Cost of private school vs state school?

[redskyatnight]

Please bear with me as this is somewhat a hypothetical question.

DS is currently in our lovely catchment state infants school which we are very happy with. However we have concerns about our catchment junior (the only one he would definitely get a place in) and have are vaguely wondering if we could afford private at 7+. (so we could start saving a bit in case we choose that option, or definitely rule it out)

So I'm hoping for some insight into the "real" cost of private school vs state school. I realise the extra expense is more than just paying fees!

Extra costs I've thought of are

• Uniform (seems to be a large volume required, and only available at school/school supplier)

• Cost of extra childcare to cover longer holidays (we both work)

• Trips etc (I'm guessing this works out at more than the equivalent in state school but don't actually know?)

• School meals (required to pay for school meal)

Would welcome any opinions on how much these add to your annual "bill" or anything else that I've not thought of?

Insurance (but it is a pittance)

Much support required by parents for fundraising, we have Burns night, quiz nights, opera nights, ball (tickets £75 each) various fairs etc. For a fair we have a non uniform day but have to bring in a new toy, dvd or CD to be sold at the fair.

Inflation! Remeber to factor this in. When my DD started at just under 3, we factored in a 4%ish rise to school fees per year (on top of the fact that the fees at DD's school get more expensive every year that you progress through school). She is now in Yr 4, Yr 4 is over 40% more expensive than it was when she started in nursery so way over our 4% per yr estimate.

(As for the uniform, I do not know many folk who buy new. Our school has a fab 2nd hand shop, only the nouveaux buy all new uniforms.)

Uniform: I find it may be more expensive but lasts longer and the secondhand market is booming. Boys usually much cheaper than girls (I have a DD) as shirts/shorts are usually the standard kind you can get in the supermarket.

Extra childcare: DH and I are both f/t but are fortunate because we have a lot of flexibility to work from home. The main problem we have is that our on-site holiday club follows LEA holidays so there are odd extra weeks to cover. We manage this through annual leave, childcare swap with friends. Holiday clubs work out cheaper because you can pay for what you need rather than having to pay a childminder all week.

Trips: Usually one a term for us, nver more than £20, normally around £7

School meals: depends, some schools allow packed lunches

Insurance: we don't bother

Fund raising: we support the events we're interested in, e.g. Christmas Fair and ignore the rest, certainly don't go to the ball!

Extras: part of the advantage for us is that DD can do lots of stuff at school if she wants, such as ballet, golf and so on. Some of it's free but some of it is charged for.

DD was in f/t childcare from 6months old and we're still paying out similar amounts pcm as we did then, so it's fine. Might feel different if we'd had the costs lowered for a few years and then gone back into it though!

At 7+ there are few extras for my DCs.
All non-residential school trips (eg theatres, musuems, exhibitions, history fesivals) are included. The residential field trips in y7 and y8 are included. The French exchange and French residential trips are extra but under £200. Ski trip is expensive but only about 30 children in the whole school go and we would rather ski as a family and it is not more that state school ski trips. other trips run by clubs vary, but again absolutely no pressure to go and most children don't. The sports tours are extortionate but again many of those selected decline. Uniform expensive new but good second-hand sales and also lots of mums with older children just pass on stuff.
Lunch included for my DCs.
Childcare is a problem - only really expensive providers such as camp beaumont operate in the first two weeks of the long summer hols. Some familes get round this by having an early summer hol (cheaper to avoid state school hols). Also we always ski at Easter as DCs' hols begin earlier so it is much, much cheaper than half-term or later Easter weeks.
At this age all books etc are covered for Dcs as are most clubs (inc after-school clubs except for those run by outside staff).
Hope this helps

Uniform - there is tins of it, winter, summer, various sports etc but there is a booking market in second hand and we all pass along. Sports day will show how well-laundered some of it is.
Trips - to theatres/museums etc these shouldn't be more than state. However sports/art/geography trips can be very expensive. £500 for a hockey trip. £400 for an art trip to Paris.
Music lessons - I'm sure these are the same.
Also as already said, we are called upon on a regualr basis to donate but there's no rule that you have to.

What are the availability and cost of pre/post-school care?

Commuting costs?

Agree that it used to be a bit of a pain trying to find holiday clubs before state schools break up, but Kings Camps now run at a few of the local independnet schols. They tend to be more realistic for working parents too: the Council schemes keep school-hours which is no use to working, commuting parents.

independent

Uniform: cheaper for us at ds's school than local state school plus thriving second hand market (no second hand market at state).

Lunch: £2.20 per day but can take packed lunch instead.

Music lesson (after school) £1.50 per session so £3.50 cheaper than weekend council music class.

Piano lessons: £8.50 (again cheaper than local non-school lessons).

Before school care - 07.30am to 8.30am £1.50 per session, no need to prebook.

After school care - 3.20pm to 6.30pm £2.50, again no need to prebook. Charged in arrears each term.

Holiday club - £30/day core hours 9am to 4.30pm but available from 8am to 6pm with a charge of £1.50 per half hour per family (ie you pay the same for that whether you have one child or 5). Lunch at holiday club is £2.50 or you can take packed lunch. Tea provided at no extra cost if children stay after 5pm.

For me it worked out cost neutral to send ds to pre-prep rather than state plus childminder.

When he gets to year 2 he will have access to lots of after school activities that are mostly foc.

Things like the PTA ball, fireworks etc are entirely optional. Tickets for our ball this year are £45.

School has placed a hold on capital expenditure projects to ensure that fee increases are kept to a minimum.

At secondary level there are sports trips but boys do lots of fund raising activities to help cover the costs.

if there are particular schools you are thinking of, see if you can find out about payment options, eg rather than termly, can you do a monthly direct debit ? Won't make the fees cheaper of course but it's slightly easier to budget.

Also find out if fees are levelly priced across the school or if eg y7,8,9 becomes more expensive than y3 or y4. again this helps with budgeting.

Agree with others re uniform - second hand widely available and absolutely no stigma whatsoever. My older boys are at a particularly expensive school (not boasting that's just how it is) and i have no hesitation whatsoever in buying 2nd hand blazers etc for them.

Trips; this will vary. Ds1 and 2 go on 1 or 2 residential trips a year which are included in the fees, but eg if they'd needed to go on the German trip or the Art tour to Florence then we'd have needed to pay.

The uniform is vast in the amount you need but have to agree that it is readily available secondhand and cheap. My dd had to have a brand new blazer last term much to my dismay - no s/h available and it cost £78. So i bought BIG (lol). She was devestated about having a NEW blazer as it so "uncool"!! There is little or no stigma about having s/h uniform in independent schools like there is in state schools. Infact the registrar who recently kitted out my youngest dd said in 9 years of her being there she had only kitted out 1 child in full brand new uniform!

You can pay monthly but there is a small charge for this - we put away X amount monthly and pay fees as billed 3X per year at the start of every term.

All books and most day trips are included in our fees, but schools do differ. As my dds board, all meals are included too.

Personal Accident Insurance is compulsry about £4.50 per term

Optional Bupa cover £58 per term (dont bother with it myself)

Opro mouth guard from age 7/8 for Hockey is £35 once per year

Optional extras I pay for are

I pay only £10.50 per lesson for riding (£28 at my local stables)

Private singing tuition £160 per term, plus the exam fee once every 12/18months and £10/20 once or twice a years for new music books.

£35 Judo oer term and an annual membership fee for insurance.

Various residential trips from £300 to £1200. We have not done any of them yet(not everyone does the ski trips etc) but eldest is going on first French trip for 3 weeks in May at £360 - paid an extra £120 each term this year for that.

Some team building overnight camp thing in the school grounds was optional but I paid for it through gritted teeth at £80 .

Team photos £27 for 3 framed pics of the rounders, netball and hockey team, that I never requested but have since found out there is an opt out clause!

It does vary from school to school. DDs previous day school was always wanting £3 here and there for various workshops/charity days etc but I felt that was on a par with what I was paying at the previous state school.

Here's my penn'orth...

Uniform: expensive in the shop (around £25 for a jumper/cardy; £60 for blazer and so on). However, only the most committed (or wealthy) parents buy shirts or shorts there - ours are John Lewis/M&S/Asda/Sainsbo's multipacks (depending on whichever has our size!) The second-hand sales are once every term, and are great - I got the whole of DD's uniform, including coat for £25. The uniform is all made in the UK (which I'm glad about). I read another mum's MA dissertation in return for two blazers, so that's another way round that problem!

Our additional costs are lunches (around £150 per term - I think), milk (around £4 per term for milk that they don't drink. Grr), and cloth badges for gym awards (about £6 in total in the last two years). We don't pay for trips except, strangely, theatre visits (around £10 per year). There are also the odd pounds for Children in Need, Non-uniform day, charity day, school fair (when I tend to give the DCs a couple of pounds each), school disco (£4 per child), and other occasional charity events and sponsored things (for which I again give them a couple of pounds).

On top of that, we pay for swimming, piano, and singing. Ballet and individual instrument tuition within school hours incur an additional fee of about £15 per half hour session. There are heaps of after-school activities (Judo, Mandarin and the like), all of which would cost extra but as we don't do them, I don't know how much! Ditto school trips (my DCs aren't that age yet).

School photos seem ridiculously expensive, but there's no compulsion to buy them - so we don't!!

We avoid balls/wine tastings/all that kind of stuff - not our thing, and seems beyond our means anyway! We haven't taken out insurance, and we don't use after-school/holiday clubs, so can't comment on the prices of those!

Good luck...

Be aware a FRIEND'S prep doesn't even TELL the parents about any extra expenditure under 30 quid a go- they just get billed for it at the end of term! She thinks it's because the school are a bit blase, assuming if you can afford 11k per child per year (their blazers are 99 quid for a 7 year old)- you don't need to worry about the pin-money 30 quids!!

We pay school fees over 10 months and get a discount for doing so. The remaining two months are when extras are billed. Wouldn't fancy the idea of not being told about extra expenditure .