allowed to work no more than 56 hours per week on average, and from 2009 that will reduce to 48 hours.

Speedy, I thought those rules can be opted out of?

I thought this was so ridiculous it was actually quite funny. My Sister pays over £2,000 a term for a 6 year old in London. As far as I can make out, everything else is at further cost. Recently, the school were taking my Nephew's class of 14 on a trip where they would be able to go on a little steam train ride. The steam train ride costs 20 p per child. They asked the parents for the 20 p for each child. I couldn't believe it, piss taking or what. It would have given me great pleasure to put the £2.80 (cost of ride for the whole class) in an envelope with a note saying "seeing as your funds are obviously so stretched, I have taken the liberty of paying for all the children's ride." Better still, I may have given them a tenner and told them to buy them all an ice cream too.
FFS.

The DOH of health is currently shift rotas for junior doctors that provides 24 hour cover and that does not exceed the 48 hour rule. This is something that all NHS Trusts are having to deal with (I'm a NED at a NHS Trust) because they have to ensure that they are in a position to deliver their services once the junior doctors start working the new shift patterns.

The days of junior doctors working excessive hours are over.

currently designing

philly, your place is obviously a much better private school than the one I worked at which seemed IMO to rip off its parents at all times, hence I only stayed a year

I never felt ripped off. Few private schools make any profits and I don't think the teachers are over paid. If they're asked to bring in £1 to spend at a trip to a museum I never feel the school ought to subsidise that.

So far - DD only in first year - I think we are getting good value for money for our termly fees for DD's school. Very pleased.