Private school fees up 43%

[UnquietDad]

story here

Deliberate, do you think?...

So if only "18 professions" can now afford them, and they don't include teachers, architects or police officers, what are they? Any offers?

The question is in reality too simplistic.

In the area where I live there are several private schools and each has a different profile.

Part is based on price - there are huge price differentials

Part is based on location - eg rural or town

Part is based on class (perceived or real) - by profession/trade etc

£5.50 a day for dinners. Crumbs.

DD's school includes most things in the fees e.g. lunches, trips out related to syllabus, etc.

Instrument tuition is extra - about £450 for 30 lessons a year but is waived for the first year if you child chooses to start learning an instrument on their 'endangered' list. Also music tuition fees waived once child reaches grade 6, iirc, or if they are a member of the orchestra. Or something like that.

There are trips e.g. skiing, riding, to France, Mongolia, etc but the numbers allowed on these are quite small so there is little chance of a child feeling left out if they don't go. Absolutely no need for parents to feel pressure to send the child. And the pupils are expected to do fundraising activities e..g car washing, fashion shows, to contribute towards the cost of the trip.

From the people I know:

GPs
Dentists
People who 'work in the City' doing things that I don't understand to do with money

Builders and farmers round here. There are also some well off but exceptionally dull looking fathers with the lady-who-lunches boring wife... not sure what job those men do... accountants?? (quick to judge? Moi?!) Teachers can often afford the fees if they work in the school as staff discounts are usually pretty hefty.
Interesting article though isnt it? And I must admit it made me wonder why people bother with private if they live in an area with decent state schools. I'd be looking for a hell of a return on my investment of I were paying full fees each year. I'm lucky, where I am the local state schools are very good and exam results are not very different from private - eg 75% GCSE pass rate compared to around 90% in private. As I have every confidence that my kids will be among the 75% I couldnt give a flying fart about whether the overall rate is 75 or 90. Possibly the private school might push a couple of grade Bs up to A, because they have the small classes and will push hard if they need to. But I think a couple of grades higher is a crap return on the money you'd spend on school fees, and you could get the same result with a bit of well timed private tutoring for your kids if they needed it for a fraction of the cost of school fees. I think more and more people are going to start thinking like this, particularly with the current economic climate. There will always be the very small minority who are so rich that school fees are a drop in the ocean, or who have a private school background themselves and are petrified that their kids won't succeed without throwing money at a school, but I think for that large band in the middle, who may have scrimped and saved to pay in the past, it may be time to take stock and really look at the return they get on their money.

I know people who afford the fees without so much as a blink and others for whom it means no holidays and no extras and lots of saving. I do know quite a few people whose parents ( dc's grandparents) pay towards the cost. It does look as if it is becoming harder for people to afford school fees, I am sure that there are plenty of people who would have been able to afford fees previously and will now not be able to.

Ds has five classmates whose fathers/mothers are doctors (including consultants). And this is a state school.

Outside the (very expensive) private school next door to us the parents' accents are somewhat, ahem, estuary...

I think the self-employed can often afford private school fees. Draw your own conclusions!

DS1's school fees went up by c10% every year he was at independent secondary school (1998-2005). We aren't in the list of 18 professions - DH is a chartered engineer and that went off the list a couple of years back! His fees were paid by me (librarian, so never remotely on that list) and by being very frugal ... The parents of the other pupils tended to be professional families where both parents worked to pay school fees rather than business people and certainly no celebs in our area.
Now paying for DS2 - we certainly couldn't afford to do it for both at same time.

fircone

fircone - that's interesting. I've noticed a similar thing around here. I think there can be a certain type of 'self made' person who often didnt achieve well academically at school, but has done well in business, building trade, electrician, whatever, who then feels a huge insecurity about putting their own children through the state school system. I'm not sure whether they gain by it, as I suspect that a good business head is there whatever kind of school you went to yourself, and the inverse is also true: if you haven't got a good business head, going to a particular type of school isnt going to create one. My ds (state school) has children whose parents are doctors, lawyers, barristers in his tutor group, whereas the local private school tend to get a lot of the self employed.

Very few professionals in our kids' prep school classes - almost all parents own their own business, whether that is plumbers, builders, internet businesses, surveyors - you name it we seem to have them all! Hardly any "traditional" lawyers/accountants etc....

I haven't got a clue what the parents of ds' classmates do...not something that comes up in conversation at the school gate.

As I said dp and I are teachers in state sector and manage. School fees vary dramatically and we're in the north where fees are less and so are mortgages. Even so, when the dcs are in the secondary school fees will take up most of my salary and I rely on dp to pay for nearly everything else.

At the dcs school there are also parents who are driving instructors, nurses, air hostesses, owner of soft play centre, solicitors, doctors and a student. These are the ones I know and the ones who are on low incomes probably use their husbands or parents financial support to cover the fees and make ends meet elsewhere. Nevertheless my dcs' school is in a very deprived area and defies all sorts of stereotypes in terms of parents, background etc yet produces excellent resutls.

findtheriver I'd be surprised if many parents who send their dcs to private school take the calculated approach you suggest and see their kids' exam results as the 'return' on their money.

This is certainly not why I took the decision which was really about my dcs' happiness first and foremost.

Should say that we live in a deprived area where schools are underperforming. Several in special measures.

While I know my kids would do well in terms of exam results in any school I really don't think they'd be happy in our local state school.

As dp and I have taught in many of our local schools and I went to one not too far away I have made our decision based on lots of research and lots of personal experience.

IT consultants
GPs
Dentists

our three children go to ind school. I do sometimes wonder now if I am wasting our moeny as the state schools were we live are fantastic.

DH has own business we probably fall into the category that we went to very deprived schools and just wanted to give the children something we didnt have.

In hindsight, just sending them to the local state schools would have been better.

At DS' school there used to be a directory provided to all parents with pupils' names/addresses/telephone numbers and parents' names - large proportion of whom were "Dr and Dr Jones" or "Prof and Dr Smith" or even "Dr Black and Ms White". But we live in that sort of area.

I dont see exam results as the only return on school fees. I am just making the point that to shell out around 130,000 K which is what you are looking at if you educate one child privately up to 18, then I think it's reasonable to want to have a bloody great return on that money! And tbh I havent seen many cases where there is a huge advantage, in terms of confidence, success in relationships, exam results or whatever other yardstick you choose to measure by

In our area, even if you can afford the fees, competition for places is fierce and entry is subject to exam and interview.

Hmmm, findtheriver, I beg to differ. For me, as I said it's more about happiness and the experience of education.

So the fact that you're much more likely to get smaller class sizes (3 staff to a maximum of 20 currently for my dds) is one measure that would indicate individual students get more attention.

Exam results might be another (my dcs school gets 100% A-C at GCSE) but at A Level in independent schools nationally 'The ISC says 47.9% of entries were awarded As and just 0.6% of entries failed to get at least a grade E.' Here if you want a link news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/5284792.stm

Long term it's probably impossible to work out the impact especially because it's difficult or impossible to distinguish whether exam results and life-term earnings etc are the result of schooling or the background which has been able to afford and choose it IYSWIM but certainly confidence, being articulate (my dcs get speech and drama lessons and LAMDA exams from age 5), facilities, behaviour and sport are noticeably different when you compare my dcs school with its neighbours.

I think genuine confidence (by which I mean a real inner core of knowing yourself and being comfortable with yourself, rather than external self assurance) is pretty hard to measure. Some people can appear outwardly very confident, but underneath aren't. I know a number of people who were privately educated who appeared to cope well through school, but really struggled at Uni or as adults. They didnt necessarily have the skills needed to make good relationships, or to motivate themselves, or to rub along with people from differing backgrounds.
I think in areas where state schools are poor (and by poor, I mean, low exam results, high levels of truancy, high turnover of staff etc) parents have really tough decisions to make about schooling. In areas where state schools are fine, I think there can be a lot of agonising for no good reason.At the end of the day, the huge majority of young people are state educated and do very well.

Agree with what you say. And of course what does happiness and success mean anyway and how can you possibly measure it over the long term and be sure where it comes from?

However, whether you or I like it or not private schools do produce better exam results nearly half of all A grades and nearly half of all Oxbridge entrants in spite of only educating about 10% of all our students.

I have been committed to state education all my life (both dp and I teach in it) but when faced with the decision for my own kids based on my experience of schooling in and around the area I couldn't do it.

Now we are firmly ensconced in the private system (for our kids not for ourselves IYSWIM) I can really undersand the advantages which gives me really mixed feelings. Sadness for kids who do not benefit from what kids in most private schools get and happy for the advantages my kids get.

But also highly aware that for all the advantages (small class sizes, specialist teaching, swimming pool and lessons from aged 3 etc etc etc) comes an awful lot of pressure. In our case nightly homework, very high expectations, lots of competition and very often being small fish in big ponds.

An example, when dd1 learned to cartwheel (which I could never do incidentally) one of her classmates could do triple backflips. Yes, in a state school there will always be someoen better at something than you but competition less fierce I think.

And actually there's a lot to be said for 'external self assurance' which my dcs' school really fosters and which I haven't got.

Lots of normal professions and non-really-high earning parent's at DD's school. A fair few parents who only have the one child, and choosing to pay school fees in preference to other luxuries such as holidays, new cars, houses in better catchement, etc too.

If there is only one child to pay for it makes it a lot more affordable for far more people (granted not all, yes, I know). Therefore opes it up as a choice for more than just 18 professions.

No idea re bursaries and scholarshiips for DD's school but they definitely have them for the high school (also independent) - and not just for very low income families - hence children from DD's school have had them. Vary by percentage of fees however.

And no rise in school fees for us this year at all

I posted that link on another thread UQD!

What I found interesting about that article is how many parents had been remortgaging during the property boom to afford the school fees in the first place ...

There are all sorts of parents at our DCs school.

Doctors (lots)
City types doing something incomprehensible - usually with hedge funds(a few but it's a bit far)
Lawyers (lots and lots)
Accountants

Then there's the local successful tradespeople, including a chap who owns a decorating business, a bingo hall owner etc

Then there's the people who it isn't obvious how they pay but they are doing ... I've not thought about this before but presumably grandparents or something

I saw the article in the times posted by Quatrocento on another post. It stated that families would be able to afford to send one child to private school on an income of £40,000 or more. This surprised me as my DH earns more than this and we do not feel in a position to pay prep school fees of £3500 a term for one child..also have two children so the cost would double anyway.

What kind of income do you think a family would need to pay two sets of school fees at this rate? I know its hard to say exactly due to differences in mortgage costs etc. but it would be interesting to know any approximate figures..

You have to allow for all those where grandparents and godparents or other benefactorers are paying also. This is also a very commn scenario.