If your DCs are at independent schools are fees increasing this year?

[Buda]

Doing a bit of a survey! DS is at an international school and we are aware that fees are increasing. Just wondering if other schools are increasing fees in this economic climate.

All schools increase their fees each year. The biggest cost, by far, is the salary cost of employees. Most independent schools have salaries tied to public sector salaries (either the same, or with a small % above). For that reason, they need to match the annual Public Sector Pay Award.

One school has a rise of 4%, the other of 3%. Lower than average increases. Pupil numbers in both schools steady or even increasing.

I don't know anyone who either has got or is getting a pay rise this year and I know plenty who have lost their jobs (although I don't know any teachers). I will be very surprised if we had a fee increase at all this year.

You also need to take into account that schools have suffered exactly the same increase in gas and electric as we all have - therfore a 5% increase will not go anywhere near covering those costs before you even throw in the staff costs, increased insurancxe costs etc etc etc

Am grateful to MNers because before DS went to an indie I had read load of threads advising that school fees rise faster then inflation, so at this stage...am not overly agitiated, will see how things go over subsequent years(tho' we did this wkend decide to sign DS2 up with an 11+ tutor to try him for (free) grammar instead.... )

(singersgirl - perhaps we cld apply for a jobshare in a local pub to augment income for fee rises... )

Had the letter today.

Pre-prep is going up by 3.3% (£80 a term)
Prep is going up by 3.5% (£90 a term)
After school care is going up by 7% (25p a day)

We don't know yet but I did phone the bursar to ask about notice periods.

We have until 15th April to decided whether the dc stay at school after summer.

If dd stays she will go up from pre-prep to prep so there will be an increase. I'd like to keep ds in until the end of pre-prep but that may not be possible if we move dd due to pick up times etc.

Apparently with an income of £40-45k now we may be over the bursary threshold but they rarely give them for prep anyway.

DH has already told me that I need to earn at least as much as school fees plus tax next year. They haven't told us about fees yet - I think they like to break the new people in gently.

Yes, ours went up 9% .

Wow arfishy - 9% is a lot.

PTA meeting here tomorrow so will be asking head what plans are. She is very vague though!

Ours went up by 2%. Head said he need to keep teachers salaries attractive otherwise they would leave (where would they go).

TBH - I get a bit tired of teachers expecting to made an exception year after year. All pay rises are being frozen within my company (very large multi national).

Blimey arfishy!!! 9% is a HHHHUUUUUUGGGEEEEE rise in fees. Is that a 1 off? or do they rise by that every year?

Where do your Dc go to school? Is that just an annual rise or does that include a rise between the school years too.

How have the school justified such a substantial fee rise? Has there been alot of improvements or changes to the school?

If our school had a rise like that I would be asking for an explaination.

Sorry for all the questions but 9% just seems a huge rise!!

Message withdrawn

Just got our letter today. No fee increases for years R through 5, 2.5% above that. They also expect the school roll to be 5% lower for 2009/10 compared to current year for pre-prep and junior prep.

Ours rose by 6%, plus they started to charge for after school care last September.

It is going to be a hard year for us.

ios any chance of a bursary or scholarship? 6% is a lot bearing in mind that we now have negative inflation and I don't know anyone who has had a payrise. I was pleasantly surprised as I was expecting something.

There are no bursaries available in prep.. Dd goes into prep from per-prep in September so we knew that would be hard. Dh is self employed and our income has dropped this year.

The bursar did say that even in Senior School a family income of £40k was borderline for being eligible for a bursary.

I was expecting about a 3-3.5% rise. It has come as a shock.

It isn;t all doom and gloom though. We do have just under 2 years worth of fees in hand in an ISA (as long as the value hasn't gone down by too much as it is stocks and shares.

I just didn't expect to have to dip into the rainy day fund this early on.

People are saying that we have come through the worst now, lets hope things get better from here on.

Ours is going up by a much smaller % than in previous years

4.6% from September. Additional increases on extras too - lunches, ballet lessons, clubs etc.

Ours are going up by about 4%.

Ours go up the same % as the rise in teachers' pay (from the public sector pay award).

Yes - but only by about 1% if that. We are getting school kitchens installed and better food promised so actually not bad if the promise is delivered.