Private school affordability - advice!

[jsemamma]

Hello,

Our DS has done fantastically and gotten an 11+ offer from one of the top London independent schools - we're so proud of him. However we seem to be in the difficult position of earning too much to be able to get a bursary, but in real terms having very limited disposable income, by the time we pay our mortgage and bills (we live in central London so mortgage payments are high).

We're now in the awful position of having to figure out what to do. DS absolutely adored the school, and would love to go to it - he is incredibly clever and very musical so would benefit hugely from everything it has to offer. He does understand though that financially it would be extremely difficult.

I wanted to ask those of you with children in top London independent schools (think fees around £31k per year) - how much disposable income per month do you realistically need to be able to cover the fees? Apart from music, are there extra charges for extracurricular activities like clubs and sports etc, or are these included in the fees?

Our household income is ~£130k gross and we have a fairly hefty mortgage. We also have another DC, and both DCs are currently in a state primary. We have one (old second-hand) car, don't take fancy holidays, and are not into luxuries. I realise every family is different, but just wondering whether we would be stretching ourselves far too much trying to give him this opportunity. Any advice welcome!

They do well @DecisionParalysis but statistically (specifying there as obviously individuals will) they won’t overwhelmingly get 7+ grades.

When I last checked, 28% of children at state comprehensives were getting grade 7 or above at GCSE, while 62.% at private schools were. I realise a lot of private schools select children on the basis of academic achievement but the ones who don’t get in don’t tend to go to their local comprehensive; they go to a non selective private school.

You absolutely cannot spend thousands on one child and not the other. DH was sent to one of the best schools in the country, it has been top of league tables a few times and his sister was sent to a state school. She is an obnoxious human being, I mean truly awful but in my kinder moments I do wonder if the root of it was the totally unfair treatment at a young age.

You can’t afford to send two so don’t send one.

What is only one of the two is capable of getting a spot a grammar? I've always wondered it that justifies paying for the other child's education.

Why on earth did you dangle this school in front of your DS when he quite obviously won’t be able to go??

It wasn’t ‘obvious’; it was to see if he was eligible for a bursary / scholarship.

It is hard. It probably would have been better to not have done it at all but then you just never know. Parenting is hard and decisions like this the trickiest.

Insane that you dont understand how expensive London is 🙄

What do you mean by "statistically"? The statistics are characterised most by the subset of children who go there. Simply that. The subset of children attending a private school, even a non-selective one, come from wealthy backgrounds and that correlates highly with driven, supportive families who value education, and the nature of a child's home environment is probably the single biggest factor in a child's academic success.
The grade statistics of a school are not an indication of how your own child will perform there - that will likely vary much less from school to school, especially if your child is in a supportive, ambitious family.
I have many friends with their kids in local comprehensives (some better than others), who have all got straight 8s and 9s at GCSE.
Sorry for the tangent, OP. I'm sure your child will do well wherever they go, but fully understand it must be very hard to be in your position.

We treated all our children the same. What we found helped was second jobs at weekends at one stage until income climbed higher . One of us would have the children on Saturday and then the other on Sunday. We live in outer London (zone 5). Eg if one of you could earn £20 an hour for 10 hours on each of Sat and Sunday you already have £20k gross extra available (£10k after tax and NI).

Because the “right” school is sooo much more important to a child than having parents who are available and not exhausted…….

I don’t think that sounds affordable for year 7-11 on your household income, with the other outgoings you mention.

our experience (outer London and surrey) has been that private secondary has cost much more than we estimated. annual fee increases of 5-10%. (Things like pension and national insurance changes). The biggie with VAT. Transport costs increased much more.

Additional costs like uniform, music lessons, trips not TOO bad (our DC didn’t attend the costliest, optional ones like skiing).

DDs school was 33k for 6th form and there were quite a few extras. Music tuition, trips, some events, exam fees were extra. No uniform thankfully but needed smart business dress so we did have to buy that and sports kit. DD did get a scholarship but that was only 10% discount and with fee increases and VAT it’s meant no holidays or extras. If you can’t get a bursary or scholarship it sounds like it might be tough to afford the fees let alone any extras.

I would definitely ask about extra costs and be upfront with the school how much your ds wants this opportunity but that without a bursary or scholarship you’re going to find it tough. DD has a friend who didn’t qualify for a bursary initially but ended up getting one when her parents did this. You just never know so worth a shot but if the school is super competitive to get into it’s likely they can fill all spaces easily so less likely to discount a space unless your son has a very special talent or is extremely gifted in an area the school values eg music or sports.

If they can’t help is there another independent school where he would get a bursary or scholarship? I would explore all options before moving on. But be mindful your second child will need the same surely and the cost of two in private definitely doesn’t sound affordable in your income.

And if you had to move him when he is is choosing GCSE options, or halfway through exam courses it could be a disaster if you couldn’t find a school offering the same options. As others have said, he is bright, he will do well anywhere, use the spare cash you have to support him and the sibling with out of school activities, sports etc and hope you have some left for University top ups.

I have to say, because I imagine a lot of people are thinking it, why on earth didn’t you research the finances more carefully before putting him through the exam, applying and accepting a place and raising his hopes?

Did you not apply to selective state schools as well? And will find out very soon?

What have you been doing with your excess disposable income up till now? If you have been spending it, the crash down by £31kpa out of your net income in the standard of living you can afford will feel very harsh. If you have been putting £31kpa into savings/investments/pensions/mortgage overpayments and other things that don't bring you any immediate benefit then it's obvious that you can afford to put that level into fees instead with no trouble, but it's most likely you are somewhere in between these 2 extremes.

For us, we put half the amount that we were expecting to spend in school fees for Secondary into savings every year while DC at Primary, so by the time we were deciding whether to accept the Independent School offer we knew that we could just keep up the same level of contribution from Income and also draw down from those savings and would have no trouble. I don't think I would have gone ahead if I didn't have the safety of those savings plus the knowledge that we could live on that residual income because we had already been doing so.

Knowing that your Gross income is ~£130k isn't very useful - depending on how this is split between the two of you, your net income could be anything between £87kpa and £95kpa assuming you re both PAYE employees paying normal NI contributions and a 5% pension contribution. With £31kpa out of your Net income on School Fees you would be living as if your net household income was circa £56-64kpa - do families live in central london with a household income at that kind of level? Possibly, but I expect their homes are a lot less nice than yours and they may even qualify for benefits, which obviously you wouldn't. In a few years time when you have 2 children at secondary school age you would be looking at reducing your effective net household income to circa £28-36kpa (assuming the school gives a 10% discount to second and subsequent children studying at the same time, which is not uncommon) which I suspect may be not much more than your "hefty" mortgage.

People with household incomes in that range and big mortgages tend to be found in all the best state secondaries with top up tutoring, holidays and music lessons. So see what you get at 5pm tomorrow and then see how you feel? If you get something good state wise, I bet you will be extremely relieved and be putting this to the back of your mind.
I think most of us would love to send our DCs to the all bells and whistles top private schools but simply cannot afford it comfortably and no school is worth 30k plus if you get a perfectly good state option, where you can top up, have nice family holidays pay off your mortgage and save for uni fees/into the kids ISAs. And especially not if you won’t be able to offer the younger child the same and that is pretty clear already.

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Can you try for a scholarship? The education tax will be scrapped with next Government, that will help a bit.

So we just say wealthy children are more intelligent than non wealthy ones and that is it.

I am not buying that, not for a moment. It is unbelievably obvious that being given different opportunities affects what children achieve, and that merely being ‘bright’ does not mean you’ll be just fine at Grime Street Academy while your peers flourish at Queen Mary’s School for Girls.

People do want to believe it is true but unfortunately it isn’t.

But that's the opposite of what I'm saying! I'm saying that results are more of a function of socio economic class than of how 'bright' you are. And they are also more of a function of socio economic class than of which school you went to ... , but socio economic class and the school you go to (especially if it's private) are highly correlated, giving the impression that private schools are adding all the value when that's almost certainly much less true than it appears. I'm not saying school has no impact. I'm not saying being bright has no impact or that being bright is significantly less likely in less wealthy households, but being bright is less significant than socio economic class on your school outcomes.

That's not to say there aren't completely valid reasons for choosing a private school. Things like the sorts of people who your child is likely to have the opportunity to be friends with, co-curriculars etc. And it would be daft to say that a school has no impact at all on academic performance would be ridiculous. But I don't think you can really conclude all that much about that from the %As.

It doesn’t seem the opposite of what you are saying. Rather, it seems you’re saying that wealthy children are inherently more intelligent than their average or poor counterparts.

If I have misunderstood then I am genuinely sorry.

You can’t afford it. Like I can’t afford it for my super clever and creative daughter who would also adore it and love it. Just can’t happen

Privileged children tend to achieve well in school. Private schools tend to have a high % of privileged children. Therefore private schools tend to have very good results. It’s not rocket surgery….

We have been to both private and state schools. Both non selective. I can categorically state that the kids are equally academic at both. Perhaps the child with more profound SEN are not so common at private schools because they can't support them. But there are an equal number of below, average and above kids.
And tbh some of the private parents (outside London /SE) are not very 'on it' compared to North London state school parents. The prep school parent portal log in was so complex that numerous families hadn't looked at an end of term report for years..

You also have to pay for every single GCSE paper.