School Fees - Large Families

[P0M1]

I currently have 4 kids at an independent prep school and with the recession kicking trying to debate what we do next. The eldest is in Year 7, Year 5, and two further down. I currently get 20% off the youngest with nursery vouchers so he pretty much costs nothing but it's what to do next as my partner's in the financial sector. We've ploughed so much money into it but they put the fees up in September by over 6% and a couple of people at school have already put their houses on the market. I have heard that there are lots of people on provisional notice so if they need to pull the kids they don't have to pay a terms fees and would imagine that a lot of people will be pulling, in 1987 11,500 kids were pulled from the private sector. The headmaster did suggest moving to the North of England! Has anyone heard of schools giving bigger reductions for large families? I did speak to one person who lives in Yorkshire and she was offered the fourth free!

Scrooged-there are sibling discounts at private schools in Derbyshire. DD's school offers very generous bursaries to people on low incomes, have you tried asking at your DS's school?

ds is an only child so I don't have this to deal with aswell. His school fees have almost doubled since he started in the private system 5 years ago, I can't justify the cost anymore, it's almost three times the cost of my house. I've been in contact with the LEA this morning and there's space in my local state school, it's nice, I can't see much of a difference between this and the school I'm busting a gut to pay for apart from the class sizes. I'm still waiting for his school to get back to me regarding the fees so I don't have much hope. It would be so nice to have a haircut and do all of the things with ds that I can't afford at the moment. I'm unsure what to do.

Don't know where you are but there are some good primaries in the city and some of the secondaries seem to be improving. My friend teaches at a very mixed secondary school in the city and she says that the top sets are excellent, the problems are with the weaker sets. Reckons it feels like she's teaching in 2 different schools.

Hope you get it sorted. I can't believe it's worth beggaring yourself for private at primary level.

Move to Hampshire and come to our wonderful comps
(including Bohunt that the nice lady from the DM hated!)
seriously - top sets at Hampshire comps are indistinguishable (academically / socially / financially ) from their private peers
then again the kids that the private schools pump up the grades for will suffer (heaven forfend)

We get 5% for ds2 and10% for ds3. To be honest it is such a little amount that it really doesn't make a lot of difference.

It's an old thread. There's no need to post on here.

Marialuisa - can you tell me which schools in Derbyshire offer generous bursaries, please? Repton told me, in a rather superior tone, 'bursaries are minimal rather than substantial' PM me if you prefer. Many thanks

Kerry Derby Grammar school have a few, only for the secondary section though unless things have changed. Trent college, Nottingham High School and the one in Bakewell (St Aslems I think) all have bursaries. None of the preps have them. I'm not sure about Ockbrook, or Derby High School.

ZOMBIE THREAD ALERT

This is from 2008

I've already said that soup.

And?

Have some

Thanks LadyS

Any time. Which ones are you looking at? I may be able to help.

Could you home educate, and pay for tutors? With the money you saved in school fees, they could do loads of groups, have private tutors, and you could even get a nanny or whatever to ferry them around.

Also, up north is cheaper for housing at least, we are in commuting distance of loads of private schools and four bedroom houses with gardens are £100,000, with really big and posh houses at around £500,000 (in a place called Washington, but other places are just slightly more expensive). Depending on your husbands job, could he manage a hour and a half flight to london, or a three hour train ride? If you are happy with him having a flat in the city, or he has a job where he only has to go in every now and again, or they have regional offices, it is doable. And that is Newcastle, there are places further south that are just as cheap.

Plus my non catholic daughter is in an outstanding catholic state primary, with one form entry, huge playing fields and so on, and excellent exam results.

Eek, sorry - posted after reading the first page... will go away now

If you're considering Ethelburgas, make sure you read the fine print first. Many military families get stung because they believed they are able to reasonably remove their child before 6th Form eg for an overseas posting. What they didn't realise is that the fine print meant they would then have to repay every penny of the discount they had thus far enjoyed.

I would strongly suggest looking at State schools, and moving for one of those if necessary. Great Grammars in Essex or Comprehensives in lots of places.

Lots of children (especially boys) have been moving from their prep schools to my DCs Comp, and their parents have been very very happy.

ZOMBIE THREAD

Put the younger two in state primary (go on, we commoners really don't bite!) and plan for your current Y7 to go to state 6th form. Hopefully (if I've understood the age gaps) this should mean you only have two in private education at any given moment. I don't really mean to sneer and fully appreciate that secondary schools with 375 and 47% pass rate are not ideal; I wouldn't want that for my kids either; but maybe the primary schools near you are OK and you can devote all your finances to secondary?

You might be pleasantly surprised at what state primaries offer...

As it is 5 years since OP I think the DCs education will have been pretty much sorted by now.