School fees going up loads! Anyone else?!

[Abuildingwith4wallsandtmrinsid]

Regular poster who has name changed for this post.

My DC’s school is putting up school fees by over 7 per cent from September 2022 for existing parents, more for incomers.
Is this the norm now?!! I realise prices are going up but shouldn’t they try and contain costs/be as lean as possible? Apparently they need to build their bursary funds and go green. We have tons of parents who already struggle with the fees.
Other DC thankfully in state school. I don’t think it is good value this whole private school thing. But once your kid is there you are trapped.

I've recently read threads on here from people going to food banks to feed their families, wearing extra layers to keep warm and crying in Asda because they haven't got enough money to buy a 55p treat and you have started a thread about your private school fees. Jesus. Read the room.

She has read the room - haven't you seen his there are lots of private school parents, alongside those looking fir houses what cost millions, handbags that cost thousands, dresses and shoes that cost hundreds etc.

You can post on MN about anything, and you'll find posters in the same boat.

And yes, one extends more sympathy to those in truly hard circumstance than to those who have to forego something expensive, but it's wrong to drive out some issues because they're nit 'worthy' enough

@Blossomtoes

but even the 'obscure, provincial private schools cost thousands

They certainly do.

- and parents are not shelled out those sums for nothing

We did. Tens of thousands to achieve what was easily achievable by state school pupils.

Although you could have chosen the state school

@cantatata @RussianSpy101 And she is to be congratulated on doing the best for her child, like all mums do.
Lets just hope you or she don't turn up on the Uni threads in a few years with plentiful of other private school mums recently who are bemoaning the change in university admissions and the contextual offer schemes (not that your friends DC would have got one from grammar in the first place, but those parents don't seem to get that, they just go in to full moan mode!) They all seem sure that their children didn't get in to their first choice uni because someone from a state school was given preference (absolute tosh of course, but if it makes them feel better.)

Although you could have chosen the state school

And you could have read the post where I say why we didn’t. 🤷‍♀️ And of course if we’d had a crystal ball we wouldn’t have done it.

@Blossomtoes

Although you could have chosen the state school

And you could have read the post where I say why we didn’t. 🤷‍♀️ And of course if we’d had a crystal ball we wouldn’t have done it.

I did see something along the lines of dreadful or dire. I’ve been in a part of London which had similar and some schools initially were places people avoided, but over the last 15 years they’ve changed because that has stopped. The intake and reputation changes based on decisions not to opt out.

But as you say you’d not choose the same again - or maybe still not the dire state? it’s hard to regret a big cost though if it hasn’t been worth it.

@Chocalata of course she is. Im 98% sure my son won’t be going to university. I haven’t sent him to private school for that.

@Abuildingwith4wallsandtmrinsid

And I am sorry but I do not believe that most independent schools were like this 20 odd years ago. Yes, you had to pay the fees but there wasn’t this huge marketing machine that drove everything and huge turnover of staff. There was more focus on actual teaching, teacher wellbeing, the pupils etc rather than status and league tables and swanky buildings for brochures. And even if you do your “research”, when they market on the open day nobody is going to tell you how cut throat the whole thing can be and how careerist some of the management team are and hypocritical. Hopefully it is not like this at all schools and our school just took a turn for the worse! Lots of staff certainly seem to think so and so do many parents. A school is a community not a business. I will not change my views in that regard. If I ran a school, I would be seeking parental, teacher/other staff and pupil input on all important matters via surveys, constantly. And I would communicate constantly - that is where I would focus my efforts, not on constant marketing which is what our headmaster does. I would leave that to highly competent admissions staff.

Sorry, but I think they were like that 20 years ago. Forty and more years ago, the marketing might not have been so glossy, but instead they were more openly snobby and could sit back and rely on their upper middle class intake who would never have touched any state schools with a barge pole. Now they just have to fight for anyone with money left going spare. The amount of credulity among parents remains similar, in that 40-years ago, industrial-scale levels of child abuse and dire teaching frequently went unchallenged or unnoticed, and parents would tolerate miserable children continuing in horrible prep schools or public schools because of the perceived rewards of the schools or universities they fed into, or because they had gone there themselves and it was a family tradition, or because school wasn’t supposed to be fun, it was supposed to be good for you, or because they were too embarrassed to complain when everyone around them seemed to be putting up with it and complaining wasn’t the “done thing” unless you wanted to be accused of tying your children to your apron strings etc. The main change is class is no longer as relevant, just money.

When I boarded 30 years ago they certainly didn’t spend any of my parents hard earned money on pastoral care. Jeez it was awful. At least a lot more is spent in this area now.

All Independent Schools are going up (my DS up 4% next year). Your not just covering inflationary elements, but also funding for future new facilities and services, plus Covid catchup. At the same time you will probably find overseas students esp. from Russia may not be coming back. So the schools need to cover the shortfall. If you think its too much put your DC in state shools, but also take a look at the number of Independent schools that folded in the past couple of years.

Many people seem to think school fees should be going up by 7% (or perhaps 8%) because that is headline inflation.

Of course, this is completely wrong. School fees are largely composed of staff costs & teacher salaries are rising by much less - more like 2-3%. That is what I see school fees rising by.

I can’t tell you whether to continue to educate
your DC privately or not. But I can tell you to ignore the haters.

You're not allowing for the increased employers NICs or the the increased costs of TPS

I have to say one thing my dcs secondary does well is handle diabetes well. There’s a child in dds class, everyone knows what the beeping means, there’s been support staff running in when his machines alerted them. They are shit hot on it

I dislike a lot about the school. But that, they do well

I’m not sure why so many hostile responses, if people have to take their kids out of private surely it will also negatively affect those of our kids in state schools

We pay school fees - my friends who don’t have multiple holidays a year, have the gorgeous new Chanel and drive the new pick up truck & live in their huge house.

It’s choices right! We don’t have all of the above and pay fees.

waiting to find out what our rise might be!

Boohoo

Bitter much? You’d think we sit on our arses and the post man delivered our salaries? We come from zero privilege my parents are immigrants and illiterate! So don’t you boo hoo me!

i will boohoo you all I want. You asked for opinions you got mine. Now go and read some articles in the telegraph about downsizing to only 3 foreign holidays a year

How wrong you’ve got me. More fool you. I think you know it too.

Dd asked to be removed from a large state school with a lot of issues to a small independent this year. She has a little understood health condition, which her primary and former secondary didn’t take seriously until it was triggered whilst at school.Then they did a wtf about it with a flurry of concern. She was very stressed in class and not coping for a variety of reasons. To try to maintain discipline, the school was too rigid for her needs. Had loads of friends so no issues in the playground. She’s mentally in far lot better place right now.

No not everyone has the option to do this. We only intend for her to stay 3 years. Perhaps extend to A level. Who knows. Yes it’s expensive and it is annoying to have to pay. But we can afford to pay from savings. It just means our future plans are compromised.

And that's admirable. We made similar choices.
On returning to the UK my DS went to private school, only because the quality of the state education was so inferior to what he received overseas. I was astounded by how poor State Schools were compared to when I was at school.

Actually I don't agree. I think if the well-heeled and upper echelons of our society had to use state schools they'd make different choices at the ballot box - or at least insist that the Conservatives were a bot more open handed when it comes to children's education.

Was talking about this earlier if labour get in and put VAT on it that's a straight 20% rise

I think there are some difficult times ahead for private schools. The boom time was when people had more money and there was a bigger influx of foreign pupils (whose parents had even more money). Covid (and Brexit) saw the departure of many overseas pupils who may not have returned. Now nearly everyone has to tighten their belts owing to the rising cost of living wholst teacher pensions costs have hit the private sector dramatically, extra costs associated with hygiene and heated classrooms with open windows during the pandemic and now soaring fuel costs and pressure to increase staff salaries to keep up with inflation. I think many schools will struggle to keep fee increases to realistic levels for next September. Then, if a labour government get in it could be the death knell for those private schools that are not already heavily oversubscribed. And those that are will probably become less selective resulting in a drop in exam results making them less attractive and less worthy of the high fees in the eyes of the parents!

I have one child in private senior and one in state primary that we moved out of private prep at the end of 2021 as I could see that yhe private prep had deprioritised her age group during the pandemic and that I as a parent would have to pay for private tutoring for catch up whilst state schools were doing catch up for her age group for free. I am relieved we made the decision as it seems we made the right decision for the moment and things are going to get worse. On the other hand my DS’s private senior seems to be quite money conscious and has been canvasing the parents about affordability so I feel they will try hard to keep fees affordable.

Regarding your situation OP, how close to the end of the school is your DC? I ask because I was once told there is some sort of unwritten code that private schools dont kick out children when parents are struggling with the fees in their final year before exams because it would be too disruptive. If next year would be your DC’s exam year (GCSEs or A levels) I would really try not to move them but get some advice on this first and consider if you could manage the fees if paid back over a longer period of time (ie if school would give you a period of credit?). If you move your DC so close to exams the syllabus in the next school may be different and they may not be able to select the same combination of subject options. Plus the school will have covered the topics in a different order. Having invested so heavily in your DC you would lose so much from this and they would be disadvantaged. If you have to make the move look carefully at the new school’s syllabuses and subject option combinations.