Discount for paying school fees in a lump amount and where do you pay fees from

[Bamboomoon]

Just wondering what sort of discount private schools give for paying fees in advance for 3 years. I Imagine this vary from school to school but it would be good to have an idea as I may enquire with DD school; she is only starting there in Sept.

Also; if you pay school fees do you do it from monthly income, savings, investments? Trying to decide what's the most financially efficient way of doing it.

The discount is very small (I seem to remember maybe 1-2% or so) and when I did the sums compared to basic interest rates on savings account there wasn't a great deal in it. Also remember that the discount applied to a figure that had been inflated in line with typical annual fee increases not current fees.

We get a 1% discount. I do pay the fees at the start of the year and financially it’s probably a bad idea because I would (generally) make more than the 1% if I paid monthly but I like removing the hassle of making sure the monthly fees are in my bank account and haven’t been accidentally spent. We take ours from savings- the fees are ring fenced separately from our other savings/investments. Again, not financially clever but I don’t want to take any risk with them.

Accrues interest at 2.5% and you can pay anything from one year upwards in advance

They normally don't allow you to pay more than a year I'm advance.

We pay termly but the discount we would get paying yearly or more in advance is so small it is better leaving the money I our offset savings attached to the mortgage so that it reduces the term of the mortgage. If there is any risk of losing job or the money then I may pay ahead to the next stage e.g.. after gcses or after a levels so that the education is not disrupted

We paid in advance - it meant avoiding the fee increases - those increases were unknown in advance, but were never below 3.5% and more like 5% or 6%. We could avoid the increase for 2 years by paying 2 years in advance. Could pay even further ahead if we wanted, but beyond 2 years, 2% added to fees.

This was a Prep and we figured we saved about £1.5k a year.

The money simply came out of savings which were not earning much.

If we had left early, we could always get the money back.

The current scheme in secondary is a composition schemes where your investment earns interest. I think it's most worthwhile if you pay well in advance of starting so the money has ages to grow - you don't avoid fee increases.

We pay by term, and prior terms extras a term in arrears. Ours comes from a savings account. I personally wouldn't want to pay too far in advance, I don't think the discount makes it worth while

We paid for the full time in one go - Dairy, maybe at your school it's only a year, but I paid 7 years' worth in advance, with an agreed discount rate and a calculation of "expected" increases. How mine works is that they raise the "advance payment" on the expected level and credit that against the termly fee. 5 years in, I'm still doing better than the actual fees (ie my advance payment is a larger credit than the fee) and the excess I'm "paying" is credited against extra-curriculars.
I can't remember what the discount was but it wasn't huge. The certainty was great, though.

Thank you

Will contact the school but doesn't sound like is worth it.