Is demand for private schools falling in the long term?

[angrysquirrel73]

I am wondering whether the market for private education has shrunk since the 70s when I was child. I am guessing it has given the number of schools that have closed. I'm thinking that housing is now more expensive and people spend more on housing and extensions etc and have less to spend on private education?

I went to an all girls private school and since then the local private boys school also takes girls and my old school is not as academically selective as it was and does not do as well in the exams as it does.

I now also see this at my children's school. At the junior school it is academically non selective and there seems to be more emphasis on extra curricular than academics. Many parents seem more interested in extra curricular than academics. The local boys public school is now co-ed and I get the impression all of these schools are struggling to get 'bums on seats'.

We are outside of London and the home counties... I'm guessing its a different story in London...

It depends on the area. It’s a fact that boys in boys schools don’t do as well as boys in co-ed schools (or girls in girls schools) so that might be the reason for the rounding up. There’s only one boys school in my area but half a dozen girls schools because of that reason.

It's not so much that demand has fallen, but more that school fees have risen exponentially- it costs many times more to send a child to fee-paying schools than it did when you were in school. Socio-economic groups that would have educated in the private sector previously are just priced out of the market, completely in lots of areas of England, hence your former school no longer being as selective- they can't afford to be.
In my area schools have become more selective in the past ten years, and the waiting lists are still as long as your arm (for primary one has to register essentially as soon as they're born).

Depends on the area. My old independent had a waiting list to get in secondary level.

At our new prep both year 3 classes are full

Since the 70s massively, but much of that will have been during the 90s recession when boarding went out of fashion. It is worth remembering that until the 90s a lot of independent schools survived on things like the assisted places scheme and were not financially viable without it. The

A few things have helped either reverse the trend (in some areas) or slow the decline elsewhere. These include:

• An increase in household with two full-time working parents
• the Harry Potter books
• increased awareness about bursaries.
• Parents who bought houses 20 years ago in places that went up in value sharply and then moved somewhere cheaper, freeing up a lot of capital for school fees.
• an international super-rich elite who favour a British education over all other options.

Many of those factors have and will continue to change, which will put more independent schools in a potentially sticky spot, particularly with the school contribution to the teachers pension scheme having risen so sharply. This could result in fewer children attending independent schools in the future.

There are so many factors though. In the 70s and 80s the top rate of income tax was much higher than it is now, so people had less disposable income.

Its a good point re bursaries but when I was at school there were assisted places which the council paid for and both my husband and I had 100% academic scholarships. Now academic scholarships seem to come with a discount of 5 to 30% so no where near as generous.

RedAndGreenPlaid you could be quite right. In my children's classes most couples are double income and a high proportion are self-employed.

We are in the sticks so it just seems like there are alot of schools and not many children and its a fight for bums on seats and academic standards seem quite low. I was very 'average' for my school and left with ABB (pre A stars). Both our children are top of their classes so I get the impression that the range has moved down.

Actually just thinking about it in the last 10 years where we live:

• 1 prep school has closed
• 1 girls all through has closed its KS1
• 1 mixed all through school closed its nursery
• another school is about to close its nursery
• 2 prep schools have merged with 2 separate public schools

I guessing farming doesn't pay school fees any more?

I think demand is still high but fees are pretty unaffordable for families. I know lots of farming families where one or two generations back the farm would send four or five kids off to private boarding schools at 11 or 13. Nowadays that would cost over 120, 000 a year at the nearby school. Just unaffordable.

Demand is incredibly high at top name schools whether day or boarding and in booming cities (London). But outside of that many school are quietly closing or entering long declines.

The way the British property market works is such that it tends to make more sense for people to buy a property near a good state school as an investment, and then top up with tutoring if necessary.

In addition, UK parents who have considered private education seem to be highly motivated by things like great extra-curricular facilities and by small class sizes, both of which make it incredibly expensive to run schools, especially as increasingly expensive pensions etc. have to be paid for. There seems to be little market in the UK for "budget" private schools which have biggish class sizes and limited sports/music facilities.

So I think we will see a lot of small and "local" private schools closing. A smallish number of highly prestigious private schools are perhaps the exception.

I don’t know what the actual numbers are but I’m pretty sure that in London there are more preps than there used to be so it might just balance out the falling numbers in some other parts of the country. More of a shift in where/who can afford fees.
I’m in outer London and local preps don’t offer bursaries or scholarships at all but eg use the money to sponsor a state academy.
Farming is definitely no longer that lucrative in the U.K.

My small town used to have many private schools, only a couple of remain, the others are now housing estates.

GrumpyHoonMain "It’s a fact that boys in boys schools don’t do as well as boys in co-ed schools (or girls in girls schools)" - where is this fact from? The fact is there are hardly any co-ed schools at the top of private league tables,

Boys' private schools do very well. I think there is some evidence that boys did worse in all-boys' state schools back in the day when those were a thing. Although that is not what is being discussed here in any case.

SW London/Surrey here and demand and competition for places definitely seems to outstrip supply. Even the local schools that were non-selective and you could always get a space at when I was younger are now running waiting lists.

I can imagine it varies hugely by area.

Perhaps the standard of your local state schools has improved as well so people don’t see the reason to spend thousands of pounds on primary age schooling?

@Victoria1083

I don’t think there’s necessarily a link between local state schools and indies. London has the best state schools and probably the most indies too.

Pupil numbers are up in independent day schools this term in my area - the reason seems to be the lack of decent state online provision during lockdown.

@MarmiteCrumpet25 my sister was laughing about this today, 8 new families started at her kids’ indie as the local state offering was so poor - she said they are in for a shock as they are going to realise how little 15k is going to get them as the indie’s offering was equally rubbish and two classes doing remote learning 😂

I can think of 3 private girls' schools in Surrey/South London that have closed in the last 10 or so years. In Oxted, Banstead and Purley and a Co-ed closing in Purley.

Victoria1083 quality of state primaries here is very poor. We would need to travel 17 miles each way to get to an outstanding primary. Expectations are low..

JoJoSM2 I think this is very true re farming. Most of the parents at our children's prep are doctors or business owners. No farmers.

We are in Yorkshire and there are quite a few farming families at my DCs Private school

Lots have closed/ become co ed/ merged here too.

Fees have disproportionately risen since the 90s.

My parents only paid £3k pa for my place then- it’s now £12k. Wages haven’t risen that much!

There was a noughties baby boom so there are a lot more children now than in the 80s/90s which is why some school in some areas are in demand but overall numbers have fallen.

Pre labour cancelling the assisted places scheme in 1997 1/5 of my classmates were there on that- it included uniforms and transport too.

It was a much more socio-economic mixed cohort then and much more academic. Now it lets in any rich kid and has slumped in the tables.

I wish there were ‘budget’ private schools- for £3k I’d certainly use them for my dcs! I’m not bothered by the class sizes or extra curriculars, from my experience it was more the ethos which differentiated it from the local state schools.

This is a very recent TES article that paints a pretty austere picture of what this year has done to budgets.

www.tes.com/news/private-school-funds-shot-pieces-mergers-expected

I actually don't think so, not even in these corona times. This is just a case of the press blowing things out of proportion. Of course they'll a slight downturn in numbers but nowhere as bad as it's being made out to be. The quote below sums it up really

"Since March, about 40 independent schools have closed –but in a normal year 20 would close, and all [those]that have closed are small, some very, very small and pretty well all of them were in some financial difficulty already, so the pandemic simply presentedthem with an opportunity to either merge with someone else or sell the company.

"Overall, the situation is much better than we would have predicted back in March but it's still unfolding

Basically the majority of the Indies that closed down were going to do so anyways, the coronavirus pandemic simply gave them a reason to close sooner.

The stats shows that they are more private schools than they've been in a long time so there is clearly a demand for it somewhere.