Private school fee hike

[Heatherbell1978]

Currently considering private school for DS who is in P4 now. I knew fees were anticipated to go up for the next academic year but it looks like one of the schools we are considering in Edinburgh has gone up 10%...is this the norm for this next year? I had factored in a 5% rise year on year but at 10% we would need to forget about it. Lucky we have a year or 2 to think about it (aiming for P6, P7 or S1 entry) before committing.

You’d have to factor in a 20% rise due to Labour proposing to put VAT on school fees.

As the fee inflation is due to having to pay teachers more to cope with the CoL, have you factored in the possibly of you also getting some form of CoL pay rise?

@Heatherbell1978 which school is it, iv only noticed bigger jumps towards the end of HS.

@Bringabrolly is it not only in England that the changes are being proposed? I had thought that Scottish private schools already pay more tax than English?

GWC - a 9% rise for next year...that year on year would rule it out for us. I'd factored a 5% increase into my planning but double that is just too much.

Not sure the Labour plans would equate to 20% increase as they'd be able to claim VAT relief elsewhere I'd have thought but yes it's a consideration. DS is due to start S1 in 2026 which is the latest we would move him so we need to just see.

I’d be expecting a rise of about 10 percent this year, yes, since we’ve got runaway inflation, but you’ve got plenty of time to see how this goes and what the implications of labour’s tax plans are. If private school is too much of a commitment, find a good tutor.

Could you consider other schools if GW is too expensive?

I think greater than 5% will be the norm for the next few years, closer to 10% would be realistic.

We’re south of the border but this year the increase was 9%. It’s usually 5/6% but didn’t they held them during Covid so I suppose this is a kind of catch up year.

They’ve all gone up more than usual this year.

England, ours have gone up 10% where last year it was 5%. It will be linked to general inflation, especially utilities, as well as salaries and cost of the TPS (employer contributions just under 25% if the school is in the scheme)

In Edinburgh GWC is one of the lower cost private schools so there is only really one that's cheaper. I just don't know what the fee rise is on the others yet but I assume they'll all follow suit with a rise around that. I get it as a one-off given where we are economically but that's a lot year on year compared to historic rises if that's where it's going.

We're not wealthy, just comfortable, so it would price a lot of people out like us and make it far more elite...

I truly don’t think schools are doing it to become more elite, their costs are rising too. Not just COL but any interest on loans for refurbishments or whatever.

We also had a fee freeze for a year in covid so there may be a bit of catch up as a PP said.

As you can wait, definitely worth seeing how it shakes out next year and what inflation is doing - we have as a country had a long run of low inflation and now we don’t.

Yes, c10% increase next year in at least one other. In the past 4-6% has been more normal, but all those buildings need heat and light, the staff need pay increases and the cost of absolutely everything that a school needs to function has gone up. They’re not gouging, it’s inflation, so for as long as that’s as high as it is, that’s the types of increase you’ll be seeing

In theory (but probably not reality), your wages should also be increasing, so you shouldn’t end up with it creating a further elitism spiral.

It’s a big commitment to take on private school fees - you have no control over the increase in costs and your only real option later is to pull your kids out if you can’t afford it. You probably won’t want to consider that when or if that time comes (disturbing their schooling, established friendship groups etc), but the alternative might mean giving up pretty much all other discretionary spending or taking on more work to make the numbers work. You’d be wise to do your numbers in detail up front.

@Heatherbell1978 i thought heriots and the erskine/boys school equivalent forgotten name were both cheaper than GW but i might well be wrong. We had been looking at Edinburgh PS and will likely use them for secondary too but went with an east lothian primary. Its much dearer than the Edinburgh schools but we thought the travel may have been too much. If we see 10% year on year rises though maybe we will need to go local until dd can get the bus to Edinburgh as we cant afford that either. Quite worrying. There will be lots of families in your boat if this continue id think.

ESMS is a bit cheaper and Heriots a bit dearer but all quite similar. Both kids in state primary now and it was planned as a secondary move for us but would quite like DS to go for P6. But now we're rethinking. Ours would need to get the bus too but not quite as far as East Lothian. I think we knew this increase was on the cards but it's brought it home how little control we'd have over fee rises over the years😬

I don't think you'll see rises of 10% every year, assuming inflation comes down. Obviously there's no guarantee though.

If you are considering GWC have you looked at your state options?

Being stretched financially isn’t fun and the schools serving that area are pretty good. With the positive discrimination at Uni level towards state school applicants it might not be a bad move?

The Edinburgh private school stranglehold does seem to be loosening on the professions. Loads of my peers have opted for state for their kids which I wouldn’t have predicted 10yrs ago.

We used private school for our kids - now all left. Not sure it’s worth the money, and especially with the rising costs
A decent state school with tutors as required might be more cost effective.

(in our case - the prices to live in the local good school catchment were so expensive that we could get a better house in a decent area, and use private school. The fees were affordable then)

We're on the fence about our local school. Very average from a results perspective (as in bang on national average) but is a fairly small school so pastoral care seems good. I think we definitely need to keep an open mind about it all.

We have looked at the cost of moving to a better school catchment but actually overall we're about the same cost-wise and we don't really want to move! I think at a minimum we'll need to look at S1 entry rather than P6 now (which saves 2 years fees) but be accepting that if he doesn't get in, the local school will be fine.

Both my children went to GWC. We had a horrific experience with our daughter there and ended up removing her because of serious safeguarding concerns. The way the school handled the complaints process was appalling- I don’t think they learned from their 2017 experience at all. I used to rave about the school on here but wouldn’t touch it with a barge pole now and certainly wouldn’t waste what is rather a lot of money on it.

Wherever you end up applying to I would try to get information on how the school handles it when things go wrong. They are all good at marketing and when things go well, children can thrive, but my suggestion to prospective parents is to look into what happens when things go wrong and how the school handles it.

ESMS are up 15% and St G’s up 12% 😬

Just on the VAT, yes the changes if they come in would apply to Scotland too as VAT is a UK tax. And yes I imagine the rise would be near the full 20% as though by charging VAT schools would be able to recover VAT schools don’t incur much VAT on costs. Their main costs being salaries.

Good. Outrageous that they are "charities"!

It’s not solely because of “charity” status - many educational provisions are exempt from VAT:

Under VAT law in the UK, the provision of education by an “eligible body” (which includes a registered independent school) is an “exempt” supply for VAT purposes. Goods and services that are closely related to education are also exempt from VAT eg catering, transport, school trips and boarding accommodation.

In addition, there is a separate VAT exemption for a charity or not-for-profit entity which supplies education or vocational training if it:

• Cannot and does not distribute any profit (to use the terminology of the legislation) it makes, and
• Any profit that does arise from its supplies of education is used solely for the continuation or improvement of such supplies.

My DS is at a private school in Glasgow and the fees have to increase by 15% next academic year. They have attributed this to loss of rates relief, rising energy costs, high inflation and teachers' pay award. Painful!