private school- how much does it really cost?

[TerrifiedMothertobe]

We are very dissolutioned with our local schools, which is a real disappointment.

We are now seriously looking at the possibility of private school, we can definitely afford to send one, but we have two children.

So I'm trying to work out how much all the hidden costs, like uniform, clubs, trips are on top off fees to see whether we can stretch to two.

I won't send them unless we can do the same for both. So fees are about 15k a year, should I estimate 20k all in? Which if that is the case simply cannot afford it.

Help!

21k a year

I'm in the south east (Kent) and DD's school fees are about £6.5k

Uniform was about £500 new but there's a second hand shop run by the PTA (which i found out about after I'd kitted her out for her first year)

Clubs are £30 per club per term

Lunch is £95 a term, but you can send pack lunch

Trips are usually £20ish each, she had 3 trips last year

There are also a lot of 'pay £2 to dress as x' day and cake sales which seem to pop up every week and add up quite quickly.

Oh and bloody costumes, a lot of costumes, which unless you are good at sewing and have a never ending supply of old sheets gets pretty expensive

All in all i reckon we paid £1000 on top of the school fees last year, in year 5 and 6 there are residential trips (1 each year) which are usually around £400 each but you get lots of notice for those.

My nearest private secondary is over £35k a year thankfully its a boys school, the nearest that takes girls is only £20k

Dancing dinosaur, where in the S East? In N London you'll only get a bit of change out of that per term

Our sons' school had the most wonderful second hand shop, and we bought everything there VERY cheaply. It depends on the school.

We are in East Anglia , pre prep here about£9000 a year , prep about £12000 and senior about £14500

Home counties greenfizzy

Definitely email or phone the bursar.
Ask for uniform lists with costs,proposed trips for the next couple of years, cost of music lessons and ask if there are any other extras you haven't thought about.
Also ask what the fee increases have been for the last 10 years. I say 10 years, because many schools have reined it in the last three years to perhaps 4% increases! but before that 8-10% increases were not uncommon. Tbh, this will be more of an issue than the extras.
Work out the fees for each year with the increases for inflation,plus any jumps in fees into the next stage. You will be shocked at how much higher the fees you will,pay in the final year will be compared to when you start out.

I recently did a similar exercise about a secondary school I am interested in for my DS who is currently 9. The current fees are about £16k and I have worked out that by the time he would finish year 13, those fees will be around £26k if fees increase by about 4% per year......big jump and our salaries probably won't increase by that much. Multiply it by 2 children.

You say you won't think about secondary yet.....well that's okay to a point....although having a bit of an idea of what will come next, actually helps you decide what you want and need now. Work backwards. Yes, you can re-assess at the point you move to secondary, but it is good not to have your head in the sand, so you can be realistic about the future.

Tbh,if it seems extremely tight now, and that is just for one, with the fee inflation, it is probably not possible long term. Hope you work out what is best for your family.

Also just really make sure that it is a good private school. Private schools are not obliged to follow the same curriculum or submit to the same inspections as state schools. Nor do the teaching staff have to be qualified teachers. So some schools are really not good. You need to be 100% clear in your mind that the school is a very good one before you make that commitment. And don't forget that the schools have become very good at marketing, so try to make sure they are not just telling you what you want to hear.

Here you need to budget on minimum 12k per year for fees, then extras would probably be around £2-4k. That's for the cheapest. The majority in my city are nearer £20k.

Surely it depends on your income? If a school costs 10k and your income is 20k then you'd struggle. If your income was 50K then you probably wouldn't.

Everyone has to decide what private education is 'worth' to them and also what the true 'cost' to them is.
If paying fees means your lifestyle is reduced so significantly that you need to live in a tiny flat, never have holidays and remain terrified of redundancy or the car breaking down, then the 'cost' seems high,if the nearby state schools are decent and the difference between private and state are minor.

If you are absolutely loaded and the fees are a drop in the ocean, then even a small improvement might make the fees seem 'worth it' because the true cost in terms of sacrifice is little.

Where it is hard to make the decision,now when things are marginal. Yes, private is better,it it is unclear by how much and yes, sacrifices necessary will be considerable. That's when it's hard to know if it is really 'worth it' or not.

Personally, I'm prepared to make some sacrifices for private education. I don't mind not having expensive holidays and new cars. However, if it meant no holidays and living in a tiny house or working much longer hours, I would decide it wasn't worth it for us. The way we all value things is different though.

OP I'm in the same position. We could scrape together the fees but struggle if there was anything on top.

Citrasun I've PM'd you - I hope that's ok.

Fee paying here, and extracurricular come to about plus 40% extra.
Orthodontics extra too, again about 110% of annual school fee.

We put the effort and money in between ages 3 and 11, with private nurery, pre-prep and prep school. At 11 both mine then went to grammar school, where they did very well and got better grades than most of their old prep achool mates. I think that in the earlier years you gt really good value for money, and it sets the work ethic (+ good manners) that help them later on.

Completely agree, higgle. that's what we did with our daughter. In Kent and then in Lincs. DS however got a scholarship and wanted to do music, he would have struggled to find an equivalent strong music course in a state school. We did look. Pretty much keyboard and guitar only, and he wanted to compose.

We must have been lucky, DCs went to a total of 4 prep schools between them and none charged for clubs. However they were all boarding schools with day pupils, maybe it's harder to get teachers to stay later at day preps.

Fees are £9000 (pre prep) & 12k (prep) a year for prep which includes lunch. Extras are usually about £25 a term max for trips. Anything else is entirely optional. We allow 2 clubs a week which are all £50 a term and all taught by outside groups plus Speech and drama which is about £65 a term. My extras have never come to more than £200 a term so about 5%. Uniform was a good few hundred £ initially but since then everything has been handed down from leavers and all I have bought are school shoes which I would buy anyway, tights which I would buy anyway and a blazer for £65. Fees jump at secondary to close to £20k and at that point we moved back to state for eldest with no regrets and the others will follow.

It really depends on the school and what the costs of extras are. At secondary level they can be hundreds a term if your child is a talented busy one! Also school fees go up higher than inflation and most wages. My DDs old senior schools are now £32,000 for boarding. £24,000 for day. If your income is not going to keep pace, you will have problems later down the line. You also have to factor in that you will travel further to friends' houses, probably have to buy more expensive birthday presents and the presents for teachers can be pretty high too. Any school trips can be extortionate. Would you say your child could not go? When mine were at school, Geography trips could be £600 and there were sport trips, music trips, history trips and plenty of other paid for activities. I would definitely see what the school offers, what you might want your child to do and what the costs are.

DS (secondary age) fees are 18.6k a year.
Lunches are on top £280 a term
School coach £400 a term
All school trips are added to bill, so maybe a couple of hundred there. Last years trip abroad was £600, DofE a couple of hundred.
I have just ( an hour ago) spent another £50 on school shoes, as his disappeared after games. It is a huge commitment!
2 kids down...2 to go.....
I guess you need to budget around 22-25k a year.

second hand shops, dc not going for all trips (and lots of other children are not going either). Costs for lunch and music lessons would be in state as well.

Is it worth it?? For dc1 probably yes, for dc2 probably no (different children)