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Original poster

What is the TRUE cost of private school?

129 replies

ElenyaTuesday · 19/03/2007 15:00

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.

OP posts:
Justaboutmanaging · 22/03/2007 21:53

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Hulababy · 23/03/2007 08:22

What is strange? Valuing home life and a more even work life balance, than a ridiculously high salary?

Anna8888 · 23/03/2007 08:37

I set great store by home life and work/life balance.

But I want to take issue with the idea that a high-earning accountant, lawyer, investment banker or management consultant is giving less back to society than a teacher, nurse, doctor etc. That is NOT true.

People in those high-earning and immensely demanding professions are part of the powerhouse of our economy. If we didn't have big business (and high-performing accountants, lawyers etc to service big business) we wouldn't have as a society any money to pay for teachers, nurses and doctors. Without business we would have nothing.

Judy1234 · 23/03/2007 09:09

Obviously I agree with Anna.
Hula, I thought it was strange "I'd be worried about the type of work life balance a person would have if they had toprove their worth for such high salaries" and part of the reason is that many a nurse/shift working couple work terribly long hours or the husband drives lorries or they're on the minimum wage and may be holding two jobs down and have no work life balance that is good at all. If my daughter can start on qualification on £50k+ then of course later she can choose to earn less or work part time but she will have greater choices and people in those better paid roles get power and control that those working on factory production lines just don't have. They can save enough to retire in their 40s and run vineyards if they choose. The money does make a material difference to your life and obviously you only get those jobs if you are worth that money anyway.

The point of the thread was what can we do for our children when they are little and in terms of schooling which could have an impact on their life later and if you give them an education which enables them if they want to choose these kinds of jobs then I think you've benefited them even if later they don't enjoy the work and do something else. If insetad you send them to a school where they will be luck to get 5 GCSEs at grade C level then it will be harder for them to get those kinds of jobs.

Hulababy · 23/03/2007 09:16

Harder possibly but not that unusual.

My main concern was that you talk so much of such high salaries. But with my experience those very high salaries come with a huge pay off regards home work life balance. Certainly when families and children are involved, some thing, IME, are far more important.

However, this is all off track.

The OP asks for the true costs of private schooling - and what she actually talks about is not thes elong terms costs and benefits, but the day to day costs of sending a child to private school: uniform costs, school trips, the little extras that all add up. I hope somewhere is the midst of all this off track stuff the OP got some answers to her question!

Judy1234 · 23/03/2007 09:22

I think that was probably answered earlier on. The other topic is interesting. Having spend so much time with students in the last few years I can see they know what they're getting into. They sit there and talk about the lives they think they want to lead. They know that rare boy who is starting off at the bank won't have the free time the girl messing around in the auction house will have. I wish of course it were the girl at the bank and the boy at the auction house but there you go - she'll probably marry some one well off enough to keep her in antiques forever anyway.

Anna8888 · 23/03/2007 09:34

Xenia - and that's the main difference between us, Xenia.

I think that the girl at the auction house who marries the man who will keep her in antiques forever is making a perfectly valid feminist life choice.

DominiConnor · 23/03/2007 09:35

Xenia has hit upon an interesting point, and of course some jobs attract lots of women but the men they meet there are few and poor.
I wonder if this might be a way to help tempt girls to make less awful choices on education and employment ?
I'm in the opposite place entirely. The people I pimp for earn up to footballer money and are highly educated, of all nationalities and 97% male.
We have half a business plan to start an introductions agency, ironically because of repeated suggestions by the women.

Judy1234 · 23/03/2007 09:45

Actually I haven't seen huge amounts of sexism in their choices except for those two. One of her female friends has just got accepted to train to fly fighter planes in the US or something. The main thing is that they understand the implications of a particular career choice. Sometimes they seem to base their decisions on such weird bits of random information I suppose like people do at school - I liked the geography teacher hence I did that or whatever. Or XYZ must earn a lot as they have ABC car.

Justaboutmanaging · 23/03/2007 16:33

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Anna8888 · 23/03/2007 16:43

Well, my partner manages a company with several thousand workers. Since he took it over four years ago the company has doubled in size. He is very motivated by the fact that he provides stable employment for so many people - as well as being motivated by his own remuneration and all the things he learns as the company grows.

Judy1234 · 23/03/2007 16:56

Yes, so probably most of us don't want our children to have very long hours johs in poorly paid work unless the children absolutely adore it and wouldn't do anything else. Plenty of people work abroad for charities although I'd argue that the average rich industrialist through charitable giving and just as Anna says providing jobs for others and often a good product for consumers too does more overall good than the one charity worker. Just as one mother who is also a teacher and works does good for more children over 40 years than had she spent 40 years at home just with her own children. In other words you deprive the world in a selfish way if you stay at home with your children and may be that's morally bad.

Anna8888 · 23/03/2007 17:02

Xenia, you are on very dangerous ground to take the moral highground on WOHM versus SAHM.

A lot of highly qualified women make the compromise to be SAHM to provide a stable marriage that will provide a stable home for their children.

Eleusis · 23/03/2007 17:07

"to be SAHM to provide a stable marriage "

Now that's a new one. I though you were doing it for the kids, which I can accept. It's not my view, but I can appreciate that other people are doing what they believe is best. But, staying home for the sake of the marriage... a bit too victorian for my taste.

Anna8888 · 23/03/2007 17:08

Eleusis - maybe, but there's a lot of it about.

Judy1234 · 23/03/2007 17:13

Don't agree. Many men stray because their women are dull housewives with nothing much to talk about who stay home and get fat. Working wives can be more interesting and as they're valued by society through their earning capacity you can present them as a kind of other half power couple stuff which some men like. I don't fancy a stay at home husband for similar reasons.

Eleusis · 23/03/2007 17:17

No. Are you saying that in this day and gage women are staying home to serve their man??

NOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!

Judy1234 · 23/03/2007 17:19

Man serves woman by earning money. Woman serve men by cleaning up after him and minding his children. The traditional deal. Not that it suits most people.

Eleusis · 23/03/2007 17:21

Eleusis stick finger in ear and sings

La la la la la la la la la la....

Anna8888 · 23/03/2007 17:22

Absolutely not.

To make everyone's life interesting and full of opportunities (which takes a lot of time and intelligence) rather than one of money-grubbing drudgery.

Judy1234 · 23/03/2007 17:25

I bet your partner doesn't see his work as money grubbing drudgery though and I don't see mine as that.

Anyway we got off the point and if I weren't feeling so ill I wouldn't even be on here.

Anna8888 · 23/03/2007 17:28

When both partners work and both partners have to share household and childcare responsibilities, life gets terribly boring. That's how my partner felt in his old life. New one is much more fun and he is 1000x happier...

Anna8888 · 23/03/2007 17:28

When both partners work and both partners have to share household and childcare responsibilities, life gets terribly boring. That's how my partner felt in his old life. New one is much more fun and he is 1000x happier...

Judy1234 · 23/03/2007 17:38

Most people would think a second marriage is happier, though. I don't think you can extrapolate from that to a generality. He may have felt happier married to his first wife at least at first but doesn't want to tell you that to upset you even. None of us can know those things.

Eleusis · 23/03/2007 17:38

Juggling the work and family life is anything but boring.

Have you been sniffing the cleaning fluids?