A nosey question - re school fees

[Creole]

I'm trying to find out what is the average rate for Independent schools.

So how much do you all pay and how do you pay for the fees? Do you pay from savings or monthly income?

I would like to start saving for fees for when my son goes to secondary in a few years time.

Had a look and DD's school charge £2402 per term for Y7-11. That includes text books, exercise books, exam fees but nothing else. Think that's pretty cheap for the area. We pay out of income as it's just a continuation of day nursery fees but the money goes into a savings account until we get the termly bill.

Rates increase as we progress up the school, but at nursery to year 2, around £6000 a year. BUT having said that, the school is owned by the parents, and there is no profit - no one creaming anything off the top. It all goes into actual schooling.

We are in Derbyshire BTW, I know the south east is much more expensive.

Junior schools in London average around £10,000 a year I think. Don't know about secondary though.

School is in central London (boys school) and per term we pay £2,800 for pre-prep (age 4 to 7) and £3,500 for prep (age 7 - 13). Of course you have to times this by three to get the annual amount and it does not include uniform, sports equipment, school trips or instrument lessons. In fact instrument tuition can add another couple of hundred a term!

I know I sound like a stuck record, but you'll get lots of fee info from Good Schools Guide . The other thing I've seen is the Independent Schools Council list (a little handbook that you send off for) and that will give you everything for comparison.

We pay out of income, but budget over the year as the invoices are eye-watering - and that's still only pre-prep.

I think we looked into the sort of savings plans specially aimed at school fees and decided it wasn't going to be much help - returns weren't good enough to make much of a difference over keeping the money in a limited access savings account. But maybe worth contacting a few financial advisers and seeing what trade opinion is?

Here is Surrey, we are paying around £10000 (£3300 per term plus a few extras) for Y5 - 8 (prep) and £12000 (£3800 per term, more extras) for senior school.

We pay out of salary, and if we can't afford it, we'll stick it on the mortgage.

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Just to clarify - you pay by term so you are paying a terms fees out of 3-4 salary packets? So out of each packet something like £1000 (give or take)?

Ouch.

Yes, Ouch!

Apparently the national average household income is £27K so when people say that people at their private school are just 'average' and not 'well off' - they must be earning more than £27K!!! That would NOT allow for private schooling surely, and certainly not for more than one child.

God, I'm nosey.

Actually I'm bored - working and bored!

I think when people say that the folk at their school are average, they don't mean average income. Just ordinary people, without airs and graces, I'd say.

A lot of people have saved for years to put their child through private education, or work really hard. Sometimes grandparents help out too.

I'm looking into this too, although will not be able to afford to school DD in the private sector throughout, I hope to send her to a small village school for her primary years and then move her to a private secondary. We have a few good ones here.

I've just looked up the fees for one of our local private schools and they vary, average of around £1.8k per term for the infant years, £2.1k for the junior years (average) and then moving up to £2.5k for the senior years up to year 13 (upper sixth).

The best boys school (co-ed at sixth form level) is a whopping £3.3k per term . For a non South West schoo; that strikes me as high

Just looked at one boys school near us (and where my ex-boyfriend went!) and it's £2090 a term - not bad really!

Lets just hope not all 3 of mine fail the 11+ as £6000 a term might just be pushing it!

Or perhaps I should start saving (or entering into the lottery) - got 7 yrs before ds1 goes to secondary, 9 till ds2 and 10 till ds3!

I'm in the south west and the fees we pay for DD (just going into year 4) are £2,440 a term BUT we are lucky that DD got a music scholarship in Year 3 so our fees are £1,215 a term (that includes meals).

Music tuition is extra and we have to purchase SOME books.

Another thing to take into account is the uniform that costs a bloomin fortune as well!

We pay out of my business but should I hit a hard point in the year it goes on the mortgage.

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