Private school

[Jubba]

How many of you send children to private school? What are the benefits?

Do any of you send more than 1 child? And roughly how much a mo th does it cost you!

Thank you! ❤️

oh, fees start at approx £9000/yr in reception and rise gradually to £15,000 in yr7/8.
This is in line with all the other local indepedent schools.

@bengalcat you're paying £78k per annum for one child?! Please tell me that's not right!
We have DS1 at private school, currently overseas so fees are a bit lower than the London prep he would otherwise have attended. DS2 starts in September. When they reach Yr2/Yr3 we'll be back in Uk and the fees for each at their future school (most likely one) are £7k per term, so £42k per annum + extras. Obviously fees will have risen to some degree by then though.

DS at a well known London day school £22K a year without extras

Jellycat1 - no quoted fees are per term not per month so risen from @£1500 per term in junior now @£6100 per term or so

We have 2 kids in private school. DS1 in 13 and in Y8, there are 11 pupils in his class. DS2 is 5 and in Y1, they are 9. Their teachers and form tutors know them so well, they can just look at them and see if anything is wrong. Nobody gets left behind and bullying is pretty much non existent.

The curriculum has always been great, and each child is allowed to flourish. I think DS1 would do fine at any school. He’s really been challenged here though and received an academic scholarship to a highly selective secondary. DS2 is really sensitive and quite shy, so he really needs the small classes and homey settings in order to come out of his shell.

A bonus for us is that they’re just a bit more flexible if we compare to people we know in the state system. There’s no such thing as fines for absence, and they have the time and resources to tailor each child’s educational journey.

We pay about £1100 per month for youngesr and £1450 per month for eldest.

We have two children, both in independent schools (different schools). The benefits for our children are different for each.
The eldest is very bright and was bored senseless at the state primary. There were no opportunities for extracurricular activities. He now goes to a high performing independent school where he is challenged and has a ridiculous amount of extracurricular stuff to choose from. He is so happy at his school as it suits his personality perfectly.
The youngest was completely lost in a class of 30. He regressed last year - his struggles were ignored as he was not disruptive. It began to erode his self esteem . He is now at a tiny, non-selective independent school in a very small class. He has made so much progress this year but the most noticeable different is his confidence. He seems so much happier in his skin and is feeling so much better about himself. I honestly could not put a price on this and I am annoyed with myself for not trusting my instincts to move him sooner.

So this time last year we decided to move them both. We have less money to spend but the benefits far outweigh the financial cost and there are absolutely no regrets.

Cost wise, it's £6200 per term for both of them at the moment but that is going to increase each year. Seems like a bargain compared to the London prices people have quoted!

Id be the first to admit that not all independent school;s are better than the state sector especially when it comes to academia although let face it the top top schools with matching school fees are in a totally different league to anything the state can offer in terms of facilities etc. But I dont agree with this:
"Extra curricular are generally consistently better than your average state school, but a good state school can easily match private."
It's no coincidence that more UK Olympians come from the independent sector than the stat sector but 7% of children are educated at them. I have worked in both sectors and music provision is also usually of a significantly higher standard in the independent sector than in the state sector. At DS2's school which started in yr 9 being grade 8 in an instrument often 2 on starting school was pretty common and received scant recognition, a place in one of the orchestra.ensembles etc but nothing more to be truly noticed you had to be better than garden 8 unless it was an very unusual instrument. At their prep you had to be grade 5 at least to get onto the school orchestra, lots of time was available for practicing etc in particular singing.
But I do think a lot comes down to how well you and your DC fit the school (in both sectors) Ive known unhappy children in both, and also I know That child A may thrive in a particular school (again in both sectors) and child B loathes it.

As I always saying paying just widens your choices and may enable you to find a school that fits your DC better.

I think different people pay for different things. We started our older 2 boys in the state sector then moved them after the infants. However, unlike some of the posters above, I discounted any schools with classes of 15 or less. My boys were in classes of 22-24 for most of the prep years.

I disagree with @MaisyPops that good state schools can match good independent schools when it comes to extra curricular. Many state primaries are getting similar results academically but I’ve never seen a state school that can match a good private school in terms of facilities and extra curricular. At secondary there isn’t the funding and at primary it’s not only funding but often space and staffing levels too. 2hours of music a week and 3hours of sport. Art curriculum that includes use of the kiln, painting on canvas, textiles, stained glass, laser art etc. Sport that includes 1h of swimming a wk in the sch pool, rounders, hockey, gymnastics, dance, football, tag rugby, climbing and athletics all taught by dedicated PE specialists and all offered as extra curricular as well and timetabled. In the infants, which only my DS3 benefitted from, the have reading club, habitat club, allotment club, construction club, art&craft group. They can learn almost any instrument of their choosing. There is also drama and LAMDA. They packed so much into each day and by the time the older ones reached senior school they have developed real passion for their chosen sports and instruments. It also forstered an inclination to be busy. So at weekends they’re up and out doing stuff which is the biggest difference I see between my children and those of friends who kept theirs in the state sector. My boys may come out with similar grades to those who went to our local high achieving comp but for me it’s how their school has shaped them as people that I’m most grateful for. Like all teenagers they’re interested in their phones but thankfully, unlike a lots of other teenagers, their lives don’t revolve around them.

I sent my son to an independent school, northlondongrammar.com/contact-us-here/ , as they are having small-size classrooms and they are outstanding

@coffeeincosta

£12k is on the low side for London preps, except possibly for reception - some charge a lot less for reception than for other years.

devonshirehouseschool.co.uk/fees-and-application/
www.lyndhursthouse.co.uk/admissions-fees.php
www.hendonprep.co.uk/admissions-fees/fees/
www.stanthonysgirls.co.uk/admissions/admissions-procedure/

@KoshaMangsho do you really pay only £7,200 fees per year for one child? Which school if you don't mind me asking?

One more is here: northlondongrammar.com/key-information/school-fees/

I have 1 in Y7 and 1 in Y11 at Private because the State one available to us isn’t very good at all. DD was offered a Grammar place but the school is in the next town plus it was unlikely her younger brother would get a place there.
We are in Yorkshire so it’s not really expensive, about £11k a year each and we are only having a 1 year overlap. They were both at State Primary, which gave us chance to save . DD has a 25% scholarship abd DS gets a 5% sibling discount too.

I have two at private school. Both board and the schools are amazing. The fees for DS are about £41k pa. Dd is about to start at senior school and her fees will be about £38k pa. it is a lot of money, especially when there are other costs like travel and extras on top of this. But we love both schools and wouldn’t have been able to find anything comparable in the state sector. One offers intellectual challenge and depth of study to a degree that the other schools we looked at seemed preliminary. The other offers an unparalleled diversity of curriculum and challenge. My two dc are very different, so it’s been a privilege to choose a school which felt right for them. We have a little experience of the state system where we are and in general find that in private schools class sizes are considerably smaller, there is more time spent on music, sports and the arts, the teachers all know the children and their families very well, parents can contact teachers at any time and will usually receive responses in quite a timely fashion, facilities are often much better (I.e. swimming pools, sports grounds, science equipment, etc - although this is not always as important as you think!), the level of visiting speakers giving talks etc is often quite inspiring, private schools have a larger international cohort (we consider this a big plus)...

We left an excellent state school to go private. Cost is £30k for two in prep (standard where we are) where we are which will rise as they move up the school. Hard pill to swallow the school fees. However, one child was being bullied for a few years in State which was affecting confidence. Has since thrived at the prep so the money is worth it in that sense. Yes, we'd have saved £££ sticking to State and academically we feel performance would have been the same but not at the cost of our child being unhappy or having their confidence wrecked. We felt lucky we had the option to move to private once it became apparent the school couldn't resolve.