Just wondering... how do you think the financial turmoil will affect private school applications this year?

[PrincessPeaHead]

It was difficult enough to see who the hell could afford boarding fees of £8800 per term in a boom economy... now? Do you think there will be a big move from boarding to private day options (cheaper) or in fact also a big fall in private day applications as people try for grammars/use the good local comp ?

Just musing really.

Cod - I am a working parent but that doesn't change my perception of whether my daughter is in school or at childcare. Why should it? The definition has nothing to do with parents and everything to do with what is going on with the child.

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Anna - My DD's pre-school is staffed by qualified early years practitioners. It is childcare. It is play. It is not school.

Fine - but that invalidates your cost comparison between your daughter's pre-school and my daughter's école maternelle. You can enrol your daughter per hour - which is lovely if that suits you and her - but obviously that degree of flexibility means that your daughter isn't going to do the same sort of activities that a child enrolled in full-time school will do.

No, there isn't the concept of in loco parentis here. Though, having said that, my daughter's two teachers (one French, one English) are very kind and the headmistress is utterly charming and her personality permeates the school.

I can't enrol my DD per hour. I pay per term, up front. She goes two fixed morning sessions per week.

I wasn't making a cost comparison between learning calculus in France and playing with sand and water in England. It was more a cost comparison between cheap childcare and what is probably a pretty standard going rate for the Home Counties.

Don't children in France learn through play?

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There are playtimes (both inside, with toys) and outside (in a playground/sandpit) but there is lots of quite structured learning too.

Anna, aren't French private schools heavily subsidised by the state? - Like the state pays for the teachers and the fees cover the extras? If so, any cost comparisons are fairly irrelevent. I find it amazing that the cost of your lunchtime supervision & lunch is more than a quarter of the total cost - there just has to be a huge amount of subsidy somewhere.

Our school has just spent a fortune on 'marketing' - new website, swanky brochure etc yet it is full. I don't think that means these schools are desperate for punters - just that it's sort of expected these days. Bloody waste of money in my opinion.

Oh yes, snorkle - the costs of French private schools are not met entirely through fees. This is what is so great IMO. Why can't the UK go down that route - allow schools to provide extras at a costs, while teachers' salaries are still met by the public purse?

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? cryptic post, Cod...

if only...

but I suppose wouldn't really do much to narrow the gap between rich & poor that we have, so I can see why we do things the way we do.

I'm much less in favour of making nhs patients who fund non nhs available drugs privately pay for their whole treatment though. Which I suppose comes to the same thing really.

I think it does narrow the gap between rich and poor, because it enables people who are really not terribly affluent to afford schools that offer a difference.

In my neighbourhood the butcher/baker/candlestickmaker/doctor/investment banker all send their children to the same private school.

I guess it moves the gap to a different place on the spectrum. It's the really really poor I was thinking of, but if the fees were lower, maybe more of them could be accomodated by school bursaries - hmm.

Lots of catholic schools do means-based fees - so the really needy don't pay at all and the affluent are invited to pay extra. There are generally good sibling discounts too.

But children of the low paid or of parents on benefits would not have the opportunity to attend, so how does it narrow the gap?
Children of the extemely well-off would be removed from those institutions if they began to admit council estate riff-raff, I'm sure.

In fact, I'm beginning to think this is why my DD is still on the waiting list rather than having begun kindergarten- our suburb is not chichi enough- think 9eme as opposed to 8eme or 16eme.

CaptainNancy - that's not how it works around here, in Paris. Some of the private schools are very socially mixed indeed - not all, but then not all the state schools have a good social mix.

Where are you, CaptainNancy?

I'm here!

erm... b h a m

I agree- BIL's school was v socially mixed (private, Paris) however, I happen to know that only 1 family in our postcode area attend the school we with DD to attend, though there are plenty of families near us that use other independent schools.

oh, that was wish not with, obviously...

Tell you what my fear is: That those 10-11 year olds in poncey prep school uniforms I saw traipsing around the state comp I want to send MY DS1 to will nick his place, as it were! We're not in catchment, we're just out by a mile but it is a vast rural area mainly encompassing fields and sheep!- BUT it includes the western edges of City Bonus affluent Winchester from whence these DCs have emerged from the woodwork! Honestly, there were tens of them! The admissions officer made it clear that we'd've had no trouble getting DS1 a place last year or this but, she hinted darkly, by Sept 2010 which is when WE need a place, 'things could be very different'. Ooer!

hmmm. interesting.

I'm sure it must have an effect. There will def be less money around in the next year or two, and the school fees have escalated so enormously in the last 5 years - the two facts must crash.

CD, OxHigh is GDST so is good value but actually that acts as a bit of a brake on school fees in Ox generally - the others can't be wildly above for market reasons. OxHigh also excessively academic and DD wouldn't get in (maths not good enough)..
Money isn't the issue here, it is just trying to work out what it is worth applying for in terms of quantity and quality of the competition!