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Secondary education

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Who can afford private schools in the UK?

999 replies

wjchoihk · 12/02/2013 17:18

Hi. I am not sure if this is an appropriate question to ask here. But I have always wondered how rich you should be to send children to private schools in UK. Fees are anywhere from 3000 up to 10000 per term. Even allowing for wide gaps in income, thinking of 'avearge' UK wage of 26,000 pound, math simply don't add up for a normal life with such high fees. I also know only 7% of children go private though.

How much of private parents live on "inherited" wealth and how much on simply superior current earnings? I have my kids at SW London privates but I wouldn't be able to afford this without current int'l expat package. Some parents at my kids' schools LOOK and ARE very very rich but most of them LOOK quite down to earth. But I can't ask....

OP posts:
TotallyBS · 13/02/2013 15:05

Nit - Please feel free to cite the poster and the post that suggest that people on a minimum wage can afford private schooling and I will be glad to slap them around a bit. You can't get fairer then that

TotallyBS · 13/02/2013 15:08

seeker - did this turn into a Monty Python sketch without me noticing? We were sooooo poor that ......

maisiejoe123 · 13/02/2013 15:11

I agree with Totally BS. No one is saying for someone earning £25k per year with 3 kids that private education is possible. It isnt. It wasnt for my parents who both worked and it was never discussed or thought about.

So, all of us went through the state system at a very damaning time when the grammars were disolved and the education system was in turmoil. I have done OK but I dont want to risk the same sort of education that myself and my siblings had for my children. I am willing to work full time and keep the number of children I have to two. My DH would have liked three. If we had three our lives would be different.

Incidentially when we told my PILs about the sorts of schools we were considering they went bananas. Thought they were full of the sons of the landed gentry and stuck up toffs. Well - no - after looking around and seeing for myself there are very wealthy people, there are people like us who have made certain choices and decisions and there are some of full busaries.

The boys dont care who you are and what your parents earn. Their friends are their friends.... Its actually the parents that are most interested in all of that. If we are teaching the next generation that where you have come from is not important, its where you are going that is most relevant - isnt that a good thing....

TheOriginalSteamingNit · 13/02/2013 15:12

Oh god I can't remember her name Totally... It was one of those threads in the last few weeks that stopped taking new posts: I'll scroll though my TIO in a bit.

In the meantime - Woozle - ok: My point was not whether or not it's a matter of providing well, it's the logical inconsistency of some things being perceived that way, and others not. A point which I notice you have managed to totally ignore despite it being the sole point of my post

I'm sorry, I didn't get that it was the sole point. Logical... hmm. If you organise yourself a private pension, you're not having any impact on anyone else, are you? You're not implicitly criticising those who don't have a private pension, you're not doing it because you think it will buy you any advantage other than the obvious - you'll have more money in your retirement.

By contrast, paying to send your children to private schools which exclude, by definition, the vast majority, and which - in my view and that of most people opposed to private education - you are entrenching class division, privilege, and generally contributing to a divisive society. Education is political in a way which I don't think pensions are.

In terms of private healthcare, well I'm none too keen on that two tier system either to be honest, but still you're not actually making a comment or an impact on those who wait longer for hip replacements when you get yours done quickly. Also I find private healthcare to be something of a red herring, because surgery and healthcare generally can be literally life and death, and so in extremis we probably all know we'd do whatever we needed to keep, for example, a child alive.

TotallyBS · 13/02/2013 15:14

Shagmund - my mortgage is similar to your rent but my money gets me a 4 bedroom detached in a leafy commuter burb.

Which brings us full circle back to priorities. If a person on £50k pa were to live where I am then they can easily afford private school.

perceptionreality · 13/02/2013 15:16

I haven't read the whole thread.

But really, in my opinion the days are gone when private school was only an option for those with a huge amount of disposable income. These days if your income is under 50k a year then you can get a bursary which pays 50-100% of the fees. Some private schools I know of are so keen to get people in the door they offer packages of free places, school uniform and after school care included.

Timetoask · 13/02/2013 15:16

Op, the thread seems to have derailed! In answer to your question, what I have seen at ds's private primary (around 12k per year, up to 15k in upper years) is that people on the average salary you mention in the op could definitely not afford private, even if they made so called sacrifices.
I have seen very rich foreigners (huge number or Russians suddenly on the scene)
Very wealthy British (mums don't need to work, houses with pools, inherited money, etc)
Then you have the "down to earth people", mostly both parents working in a professional capacity earning much more than the national average, a few choosing not to have larger houses in order to afford the fees (but still working in good careers), a few older parents who have had years of earning well before children therefore being able to fund education, then you also have a few clever people who are not in professional careers but have done well in their own business and made money that way.

woozlebear · 13/02/2013 15:16

I dunno, how about you meet them and then decide? Anyway, I'm human. I have opinions about people that are informed by my own viewpoints, not just 'objective truth'. Just as some of my colleagues do - they have opinions and judgments about private schooling that are not objective either, and make them what I perceive as chippy. Not everyone who's a bit 'anti' private has a deeply held moral conviction about it, sometimes it's just a bit of inverted snobbery and, well, chippyness.

woozlebear · 13/02/2013 15:22

You're not implicitly criticising those who don't have a private pension

IF that's the case, I genuinely don't see how private education is an implied criticism either. And if education is, then surely pensions are? By your logic isn't having a private pensions a way of saying 'I don't think only having a state pension is a nice/adequate way to be, I don't want to be in that situation'?? That's a criticism, isn't it, in your mind?

And I think health and pensions are every bit as much political as education, I just don't think they're quite as emotive, esp amongst parents.

TheOriginalSteamingNit · 13/02/2013 15:23

Sure, I'm just saying that I doubt they would consider it so. And by the same token, I suppose, not everyone who's 'pro' private is pure in thought and deed, and some of them are non-inverted unreconstructed snobs, yes?

TheOriginalSteamingNit · 13/02/2013 15:25

Well no, because saying 'I'd rather have more money than less' is simply saying a true thing, that more money is nicer than less money. Saying 'I'd rather my children weren't state educated' is, implicitly, making a statement about those who are.

seeker · 13/02/2013 15:26

'seeker - did this turn into a Monty Python sketch without me noticing? We were sooooo poor that ......'

Only if you enjoy laughing at people who know what real sacrifice is..........

maisiejoe123 · 13/02/2013 15:29

I have had many people say I am lucky to have a private pension. As SAHM's they dont have one. Well no - you dont. I hopefully will have paid in for 40 yrs. I would blooming hope I would have a good one!

TotallyBS · 13/02/2013 16:06

Seeker - people who criticizes wc parents for not valuing music lessons shouldn't lecture others.

seeker · 13/02/2013 16:16

Yet another of your bizarre misreadings/inventions BS. I have decided the only response is laughter. And pity. Don't forget the pity.

pugsandseals · 13/02/2013 16:18

So Seeker gets her kids to sit entrance tests for grammar schools, pays for music lessons & then criticises us that choose to go private!?!?! Hmm

TheOriginalSteamingNit · 13/02/2013 16:22

Yeah, goddam those derailers on this thread... Hmm

seeker · 13/02/2013 16:24

Oh, come on, pugsandseqls, you know perfectly well what I do with my children- you've posted on threads with me before. The wide eyed innocent routine doesn't wash.

wjchoihk · 13/02/2013 16:30

Hi All. As a OP, I am glad this thread looks set to overtake the famous Whitgift/Trinity thread . It just shows how all of us are also interested in this topic. From the various comments from posters, I guess unless at least over gross income of 100K (alone or combined) one shouldn't bother to look at private option (2 kids assumed). Some investment into tutoring to get DCs into state grammar seems to be the most effective choice to me. Why then don't government invest more into turning more state schools into "grammar-standard"? I don't get why they instead spend energy in other things like changing GCSE into another form of test, etc... Why people who already pay huge income taxes still have to pay for education? I'm not a Brit, but as a Tax payer here, guess it is OK to raise this issue.... But I know I must adapt to the rule of the game here though...

OP posts:
TotallyBS · 13/02/2013 16:32

Then let me remind you seeker Grin

B4 Christmas you spent a couple of days going on about how your precious DS didn't have a school orchestra to join. Apparently the WC parents at your school don't value classical music as much as the posh parents at your DD's GS.

If you are struggling to survive on a low income then music lessons isn't top of your 'priorities' (there is that word again).

People who show such little empathy shouldn't get outraged on behalf of low income people. It makes you come across as very false.

TheOriginalSteamingNit · 13/02/2013 16:33

People who pay huge income tax don't have to pay for education separately! What are you saying?

pugsandseals · 13/02/2013 16:35

Hi OP - because to roll out grammar systems across the whole country would be political suicide! It seems against what the majority want.

TheOriginalSteamingNit · 13/02/2013 16:37

Oh do stop it, Totally. You know full well (because I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt and assuming you're malevolent rather than plain stupid) that Seeker never said that working class parents don't value classical music. You must know (you must!) that those comments were much more nuanced than that.

For the love of god will you stop with your ridiculous parallel universe versions of things Seeker has said (and before Christmas too! How far back does your spreadsheet go?) and stop trying to make every bloody thread into your lame and clunking 'killer' argument.

maisiejoe123 · 13/02/2013 16:43

Some people believe that people who use the grammar school system are not playing fair. For some the grammar schools are private schools without the fees...

I am speaking as someone who is in a grammar school catchment area. They are very very popular unless of course your children dont get in and then they should be abolished!

INeedALieIn · 13/02/2013 16:49

Now today is a day we'll never get back.

Posting round in circles on mn.

Time to move on.

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