Cost of private school

[elliej83]

I'm interested in others experiences.. particularly in the north of private schools.

The state primary school near me last year had 31 children in the reception class! I've looked in to the cost of private school and it's expensive but we could afford it if we were careful.

My worry is how much cost there will be on top of the term fees for other things? Can anyone help give a realistic idea of additional costs?

Im in thr north west and mine go to private prep. Not really many additional costs othet thsn say £15 a term for school trips and then of courde any holiday care. Usually around £25 a dsy here.

Do you think it's worth the cost? I'm guessing you do or you wouldn't be paying for it!!
We are looking at moving in the summer so the primary school will hopefully have a smaller intake but I still think I'd rather he went to a private school. The cost is actually pretty reasonable at £2.8k a term I think. The hours are 8-5pm and in the local school we'd have to pay for 3 hours child care a day as it would be 9-3pm. Clearly that doesn't equate to the same but it definitely makes it even more reasonable and I'd actually be able to do pick up and drop off which is nice.

We've found additional costs increase as the child gets older. More trips, more likely to be residential. The fees you've quoted are very reasonable compared with where we are in the South!

What's you long term plan for secondary school?

The fees for year 7+ are £3,900 and 6th form £4,100. We are both still relatively early in our careers and as thats not a vast difference I'd like to think we'd be able to cover that two. If we have more than two children it would be a no go though. It's definitely affordable for us if there isn't a vast extra cost.
Personally I didn't go to private school and have a few friends who did. One in particular was always the 'poorest' in adverted commas as they were by no means poor! She had a complex as she couldn't always go on all the trips and felt she was bullied due to it so it concerned me a little.
If it got to it and we couldn't afford secondary I feel like at least we've given him the best start?

Yes i and my boys absolutely love the school ans totally worth it in my eyes. Depends ehat you eant i guess. We have grammar schools here and the private schools prep them in exam technique which we wanted but its much more than that.. loads of sport and music and brilliant group of parents and community to school.

Sorry for typos- on phone!

My child is in Y1 pre prep. We're from a completely none independent background, are in the North and pay similar to the fees you have quoted.

Before and after school care is extra but we don't need to use it often and there's school trips which as a pp said are minimal at this age.

Uniform is probably the biggest extra but we buy non regulation where we can (ie ASDA shirts) and school also have a second hand shop where you can also pick up some of the more pricier stuff.

We do pay for a couple of extra curricular activities too which probably cost about £120/£150 a term on top.

We're far from wealthy and cut out cloth accordingly but we wouldn't be able to send more than one privately.

justfuckingreally are you going to stick with the one child? We have been debating tonight what is better a sibling or private school! We could probably just afford to send two but obviously it just starts to get tighter.
nowanotherone the activities look amazing! It makes me want to go!

In Yorkshire here.
DD goes to a brilliant Private Secondary with classes of 15.
We pay less then £3000 per term. Uniform isn't too bad and neither are lunches etc. Trips are around £600 for a 5 night European residential

qwerty The fees stay the same until year 7 so hopefully by then we will have enough to cover the extra. They are an extra £1k a term from year 7 onwards which I think we can cover.
hoppinggreen we are also in Yorkshire. Lunch is included in £2.8k for prep which I think is good.
justfuckingreally thanks for the heads up on uniform. Created a mock account for the school uniform site £80 for a blazer in reception my mouth hit the floor! The other items are relatively reasonable though as some look like we could potentially replace with items from Asda as you mentioned. They also have a second hand school shop I've seen on the website too.

I think qwerty meant the fees rise year on year above inflation. You should factor in something like a 5% rise each year.

Granted I didn't expect the feed for year 7 now will be the same by the time our little one is that age. I was talking more about it we could find the step up in what we are paying.

elliej83 yes, just one (I have older children from a previous relationship (state educated)) and that decision was taken out of our hands. Had we had more than one together private would most likely never have been an option.

Hoppinggreen are you happy to share which school (PM if you'd prefer). We've been looking at Hymers College as a secondary option.

I would opt for a private school personally. Make sure it's a reputable one though.

Private school with a sibling. I regret not having 3 kids so much but we couldn't afford to privately educate 3 but we could do 2.

I would recommend a state primary and a private secondary. Secondary is arguably more important in that it has a very obvious lasting impact, whereas parents are more able to help younger children at home where they might not be able to with subjects they have no knowledge of at high school. Also, the advice and opportunities available at a private high school are invaluable, and in my opinion, it would be much more useful to send your child(ren) to private school later on if that's what you choose to do.

mix93 We only have one good private school near us and it's quite hard to get in at secondary level if you haven't been all the way through. There are some entrance exams so it could be hard to just opt for secondary.
I emailed to ask how we would register our boy and the first step is to ring and ask for a prospectus. I have to admit I do feel a bit like we are being judged to see if we are suitable to have a child attend.

To be honest nowaday lots of the state schools have very expensive trips too (ski trips, trips to NY) and people don't go on all of those either.

There has never been anyone looking down noses at people who chose not to go on the school trips. My son is at independent school. We chose for him to do KS1 in the village school so he would get to know local children and then he moved to indy at year 3-8 and then onto a different senior school.

The fees tend to go up at each KeyStage so do check what they are likely to be and they tend to go up (round here anyway) at about 5% per year. So if, like my friend, you are handy with spreadsheets you can work out your cost over the time your child(ren) will be at school. Personally I'd rather not know that I could have bought a holiday home instead.

For us we do think it is worth it and not just "buying grades" as some people like to think it is.