Private schools - Are you all rich

[Whatsitreallylike]

Divisive I know, and not a popular MN thing to say (name changed), but I want to send my DD to a local private school.

Its 4-11 only, and is known to be a feeder school to the local grammar (nothing guaranteed of course) so I’d like to give it a shot. I know a lot of 11+ tutoring is also required etc.. and if unsuccessful DD will likely be going to local comp secondary if not grammar as nothing else really around (no private secondaries for some distance).

Heres the question, will my DD be bullied for not being ‘rich’.
We have a combined income of £170k pa and not huge outgoings so we’re comfortable, but we’re not rich. We live in a 3 bed semi, have a few investment properties but on the face of it we’re very average. We can afford the extra curricular, school trips, clothes etc… but wondered what average looks like at these schools and will she be faced with comments like ‘you have a small house’, ‘your mums car is 5 years old’ etc… I don’t want her to be an outsider and would rather her at the local state school if she’d be more comfortable there.

With it being a grammar ‘feeder’ I imagine many parents may be in a similar boat to us, comfortable but not flash, investing early in education and hoping for the best. If your kids go to a 4-11 independent school, could you please tell me if I’m right or wrong to be worried please?

I think HearTheMessenger is taking the piss.

This is very true. According to a Times article, a couple need an income of £236,000 to be merely ‘comfortable’. We have an income of less than 20% of that, and I’d consider us to be very comfortable. We can pay the bills. I don’t have to add up the shopping as I go round the supermarket, just throw it in the trolley. We have two cars, a holiday abroad each year and the odd weekend away and no debt.

People on MN say “We’re not rich. By the time we’ve paid our bills and mortgage on our house in London, and paid for our big flash SUV, paid the school fees and put a big wedge in our pensions, we can only manage to save £1000 a month”, with a complete lack of irony.

Comfortable seems to be even harder to pin down than rich to me.

I always think uncomfortable would be being cold, hungry, frightened, dirty etc so I feel anyone able to eat, heat, wash, feel safe, appropriate clothes is comfortable.
But am am venturing towards having enough for a level of private healthcare and dentistry to be comfortable too. As waiting for a year for surgery for painful stuff is very uncomfortable

As pps, it's entirely school dependent. DD's went to independent primary. No-one was anywhere near as "rich" as you, nor flashy on any terms. Mostly local business owners, mostly self employed, some doctors, nurses, lots of IT, but also hairdressers, plumbers, builders, no internationals.

Secondary was a bit more mixed, with a wider range, lowly self employed, up to London city types, but we rubbed along well. Nobody cares about your wealth, they are just invested in the education of their children.

You do realise that was a sarcastic/parody post, don’t you?

It was still early 😴

@FloydGerhardt sometimes I need a lot of coffee to be able to see through the sarcasm to the sincere posts. It’s not always clear on MN even then! ☕️ ☕️

I imagine that you'll find the private school full of people who are rather out of touch and blissfully unaware of their own privilege. You'll probably fit right in.

Being "rich" has much more to do with generational wealth than it does your household income. The "top 1%" of earners doesn't accurately describe wealth distribution.

A couple on 80k each in their 40s thinking about private school could easily be in a much less comfortable situation than a couple on 50k each whose family money paid for large chunks of housing 10 years prior.

Your parents wealth and any inheritance etc make a huge difference to how you can live as an adult.

You have better salary than me and I send my kid to private!

May be it is so hard to define rich that we should use other words particularly as after tax, rent and childcare costs there are full time workers who have less spare than some who don't work.

To 10% in the UK by gross income before tax is £67,000 and over. This is the group who have the highest tax burden in 70 years and the other 90% have had tax reductions since 2010. obviously no one is going to have much sympathy for someone on £67k but they have been squeeze so much -loss of child benefit and much else that there is not much else to give so Labour are going to have to find a group of people (perhaps the other 90%) to pay more tax I suppose as those on over £67k have mostly been squeezed dry by high tax/NI.

This excactly ! 170 k is rich for gods sake !

It depends on the school. You need to visit and try gauge the kids and parents. Our school is super down to earth and 75% of parents are perhaps with your level of earnings. There is a small percentage that you can tell are proper rich - multi million house, posh cars, etc. They are definitely not the majority and there is no bullying.

Our eldest is in a private secondary, we probably have similar per annum as you…. We are wealthy by most people’s standards but there are many wealthier people with children at the school. No one seems to care but I think secondary is different as parents have far less to do with the other parents.

I actually find there is less bragging and boasting than at my younger boy’s primary.

I regnonise the helicopter 🤭

*anon199900", perhaps I always avoided it as I always worked full time so was very rarely the one taking or collecting even our 4 year olds from school. I do remember a day I collected one child of mine and the grandchild of a Duke was there ( child in her class) and the chauffeur did the school collections - it was the day a 2nd son was born and I remember waiting for the children to come out and being told about the celebrations - another world, but nice to look into at times.

No.
I’m on not much more than minimum wage. We get child benefit on dh’s wage (and that’s before the limit raise).
We have bursary kids.
Not really had a problem with anything.

(except affording the next two terms)

Though on that income they’ll be pretty standard.

DH are I earn £170k and send one to private and one to state. The one at state will move for secondary and we'll have 3 years of double fees. That will be tight and we're planning ahead for that. We do have money from my DM set aside to help with those years.

We feel comfortable but also don't have huge outgoings. Modest 4 bed house in a suburb with a mortgage of £1.4K. One 'normal' car, simple holidays (Eurocamp type) and are careful with spends.

Although you're getting a hard time on here I remember trawling the private school threads about this topic and frequently came across posts saying you need a minimum of £300k to even consider it and I particularly remember a poster asking if their £120k salary was enough and got totally flamed. Basically got called poor.

It's all relative. The posters who 'need' £300k likely have a huge mortgage and two big SUVs on expensive leases and fancy holidays.

Plenty people send their kids to private schools where the fees are their biggest expense and they don't have the other 'stuff'. You just need to work out what you're willing to compromise on and if you're not, that's fine.

Exactly. Eg some people live in the North (where I came from), buy a house younger than in the SE (as they are cheaper), work for 20 years and then have children at 38 having paid off the mortgage already and then start paying school fees which are more likely to be nearer £12k a year there per child (not cheap of course I know) than the £20k you might pay where I live now.

Yes they are OP. Obviously.
You can’t afford to pay thousands to and a kid to private school unless you are rich.

Put off children til late 30s …. And can save some real money, plus climb career ladder. It CAN be about choices….. how to spend the money you have earned and saved.

Is private school any worse than expensive holidays, veneers, lashes, gels, Botox etc etc

Choices.

Yes this! Mid 30s when having a child, only have 1 child, dual income household, small mortgage and choose to spend money on education over material things

It depends - some people will have a full bursary for the child and not be rich in any sense at all. For others rich means someone whose gross pay is higher than theirs even if the net pay is less!

Preps that feed into grammars are often full of the super rich who live within the catchment of the grammar school.

Couldn’t be further from the truth