Would you even consider private?

[Amberkitten7654321]

We have 3 kids (currently year 3, 1 and pre school).

Joint salary is circa £150k, maybe up to £175 with bonuses although not guaranteed.

considering secondary schools. Our local comp just goes to 16 and is very very average. An average excellent state 6th form however in a nearby city which we’d be very happy with.

we have a nice house worth circa £950k with a very low mortgage due to some remarkable luck buying and selling in London just at the time the prices went nuts.

we could move and downsize and release circa £200k. Have about another £100k odd saved in the bank. Obviously costs of moving to be considered.

would you:
a) suck up the 5 years at average secondary knowing there was a very good 6th form to follow.

b) do 5 years of independent school each and then do state 6th form.

c) move and downsize to be in grammar school catchment and hope at least 2/3 get in, and then the 3rd could do independent?

d) move without downsizing to an area with better state secondaries - even though all the cost and upheaval and leaving of friends that goes with that.

my husband and I both went to private schools (me just for secondary) and really loved our experience. And we just don’t have experience of state secondaries. I don’t know how much “better” one can be than another to justify spending £30k moving and leaving all their friends behind?

the sums seem very very slightly do-able for independent for 5 years but toght and all I read is that if it’s tight don’t even consider it.

I don’t know whether I’d regret moving and starting over or not giving my kids the best opportunity o could…

I think you have to objectively compare the private and state secondary schools and feel free to go to open days now even if it might be a bit early re the age of your children. I started hitting the tours in year 3 and did more in y4 and I’m so glad I did as it’s helped steered what we’re going to do and our financial planning. I found the pupil tours to be very helpful and got better at asking good questions the more I did. I started out looking at exam results but none of my questions to the kids were about results at all. You need to get a feel for the day to day life at the school and whether it fits what you are after.

I don’t like our catchment secondary but am in a similar position in that there is an excellent sixth form college. We’re going for private secondary but I wouldn’t go for private at any cost- there were some I visited that I really struggled to grasp the added value over the state and others where the differences were very clear to see. Fees are one hell of a commitment especially for you with 3 and you need to be absolutely sure it’s viable before you start. I’d echo the advice of others to start saving the equivalent fees now to see how manageable it feels.

How small is your small mortgage? I think that potentially makes a massive difference to your affordability for private school as a lot of your peers on similar wages will have pretty hefty mortgages. That gives you options. I wouldn’t be keen on downsizing with 3 but would you consider re-mortgaging if needed?

If you can manage, I would do b - with the caveat that the private school should be truly excellent and delivers brilliant GCSE results. This will also give your kids the option of joining state grammar sixth forms which often have quite high entrance requirements for A-level.

My situation is similar to yours - 3 kids, all at a fantastic private school. Our local comp isn’t great (we are in London) and we are out of catchment for any of the grammars. The financial burden has been quite awful, I won’t lie (our income situation is similar to yours) and we have to exist on a shoestring, which is even more tricky when we are surrounded by super high earners (no, we can’t ever go skiing with you, sorry!)

BUT - our kids have had a wonderful time. Thrived academically and made lovely friends. My eldest is about to leave, and off to Oxford later this year, all being well. But even she says a change at sixth form level would have been fine, and I’ll be looking at that for my younger two for sure. Our state options become much, much better for A-level.

Aware it’s not all about results, but put it this way - the vast majority children at my kids’ school come out with all 8s and 9s for GCSEs. At the local comp, that would be highly unusual (maybe one or two kids in a year). But results at sixth form (from the best state schools in the area) tend to align more closely.

Good luck OP x

In your position I would certainly consider private, IF there's a good one nearby (private schools are not universally better than state).

I would : 1) adjust your lifestyle right now to live on c£24kpa less than you are currently living on by putting £2k per month into savings until such time as you start paying fees. Or more if you can. How wealthy you feel is always merely a matter of managing your lifestyle expectations. Millions of families get by on less than half of what you have so your genuinely disposable income is a lot higher than you think.
2) keep your children in state until the end of y4, then move them into private for y5-y11.
3) rearrange your mortgage at next renewal to be an offset mortgage with your existing £100k savings plus the additional savings you are putting in as above reducing your mortgage interest to zero, but the capacity to pull out as much as you need over the next 12 years. (Keep paying in as much as possible though - you may need a 2nd savings accountif you hit the point where the savings balance is greater than the outstanding mortgage)
(3) as school fees ramp up (they will be at their peak when oldest is in y11, middle child y9 and youngest child y7) pay as much as you can from income but don't be afraid to draw out the remainder from the offset mortgage account.

By the time the youngest leaves school you will certainly have less capital wealth than you do now, but you won't be poor, and it will only take a few years to build your assets back up to something more comfortable.

Well St Paul’s Girls gets 94% 8/9 grades but who would leave there for 6th form elsewhere? Wycombe Abbey is about the same at 90%. Most schools don’t get this level of results unless they are highly selective. Most schools getting this level of results don’t have a huge exodus after y11.

@TizerorFizz - more kids at those kind of schools are leaving for excellent state sixth forms now the VAT has come in (and fees will continue to rise beyond that). There's also the awareness that coming from a private school can disadvantage students a bit, particularly when it comes to Oxbridge applications. Yes, the university admissions teams will know when students have moved to state just for A-level, but it does still seem to be a factor...

@Whitewinesea I can see a few might be affected by VAT but some dc will look to USA and not Oxbridge. Their stars won’t be dimmed by staying at top schools. Most I’ve known at WA are not earning £150,000 a year and trying to educate 3 dc privately. Well - all! Not most.

@TizerorFizz - but if money is at all a concern, you wouldn't be wanting your kids to go to uni in the USA anyway! (As an aside, even if money were no object at all, studying in the states would be quite unpleasant with Trump in power 😂)

Also, Wycome Abbey is a boarding school - so much higher fees of course. The OP isn't talking about boarding...

And (pressed post too soon!) sometimes results on paper don't quite reflect the 'truth' when it comes to results/uni destinations. My kids' private school, on paper, gets higher numbers into Oxbridge than a very good local state school sixth form does. But when you did the number of applications versus offers for those two schools, it's actually the state school having more success, if that makes sense?

WA has day girls. However I think many well off parents look at the USA now. Trump won’t influence that decision. I agree that having £150,000 pa and needing to sell a house makes a lot of difference regarding choices and destinations. I would not have sold my house. Nor would I have scrimped and saved. You should be able to be certain where the fees are coming from to be worry free.

WA does admit into y9 though so if DD is good enough ……

Why are people so ridiculously competitive on an anonymous forum?

How is Wycombe Abbey or St Paul’s Girls or the USA remotely useful to the OP or her enquiry?

Why are people so ridiculously competitive on an anonymous forum?

It's private schooling, a whole other world of crazy!

@Newbutoldfather Competitive? I wasn’t recommending those schools for op. It was a discussion about value for money and a pp saying some private schools get most dc with grade 8/9 GCSEs, then they leave. I suggested, without any skin in the game, that this doesn’t happen at all top academic schools. The whole point is that if you have very bright dc you might consider schools like this! Why would you not? However you should have enough money available to see it through. Changing can be very hard out of top schools. However if you pay, get value for money. Don’t pay if you cannot see much difference between state and private. Use the money widely. Nothing competitive about that.

@TizerorFizz ,

Let’s be honest, the OP asked about the economics and benefits of private school for her 3 children, all below primary age.

Then, as ever on these threads, someone needed to witter about 8s and 9s and then, of course, people decided to name drop some of the best/most exclusive schools in the country and how well their children did there.

And Oxbridge, and why U.S unis might be a better choice (though I suspect not right now!).

Nothing wrong with discussing super expensive elite institutions if they are relevant to the thread, but they aren’t.

These threads always end up with the same people stealth boasting (although I am not sure really where the stealth comes in).

@TizerorFizz - for clarity, I wasn't saying that the majority of kids leave top private schools for state sixth forms - but that the numbers doing so are indeed rising...

It can be a very good choice if the full 7 years of private secondary feel like too much a financial stretch - and with three kids, it's understandable. By the time OP's kids get to sixth form stage, London private schools will probably be around 40k a year per child at least! So that's 240k minimum just to put kids through sixth form...when an outstanding state school (that wouldn't be an option when the kids are younger because of catchments etc) could be just as good, if not better, in terms of A-level results.

Wycombe Abbey fees are almost double that of the lovely private school my children go to.

@Whitewinesea Yes but some dc won’t walk into the best 6th forms either. I think parents just about affording private will be looking at finances. If I was the op, I would!

The suggestion made earlier of saving £25,000 a year would not put much of a dent in London fees for 3. That’s fees at DDs old prep as a day girl for one year for 1 child.

I think we are meant to be dazzled. Instead some of us just roll our eyes.
It’s as if some posters have an A* - sorry, 9 - in one-upmanship.

Where does the narrative come from that every private school is top notch & all the dc are super intelligent, get 9s & these dc couldn't possibly thrive in a state school?

My dc didn’t go to those schools! Massive leap there! I was responding to, and having a conversation with, a poster about high grades and whether the op should consider moving for 6th form! We don’t need permission or sneering comments to have a pertinent conversation about how op might look at spending her money and what’s best value for money! All opinions are surely welcome!?

@TizerorFizz the OP wasn’t asking for you to debate with others. They asked for views direct to them and they have clearly ended the discussion with a lovely thank you 2 days ago - which for me ended the discussion and if in some small way my post helped with their thinking that’s great. Read the room

Good luck, Op, hope your kids are happy and do well. If they’ve got involved parents bothered enough to post here then that gives them a head start no matter where they end up.

Hard agree on holidays by the way. I privilege those above almost everything else, and we are very definitely not wealthy or anywhere near your level of income. Life should not be all hair shirt, striving and achieving. It’s short, and we should enjoy it.

Keep in mind too, that teenagers are a lot more expensive in every other way too.

my two teenage boys are both in men’s clothes, men’s shoes (both more expensive than kids clothes) plus eat more than my husband and are not happy unless a substantial portion of the meal is meat. We have always been a light meat eating family. I used to cook a chicken curry for example with 1 large chicken breast and then load of veg. Can’t do that now the boys would riot. Even haircuts cost more. Going out to dinner they eat adult meals so it cost a fortune.

private school uniforms are expensive too. I’m in Aust so our private schools are way more affordable than yours as they are subsidised by the gov, but uniforms cost so much, plus expensive laptops ect needed, extra excursions. Our school has 2 uniforms in high school plus a summer and winter uniform. They wear the same size too so no handing down.

my oldest just turned 16 so now we have the extra expense of learners permit, driving lessons all that too.

I’m definitely not considering WA or similar to be clear…! And certainly no university in USA unless they wish to self fund!

I just would love a not-too-small-but-not-too-big, nurturing, not flashy and pretentious day school (definitely definitely day, not interested in boarding even if we won the lottery!) where the kids can find their “thing” and be challenged and encouraged…oh and obviously extremely good value 🤣

a unicorn?!

dh and I going to sit down with excel this weekend and crunch some serious numbers and then probably start googling “what side hustle can earn me an extra few £100k”.

thanks again everyone this has been so so helpful, and so many different ideas - I massively appreciate it

@Neodymium this is so, so true. I feel like I’m haemorrhaging money every day with two teens. It’s brutal. The nursery pre-school years are very costly as well, but at least now you get some subsidy.
there is a deceiving lull between reception and about age 14. Then, the costs start to climb and climb again and let’s not even mention uni. That’s the biggie. Personally I’d save my money for that and house deposits. Otherwise they will have massive debts and be renting forever.

Yes that’s right there is those years at primary school when they eat like sparrows and clothes are cheap.

even holidays cost more - fully price adult tickets. Can’t get away with squeezing into a small place and putting them on a sofa bed together.

I am paying school fees as well, but far cheaper than what you pay in the uk. Mostly mine are at private cause I work there so it’s discounted, and it’s easier for me to have them in the same place.

if you are talking about several hundred grand for private school op id seriously consider if it is worth it. I know we wouldn’t pay that much.