Private schools...true costs?

[ifeelsoextraordinary]

Hello. Considering private education for our kids and the fees are just about affordable. I know that there are a whole heap of additional costs on top of fees (uniform, trips, equipment, breakfast clubs and after school care etc). The schools we are considering are in the £11-13k field. If you send your kids to private schools, realistically, what should we be budgeting on top for all the extras?

Don't forget fees will go up once the SNP remove charitable status.

Do you know if the removal of charitable status a done deal and when it will come into effect? Is a helpful question to ask on school visits...thanks for the heads up.

Kicks in from April 2020

www.edinburghnews.scotsman.com/news/politics/bid-to-strip-private-schools-of-charity-status-moves-on-1-4759852

Mine are at Watson’s. For extras, our biggest is the school bus to/from West Lothian!

Blazers are just over £100 but buy them super big and they will last 2-3 years. There is a second hand shop as well. I’ve found that they haven’t needed most of the other stuff on the list- DD just uses the skirt and pe top. DS just used the track suit bottoms and pe top. Both are on their third year of the pe top. I do buy spare ties just in case and DD has the skirt but I suspect the same one will do the whole of her senior school.

Lunches can be expensive if not bringing from home. Big variety plus lots of homemade goodies in the bun room so I’m constantly telling mine off for buying too much!

School trips vary. DD’s languages trip this year is £700 (not all children go). They do what is called S3 projects in S3 which is lots of Munro’s, kayaking, gorge walking etc and that is several hundred. DoE can be expensive. S1 has an orientation trip- think it was a few hundred.

Books can be £100-£150ish but am finding the cost coming down as they use more online materials.

There’s the odd in school trip or theatre visit etc- £5-£15ish depending on the activity.

Autocorrect, I mean skort for pe not skirt.

Thanks wicked. Does an extra 10-15% budget on top of fees sound about right? Also have they mentioned anything about possible impact of loss of charitable status on fees? GWC is one of the schools we are interested in. Thanks!

Yeah, 10% should cover it. We had an email about the impact of the charitable status and I think the Head was predicting it would end up adding another 2.5% to the fees.

Oh and most clubs are free but the odd one- e.g. rock climbing does have a charge.

very helpful! thank you

To be honest, a lot of the costs mentioned by Wicked would be similar to a lot of state schools too. I'm not sure if there is a greater expectation about the more expensive trips though? Costs in DSs state school for a trip are definitely comparable but maybe a lesser proportion go so it wouldn't be very obvious if you didn't go if that makes sense? DofE is expensive too and our blazers are £55 but they don't last even if they aren't outgrown and so it's harder to get 2nd hand as they are generally only fit for the bin after a years wear. Our school doesn't have particularly expensive gym kit but another local school (serving a generally more deprived catchment) has Nike branded wear that is compulsory!

We also end up buying books from time to time as there aren't enough to go round - wouldn't be £100+ though.

So, essentially there are some costs that will be over your school fees but some of those you would have anyway but appreciate it feels worse when you are already paying out a whack.

Thanks Wax. I don’t think my parents had to pay for anything for my state school except a blazer and tie (which I never wore!) and the odd school trip to Butlins . Things have moved on!

In our experience 10% covered extras but our son did not learn a musical instrument. We bought the whole uniform list when he moved into senior school (Stewarts Melville) and I think it cost about £300, probably would be more now. It lasted for years although we had to replace the blazer twice as he grew so much. Thereafter just replaced bits and pieces as required but quality was good. He is actually still wearing his track suit top in his last year at university.

We set expectations early about trips abroad in that we would paid for one during his time at senior school. He was totally happy with that and there did not seem to be any pressure to go on a trip every year. Some of the trips were extremely expensive.

I bought a lot of his books second hand from Amazon when available then I wasn’t so devastated when I saw them looking only fit for the bin a couple of months later.

Lunches cost about £500 per year (currently, I just checked as I couldn’t remember) Our son enjoyed them and they seemed to fill him up which isn’t always easy with a teenage boy. I think the cost was a bargain to avoid all the hassle of shopping for and preparing a packed lunch and avoiding the possibility of him forgetting it or losing it.

Our son absolutely loved his time at Stewart’s and we thought it was worth every penny. The single sex environment until sixth year but with close links to Mary Erskines worked really well for him.

Aargh, yes, I forgot about musical instrument lessons! We currently pay £17 per 30 minute lesson and there’s 30 lessons per year. This is very much an optional extra!

My friend pays almost as much in wrap-around care as she does for fees (works full-time).

Wrap around costs worry me. It’s another thing I’d have to pay for whether state or private, although I suspect private will be much more expensive.

You could start in state schools and switch to private later to avoid school fees on top of wrap around fees. Both my DC started at Watson’s in P7. Would save loads of money and they aren’t at any sort of disadvantage starting later.

Wicked that's definitely an option we are considering and very good to know it doesn't seem to be a disadvantage. We are visiting our catchment primary next week so should get a feeling whether or not that would be a good option. Did your kids find it a big jump from state to private?

Academically they were fine. I think all the Edinburgh day schools do a full class intake for either P6 or P7 or both, as well as S1. I’d heard that the West Lothian schools were behind the Edinburgh schools for Maths and this was definitely the case (but if you are in Edinburgh, you won’t have this problem!) so for DS we’d did quite a bit of prep before he started and for DD we knew what to focus on before she started.

The biggest difference they found was going from a highly regulated, no freedom type of environment to one with a lot more independence. At their local school they were marched along by the teacher from the classroom to playground or lunch hall etc and at Watson’s they were shown everything but then were expected to make their own way around the campus which was a great novelty to them in P7.

Socially, DD did struggle a bit as although it’s a new class intake for P7, she found that pretty much everyone except her knew at least one other person from primary school and she found it difficult to break into that- she ended up making friends outwith her class. She’s S2 now and is well settled.

DS (S5) has thrived there. We couldn’t have picked a better school for him. I’m not sure about DD. I think she would have struggled at the local high school and as I said, she is well settled now, but it took a while.

I’m not sure if this is the same in Scotland but assume it probably is - Teachers’ pensions employers contributions are rising by 43% next September. This is going to have a substantial knock on effect on fees, so you need to budget accordingly.