Are Private schools still worth it, with VAT increase/ongoing increase in costs?

[Lauracoombs]

Thoughts please..
Our DD is currently in Year 5 (private prep school) and committing to Senior School and potentially 6th feels like a huge commitment.
Is it worth trying to make it work with all the recent changes and current position of Senior schools ie having to absorb the increase, making cuts etc.
It’s not back pocket change for us and would have to make sacrifices to continue so really trying to figure if its worth it.
For us, we believe the benefits are smaller class sizes/more opportunities. That kind of thing.
The 20% really adds up over the years, including potential 6th form.

Thanks

Tbh no one can tell you as, just as with state schools, private schools vary. Only you know how much you will have to give up to enable your DD to continue at private school and only you know what the private secondary options are like.

And the state secondary for that matter.

I would suggest you do some research this summer and look round the possible options when they have open days (probably in Sept); you have to apply for state secondary by 31 Oct (as you may of course be well aware) so if that is a possibility you need to have that in hand.

You could work out how much money you would spend on private secondary and factor that against free state secondary plus the cost of possible tutors, extra curricular activities etc. There would for sure be some ££ left with state, even with extra spending to support – so would having that to fund uni or as a house deposit for your DD in the future be better? These are the considerations you might look at now.

edited for typos

Totally depends on the private and state offering in your area. We've gone down the private route but I would have been happy to have a great state option to consider.

Depends on your child and school options. I have an academically able ASD child and local state options are not great from a safeguarding and semh perspective. The non-selective send friendly mainstream indie we are at is a no brainer.

I said this before in another thread but in my honest opinion I don't think they are worth it anymore.

Given that you've got to spend £22,000 per child per year I'd say that unless you've got some sort of scholarship arrangement or maybe a grandparent is paying or heavily subsidising the fees then it's just not worth it any more.

There's also the question about whether or not the school will be viable over the next seven years - unfortunately plenty of schools simply will not survive that time.

It’s also a question of what else you can do with the money. Assuming £25,000 a year, increasing at 5% a year for 7 years, that’s £200,000 before any extra. If I were the child, I would rather have this as a house deposit or other form of financial support - assuming state schools in your area were decent.

DD’s old school is now £31k Pa before extras. Wonderful as it is, it’s not £31k wonderful so no.