family of 5 living in SE on £30K can we afford £6K per year for ds1's school or am I bonkers?

[thenewgirl]

I have done the sums and I think we could survive month to month.

but

we are currently on 51K per year.

for ds1 to go to this school we have to move house (and to another county) housing costs would be the same but we would have less money due to change in job and have the school fees to pay.

it would not be forever as I am currently a sahm and will have earning power one day. also dh's new job would earn him more in years to come.

does this sound do-able?

I'm well up for it!

please tell me if I'm looking through rose tinted specks?

What I of course meant to add was - can you afford to spend 6k annually on all of your kids?

I havent read past the first 2 pages.
If you think you can live on your workings out then do it.
I looked inot sending dd to private school here in SE but so much money and i had to consider what would happen when she went to secondary school and fee's went up. Also have dd2 to consider.
Have you thought about using the money to move near to a very good state school (house costs sooo much more), and then all the kids can enjoy the good education without breaking the bank.

ack am not near that school and I don't know it well at all. I know mainly of schools in the SE.

Am though at stripes rationing. I think you really should shake up that quaint village of yours and just wear stripes whenever you want. And felt birds.

(I am actually not really trying to take the piss out of Steiner schools. I think for some kids they really are great, they make a massive difference. For us, we have ended up home educating but if I HAD to send my kids to school and I was in your situation, I'd do what you were doing, definately. Unless Summerhill was nearby )

I don't have any links with the school, just know the area fairly well as don't live far. Our little community magazine covers that area as well so I get to read about some of the things they are doing about. There is a little Steiner style nursery school that has opened very near to here now.

It sounds as if a move would be very positive in lots of ways eg. being closer to family. I really do believe that the quality of life you can have is very high and I do frequently feel very lucky to live here.

Good luck with the move. It seems to me that it will be tight until your youngest is a bit older, then at that point you can go back to work and things will be more comfortable.

oh and am not trying to put you off at all BUT with steiner schools, the fees do increase year on year. What happens then?

Also-you say you will go back to work. Can you do this at a similar salary level after a career break? I know I won't be able to, especially as I'll be working part time. BUT then my career area requires up to date experience (meaning I'll have to go voluntary for a bit), so you might be different.

I know you don't want to hear any more about Steiner education the new girl- I'm with Twiglet all the way- I've had three children in Steiner for a collective 9 years and know alot about it- which I'm sure you do newgirl- BUT as this is about fees/ financial contributuions- (at our Steiner school we paid 6% of our income) PLEASE look at this site CHASE- it's English, not American, and it has alot of info about the finances of Steiner education- it might open your eyes- anthroposophical groups and other Steiner organisations are one of the richest "charities" in this country.

I can't find the site, are you able to link it for me northern? I'm not really too sure what you are telling me (?!)
I am up for hearing about steiner ed from those with experience such as yourself, if there is anything you want to tell me I will not be offended.

here's the link the new
www.chaseuk.info
I'm not really telling you anything that you probably don't already know- just that Steiner schools are based on anthroposophy- Steiner beleived their main purpose being to prepare children for re incarnation ready for when the world moves to it's next epoch. They beleive that all humans have the ability to communicate with the spirit world, and true anthroposophists are really followers of a pseudo religion/occult science. They are involved in a great many organisations- Steiner Waldorf schools being one of many , including Camphil, biodynamic farming organisations, Weleda among others, and they are VERY wealthy.
Having said that- not all Steiner schools are like this, or have very anthroposophical people working there- they just attend the study groups but don't necessarily subscribe to the bonkers stuff Steiner came out with.

were you happy with the choices you made for your lo's northern?
I know this particular school well enough and don't have any of the corncerns that you raise, although it is interesting to hear about.
The founder of this school is a truly inspirational woman, she is like no one else I have ever met, so warm, wise, knowledgeable and has, over the years I have known her, answered some very detailed questions -such as to do wth the issues you raise, and I have always been very satisfied and reassured by her answers.

do you think perhaps she brainwashed me !!

I'm sure there are some steiner schools better than others, the same goes for state schools I guess.

thanks for the link

well- thenew- we had a situation at our school where there were great problems among the staff and also tensions with the Camphill community it was attatched to . One of the sort of "elder" for want of a better word, and a couple of other teachers were very anthro -incarnating souls, threefold nature of man, spiritual world, angels, occult, gnomes, the full works, while a couple of the newer teachers were more worldly and obviously only took a bit of the spiritual science aspect of Steiner's ideas and concentrated more on the natural, child centred kind of stuff. Unfortunately , our kids were stuck in the middle of many tensions, there was bullyng that wasn't delt with because it interrupted the children's karmic path,the teaching was appalling, and we found ourselves questioning the things we liked at the beginning- like creativity for instance- which involved copying from an unqualified teacher. The obsession with money and fundraising is interesting because

they really are very wealthy- particularly one's like our school which as I said before was attached to a Camphill community- which heavily subsidised the school.
One of my main and biggest bugbears is that they aren't forthcoming about anthroposophy- all the teachers have to attend weekly study groups and their training reading matter involves alot of anthro stuff- most of which is very heavy and quite bonkers. In answers to questions about it- they just say it's not taught to the children- but they are using anthroposophy in most details of their teaching- it's the reason behind all of it.I think they should be up front about it- but also know ther's alot of stuff going on in anthro/Steiner circles about how much should be taken as red and how they should maybe move on. Computers and tv's - for instance -true anthros beleive they are an instrument through which Ariman- a sort of devil- is using to communicate to us. The main thing is that anthroposophy is at the central core of Steiner Waldorf curriculum- tho' it's quite possible to go throught he whole education without hearing it mentioned- and they quite like that. Sorry to write so much!

This is also an English site and is worth looking at if you have anything to do with Steiner .www.easeonline.org/

time for an update!
how's it going?