Who can afford private schools in the UK?

[wjchoihk]

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....

The other thing to bear in mind, in the calculation, is to look at how fees go up through the school (many are low initially, and all seem to rise quite steeply for seconbdary), and a typical rate of fee increase (as many are above inflation). What can initially seem 'a stretch' can become 'unmanageable' in later years unless those factors are taken into account from the beginning.

Over the past 10 years fees have increased by an average of 68%, a rate of growth that is more than 1.8 times faster than the increase in the Retail Price Index (37%) over the same period, according to the study by Lloyds TSB Private Banking.

I stopped reading at about p.33... couldnt take the seeker bashing quite honestly.

BUT, I would like to ask those with DC in a GS or private education - what is it you think they might catch from spending their days in the same buildings as children who are less academic, or who have less rich parents?

What is it that makes your children such delicate little flowers that they have to be educated apart from the vast majority? I've read some comments (paraphrased) along the lines of "she was crushed by state school" or "they couldnt cope with his level of intelligence".

I have 2 pretty delicate little flowers myself, but they seem to be coping in a state secondary modern (yes, in Kent). In fact more than coping, enjoying themselves and doing well in their choices.

Well aren't you lucky boschy?

some of the students had to leave the school I work in whilst starting GCSE's which must be awful. The economic downturn has affected private schools.

I think it is worse if you have started attending a PS then having to go to a comp.

BOSCHY - those in the top 5% academically, tend to be socially awkward & immature in my experience. Add to that DD is a youngest in year & in an average-below average class you find the same social problems as you would if you moved her up 2 yeargroups!
Also, you cannot possibly expect a teacher to be able to do the best by the higher achievers without them already having an excellent work ethic. In my experience, our local state school did not encourage her to reach her potential. This is proved to me by the fact that she has been given a scholarship for the best verbal reasoning score in the private school, when the state school told me she was average ability & not even on their g&t list.
Since joining the private school DD has developed her confidence, ability & social skills. All of which our local state school failed to achieve.

Sidestepping any discussion about 'teaching leadership skills' and Japanese lessons, if you want to understand why some children have such difficulty in the state system, go to the Home Ed board or SN board [non snarky, perhaps you haven't though about it in this way emoticon].

If their child is really floundering at school, most parents try to do something about it and sometimes that looks like finding a different school and funding it yourself.

You might have noticed in the first few pages, boschy that many of us using private are parents with dcs with SEN who are not catered for in the state system in our areas.

Some people are very fortunate to find a best fit for their dcs not only in the state system, but also and even more crucially, in their area. No point telling me that there are excellent schools with ASD units in Lancaster or Bath or somewhere, because I don't live there.

Sigh .....NO, I do not think my children are better than anybody else (be they private or state educated).
When choosing schools for my sons, I did not have a list entitled Children I Want My Sons To Avoid or Schools that are for Delicate Little Flowers Only.
My sons have been to state primary, state secondary, private day school and now are both at full boarding school - one at prep, one at senior.
They are both at schools that suit them - their personalities, academic , sport and music levels.
My husband and I chose their current schools carefully. My sons are not delicate little flowers or geniuses - they are ordinary boys who will probably get the same results as their friends at state school and private day school.
It is not about being better - it is about enjoying their time at school and making the most of all opportunities available to them.
Sorry if this offends you.I do not judge my friends (or complete strangers come to that) based on the school their children go to - I don't see the need to.
Both children regularly meet up with their friends from ALL their past schools - and guess what?When the boys and their friends are all together, none of them give a stuff about where they go to school - because it doesn't matter.

pugsandseals what an absolutely ridiculous thing to say: 'those in the top 5% academically tend to be socially awkward & immature in my experience'. I can only assume you have very limited experience indeed. That statement condemns my DCs' entire school to social awkwardness and immaturity, not to mention all Oxford and all Cambridge students as well, probably also all those at Imperial, Durham, Bristol etc. Everyone at SPGS and Westminster and all other similarly selective schools too. And probably all lawyers in MC firms. And most top doctors. Obviously I could go on. All socially awkward? Really? Not even the majority I wouldn't have thought.

The generality of some statements made on these threads can be breathtaking.

merrymouse In areas within Richmond borough served by outstanding comps the proportion of children going to indies is actually around the national average, and they have the full range of abilities, Waldegrave just made it into the top 100 non selective schools based on GCSE results, although it does actually select, but on gender. However the indies are full of parents who found themselves without a place in state primary or one of the outstanding comps.

Hundreds of parents are told they do not have a place in a primary school at allocation day, the Council has long had an implicit strategy of deterring parents into the private sector by consistently, for at least the last twenty years, under providing school places at primary level. For us fifteen years ago it was to find ourselves after a long stressful wait to be 1 of 120 parents offered a place in a portacabin class at a very unpopular school, with proselytising Anglican Headmaster (DH is Catholic) who refused to accept the Ofsted highlighted weaknesses at his school. So after failing an appeal it was back to work for me to fund a private school place for DD just like many other parents in the borough.

This year there will be over 300 people who do not get their first preference of outstanding comp. The alternative is schools that were Ofsted failing and in spite of serving exactly the same leafy boroughs as the outstanding schools had through mismanagement and poor leadership completely lost the confidence of their communities. it wasn't the niceties of Ofsted judgements deterring parents, it was the knives in the playground (and their governing bodies are littered with the corpses of middle class parents who tried to improve them from the inside, improvement required leadership and investment that wasn't forthcoming) . They are now being turned around as academies but in the case of two of the three of them only through a Swedish education provider which gives parents only the alternative of their as yet unproven experimental approach to educating students through individualised learning, no classrooms, teachers as facilitators and spending hours gaining your education through a computer screen.

I would very happily have sent my DDs to a good comprehensive school, I think that what they have gained in terms of facilities and academic excellence they have lost in terms of the effect of the pressure and competitiveness on their confidence and the social homogeneity. I can see no difference in the outcome of their peers between those who went to indies, the ridiculously selective Grammars or outstanding comps. If they are bright they have ended up at good universities. However the indies around here are full of parents who have struggled to put together the £16 to 17k a year needed to put them through a private school education.

pugs and seal 'those in the top 5% academically tend to be socially awkward & immature in my experience'. Funny, some of the girls at DDs' school are frighteningly mature and socially competent, mind you, science geek daughter, thinks it is one of her competitive advantages that she looks reasonably normal ( actually rather gorgeous, but I would say that )

"BOSCHY - those in the top 5% academically, tend to be socially awkward & immature in my experience."
Wow- certainly not in my experience! And even if it were true- why would putting them in school with only other 'socially awkward and immature' children help?

A question on affordability, looking at our finances and what we have cut / reduced in the past 3 /4 years. Do you save anything and contribute to a pension. If you do contribute to a pension how much as a % of salary? It was one of the things we cut back on and something that I want to build up once I start working.

Sorry, that question was to those who pay for private education.

Absolutely Copthall. Mine are all gorgeous too. Some quite striking new hair colours at the moment but that's normal, in its way.

I stand by my comment. Look at the research. High intelligence is most often demonstrated by introvert personalities. There is also a high link between autistic spectrum & intelligence. So to say that nobody of high intelligence could possibly benefit from small class sizes, a highly academic curriculum & a competitive atmosphere is quite frankly laughable!

And my experience of Oxbridge types is very wide. It is rare to find socially confident, extrovert characters in these situations!

Blueberry I didn't make up contributions to my pension scheme because we needed the money for education so yes that did have an impact, and up to ten years ago we were underpensioned, if that is the word, but then our house being in London was earning more per year in terms of increasing in value than we were, so we saw that as a supplement to our pension when we assumed we would retire elsewhere. However we have been lucky and DHs earnings have meant we no longer have to worry, though he may well have worked himself so hard as to be life limiting, and I wonder sometimes if Breast Cancer was a by product of the stress of my previous career. I think sometimes it is those sorts of issues that parents don't take into account in making the decision to go private, the effect on the quality of family life.

Copthall, thank you for answering and being so honest about the effects on your health, I hope that it isn't life limiting for your DH.

I think that given the amount of time that as a parent you would be paying for schools fees, even if just secondary school / or primary school must have an impact on quality of life plus providing for your own old age. I want to be comfortable once I stop working, I know that is going to be past 65 as it is.

It doesn't sound as though the people you mix with are a bundle of fun pugsandseals. You said this statement was based on your own experience even though you're now directing us towards 'the research'.

I've always found it extremely easy to find socially confident, extrovert characters amongst 'Oxbridge types' and am glad to find that the same with the current generation too.

I stand by my comment that yours is a ridiculous comment, in its sweepingness.

Good grief, just because many autistic children are intelligent doesn't mean many intelligent children are autistic! At DDs' school there was the entirely normal range of geeks, cool alpha girls and inbetweeners, the socially confident and inept, the shy and the outgoing that you would find in any school.

Yellowtip Actually DD's current choice of haircolour inspired by your name, and some girl called Alexa something..........

Weeping with laughter at the thought that my two and their mates are delicate...

But it's a fair question boschy and the answer, I shall be frank, is simply that the independent schools we've chosen are better than the state alternatives, and we can afford it, so why not.

And pugs how on earth did you draw the conclusion that people were saying that the corollary of their experience that really clever people are often also socially confident and mature was that 'nobody of high intelligence could benefit from a highly academic curriculum' etc. .

So all Oxbridge graduates are extroverts are they?
No thought not! For those that show the traits DD does, private offers a less streetwise alternative (sorry, she doesn't get her intelligence from me as that is the best word I can come up with). & I still maintain that she was eaten alive at the local state school & came out a shadow of her former self.

I am just trying to make the point that not all highly intelligent children can reach their potential in the local comp! Surely that's not so hard to understand?

There's no such uni as Oxbridge pugs, afaik. Of course not all Oxford and all Cambridge graduates are extroverts. But no doubt there are just as many all singing all dancing ones as there are ones who hide in libraries and cobbled alleyways away from the sun.

You've quite a gift for daft generalisations, tbf.