I need to talk really frankly about money and fees for private secondary

[EmbMonStu]

I’d like to apologise at the outset for speaking so gauchely and brashly about money, and for referencing large amounts of money when some people are going through such an awful time. I have literally no one to discuss this with because who can you talk actual amounts with IRL?

Also, I recognise my privilege, we are extremely lucky, my kids will be fine whatever we do and I’m aware this is not a real “problem”.

DH and I both from very working class backgrounds, first in family to Uni etc. I am trying to figure out whether private secondary will be an option for us financially. I’m looking at Hampton School as an example.

DS1 (very very bright and sporty) is in year 4. By the time he enters secondary school we should, in theory and assuming nothing changes have about £85k in the bank and another 25k in “really mustn’t touch it but can break glass if true emergency” money. This will come incrementally from savings rather than a lump sum.

We will be saving around £25k a year from salaries at this point also.

I estimate fees, lunches and transport to a secondary school like Hampton will cost around 25k a year. So essentially, we will be saving nothing.

We will still be able to spend around 12k a year on holidays, have lots of fun money etc, private health insurance etc. We certainly won’t be scrimping, but will be saving very little, perhaps 4-500 a month.

DS2 is four years behind DS1 so would start in 2027. At this point DH should be earning considerably more than he does now and fees will be less of a concern.

If he dies or other disaster strikes we will have to pull the children out and sell house anyway, life insurance not withstanding.

So basically, is this enough? Would you spend all the money you would otherwise save, on fees? Leaving you with a nest egg of this amount? If you could still a nice lifestyle?

Also we live in a semi detached in a fairly nice area, but I wouldn’t want to be a poor relation in the school. We wouldn’t probably be able to move if committed to fees, although very happy in the house currently.

Thanks if you’ve got this far. This is all very alien to me and I feel I need a steer!

We're in the exact same position as you. I'm sure you can afford it, and your husband will earn more as his points go up. On the other hand, it'll be a shed load of money, and will definitely impact holidays and savings.

I expect you'll go private, because you seem so non-plused about the state options, and once people start looking seriously at private schools the facilities and sales pitch make it hard to say no.

As I expect we will, as we're equally unenthusiastic about our local comp - even though as people have said you only thing we're actually guaranteeing is spending an awful lot of money!

I think you are right to question the mythical safe land aspect of it op

Friends with kids in different private schools have still seen friendship issues, kids being bullied and poor teaching. Definitely doesn’t solve all those issues

An interesting fact however albeit based on one experience of one supposedly elite cofe girls secondary school in SW London from which we removed dd in year 8.

Attrition rates of brighter, better off girls was high but a handful of much brighter, less well off girls stayed. The ones who moved to the independent sector all went to Oxford or Cambridge; not one of the girls who stayed at that school until 6th form did and I am certain three or four were brighter than dd.

I am not persuaded that a bright child will do as well in the state sector as the independent sector partly due to almost every lesson being beset by some form of low level disruption which impacts on the quality of teaching and learning and the overall engagement with education.

On the bright child will do well anywhere point, I think this is true to an extent - if they are self motivated too. A bright but lazy child is probably more likely to coast in state school.

I think it's also worth bearing in mind there is a massive shortage of qualified teachers in some subjects - sciences and maths especially but also to an extent languages, geography etc. I do think missing out on that specialist teaching is a problem because it's not just about learning to pass exams, but also about inspiring children to take subjects further.

I think it's the above average but not super bright children who are most likely to thrive in private school.

To be honest, it sounds like you could easily afford it, OP, but there are lots of things you priotise above private school - which is fine! But if you were willing to make slightly more sacrifices, I think it would be easily affordable.

An interesting question is whether people ever regret sending their child to Independent school in the years afterwards. There was a thread about this a few years ago with lots of people who were out the other side and their thoughts were really interesting. Have a look to see if you can find it.

If, at the other end, you are still in your home, have enough in your pension and your children emerge well-educated and happy and heading off to good unis and careers, you’ll probably feel you made the right decision and not regret your choice. Of course, all those things could happen from a state school too and loads of kids come out of them every year to far better unis and careers than some privately educated children. And those who chose not to pay will enjoy pointing out to you (or at least thinking to themselves that their kids achieved the same as yours for free)
But, if the consequences for your family finances have been more extreme, you are more likely to question your choice. If you have to work an extra 10 years before you can retire or really wanted to move and can’t, the true cost feels much bigger. And if your child develops significant mental health problems, or bombs out at school or goes onto very mediocre courses and careers (if that bothers you) you might feel the money is wasted, especially if your finances have been partially ruined by the choice.

I think the thing is to commit to a choice and to own it and live with it...no regrets. You aren’t paying for certain academic success or a big career or carat in happiness. Those things cannot be bought with certainty whatever you pay. You spend the money on your choices, as you do when you pick a holiday, and sometimes it’s great and sometimes a bit meh. You make your decision in receipt of incomplete information but the best info you have at the time, not knowing how your child or the school or the world will change...but you have to just suck those things up, and there’s o point having regrets.

I agree about comparing very specific schools which are schools your child could go to, rather than comparing the general and broad benefits and downsides of state and independent. What people have available to them according to geographical area varies so much. There are places where paying would take you to a school with lesser results or activities, places where you could get similar in both state and independent. And those where the state provision is shocking and the independent marvellous.
And it’s so hard to compare. At senior level you have got exam results to look at, but at Prep level, most privates don’t have any data which makes them comparable to state schools. So know what your criteria for comparison are. And remember a lot of what independents offer are ‘nice to haves’ and a bit of window dressing, but often the vital nuts and bolts don’t differ that much. Decide which things really matter and compare in that basis.

For me, I would pay for certainty of subject specialists and a stable staff. (Some people will always leave or go on maternity leave but is your child going to be pretty much guaranteed not to have a string of supply teachers or several different teachers, especially across a GCSE or A Level course). I’d also pay for a conducive working environment if I felt it wasn’t available at the alternative school. Personally, I wouldn’t pay for sports provision (children not sporty and wouldn’t take much part or get much out of it) or for fancy new buildings or for the prestige of a big name. Reading that, I can see, for me, a state Grammar would probably provide most of what I’m looking for....and that’s as someone who could afford fees but not with it having no impact at all. But Indi t live in a state Grammar area and I don’t intend to move and I know all the issues about the other schools in fully selective areas and that you cannot guarantee you will get in. So, I probably would pay if the state provision wasn’t very good and because I have close to paid mortgage off, have stable jobs, well funded pensions and lots of savings and am easily pleased in terms of lifestyle. It means the true cost in terms of sacrifice for me wouldn’t be too huge. But if the state options were good, it probably wouldn’t be worth it for me.

And on the bright child will do well anywhere.....well there are degrees of doing well I think and it depends how you measure it.

An extremely bright child will probably do pretty well with negligible poor teaching and resources...maybe not top top grades, but pretty close, at GCSE anyway. A reasonably bright child will probably get decent passes in this situation. And in a mediocre setting, the extremely bright might get top top results whilst the reasonably bright does reasonably well.

Perhaps the bright child in a average state school might get a clutch of 7s at GCSE and Bs at A Level, whereas elsewhere they might have got 8s and 9s and some As and the odd A* at A Level. Both could be described as doing well...but the question is how well? Some people won’t distinguish between the two and see both as doing really well.

But one of the things independents are known for, is squeezing more out of the averagely to reasonably bright...getting that extra grade. And crucially, guiding them to the right courses that will open more doors at the next stage, rather than just saying ‘study what you love...all courses are equally valid’. And then they also often excel and getting people onto the best courses at the best unis, even when they weren’t top notch candidates. There is a mixture of expectation from the school, Everyone doing it, so all are carried along with the same expectation that it is available for them too, and predicting the right grades so they get offers. And that’s where the key value is often addded. As mentioned upthread, more go to Oxbridge and more go to Russell Group unis in relation to their GCSE results. Some of the super selective state grammars might have cleverer children, but less impressive uni destinations. Something is going on which is different in the independent schools.

Depends how much you value top notch and want 8s and 9s rather than 7s for your child and if the price of fees feels worth the difference.....which of course isn’t guaranteed for everyone anyway.

I agree about comparing very specific schools which are schools your child could go to, rather than comparing the general and broad benefits and downsides of state and independent.

I also agree with this point as we are going through this decision making process right now. We are fortunate to be able to afford private fees and are viewing that luxury as widening our choice of schools for the DC. We are then looking at best fit for each of our DC - and to a certain extent are trying to take whether the school is fee paying or not out of the equation (as long as we feel that the fee paying schools add value broadly in line with the extra cost).

My children are only small, but I'm a tutor at an Oxbridge college so I see lots of students who have recently left schools of many types, state grammar, good comp, bad comp, Eton/Westminster/other big public school (admittedly I see slightly more of these than fairness dictates), independent day school, international schools, and occasionally home-schooled children.

Five years ago, I found it concerning that students from comps had never learned how to write or how to analyse sentences (basic grammar). I teach an essay-writing subject and it was difficult for them to improve their writing without reliably being able to identify the sentence's subject, verb, an infinitive, a restrictive clause etc. Now none of them now know how to do this when they arrive. The independent-school students used to have done Latin. Now, for some reason, they haven't. And the once-familiar student who wrote flashy stylish prose from the start (sometimes with very little content!) has disappeared. My husband teaches a subject that requires maths and further maths A-level, and he's noticed the same thing. This is a tiny sample size but I hear the same comments from many colleagues; whatever true educational advantage independent schools used to provide (as distinct from gaming the exam system) seems to have dwindled.

So, yes, you can absolutely afford it. But you're not able to afford it very easily, ie without making changes (however small they may seem to others!) to other aspects of your life, or without worrying about uncertainty.

You need to look at the bigger picture. What do you think he might want to do after school? Is spending that wad of money going to help, reliably, in getting there? What's the alternative? Is there a co-ed independent? Do you really want your son to go to an all boys' school (see recent discussion about Winchester, and incident last term at Eton)?

If I had a v bright child going to secondary school soon, and they seemed like a generalist, I'd send them to the best state school I could find and save my money for higher education, perhaps an American Ivy. If they were especially gifted at maths, say, I'd be looking at the actual teaching staff at particular schools in some detail. An independent school (my own, for example) can be a good school, get top-50 exam results, and still offer mediocre teaching in particular areas.

Not just my best, but my best-educated, most widely read, and most analytically precise students in recent years have all been to state schools. Something seems to have changed with the relative quality of the teaching, which has evened things out.

Really interesting hopsalong.

I wonder if most state schools only put someone forward for Oxbridge if they are super super bright. Independents might be more likely to put forward a bigger number of candidates and that includes some who are not so super bright. Because the culture in some independents is for lots to apply to Oxbridge, the students don’t self regulate in the same way, to restrict who applies and any student who has got a really good set of GCSEs (achievable in such a school without being super bright) can have a go, and many have no sense of whether they were just lucky/hard worker but not that bright. Some of these not quite so super bright will scrape in from the independents.

I guess, again, it’s something parents pay for...their bright but not super bright child is in an atmosphere of high expectation that anything is possible, has a go and some of them squeeze into Oxbridge.

And following in from Oxbridge, I think there’s some research been carried out to suggest that those from independent schools then go onto higher paid jobs....am I right in thinking that has been suggested? It’s not that they are brighter, but a range of other factors come into play once out in the real world....again, expectations of what their rightful career is, parental support to enable getting into that career through funding internships, living in or near London, general aspiration etc. Apart from a small number of schools, I don’t think the connections thing is actually that important, but personal expectations seems vital. Those who get an Oxbridge education from the less typical backgrounds, encouraged by access schemes might be super bright and lots have their lives transformed by it, but I think it is also true that the cultural factors impact career choices when you look at such groups overall, rather than just individuals.

I’ve worked in independent schools and when you see the lists of degree results and hear about the alumni careers, I’m often surprised how students who were really very mediocre, have gone onto achieve great degrees and stellar careers. In that sense, perhaps their school fees were worth it!

We managed private schools on a lot less. Honestly don’t worry. If things get tighter I am sure there is some slack, like not replacing your car for a few years. There will be a whole range of income from kids on bursaries to super-rich. London kids tend not to care. Qudos comes from being academic, sporty or musical.

However one thing....life insurance. Enough for a lump sum to set aside so both kids can, once started, complete their education. I knew a widow from the school run who was evangelical about this.

On pensions, high earners reach their pension pot limits quick quickly. Therefore I would not worry too much about taking a break, if you need to. There will be plenty of earning years after school fees are finished to catch up on both mortgage and pensions. This is assuming that your DH is not on a final salary scheme. If you are, my best guess is that you are best off making as many VACs as you can into that.

And yes, Hampton will offer a broader education than Tiffin. Whatever you decide you can always revisit the decision for sixth form. Many do - in both directions.

Wombat, I think you are right about aspiration. DC have been generally pretty hopeless about keeping up with school friends, and both seem to have made their friends for life at University. But they learned to aim high and plan ahead.

Linked in profiles of some kids as they leave University can be very impressive. Interesting gap years and vacation internships. Carefully chosen degrees. If you are not the brightest, why not choose a law course with some interesting specialisations, and then a complementary Masters. Through in a few internships and a bit of volunteering, and you will be ahead of the field when it comes to employment in a niche field. Aspiration, confidence, a broader education, an understanding that planning, resilience and diligence are needed, then throw in some parental nous, contacts and the money to live in London and to take initially low paid jobs that provide good experience.

In contrast some kids are seriously relaxed. No thought of job applications till they leave University. No spending serious hours applying for internships. Just an assumption that an Oxbridge degree (or whatever) is the passport to the glittering prizes. Some fall on their feet. Others get lost.

Completely off topic, but hey!

I think viewing Private schooling as a success based on exam results or which uni they end up or if they become a high earner at is at least partly missing the point.
Of course you hope your dc will get good results, especially if it’s cost you £££ but that’s not entirely why we have chosen a Private
Our 2 local Comps (one in SM) suffer from a lot of behaviour based disruption. There are fight videos put online regularly, the Police are called to attend roughly once a year and I know of several dc at one of them who are bullied for being clever and/or working hard. A member of the SLT at one of these schools advised us not to send DD as apparently it wouldn’t be right for her.
I know there are excellent State schools where bad behaviour isn’t tolerated but these weren’t available to us and moving would have cost more than sending the DC Private.
All we wanted was for our DC to be able to achieve whatever they were capable of with encouraging teachers who didn’t have to spend time dealing with non teaching related issues and small classes. Also the home schooling provision that they have had compared to what friends dc have had has made us feel we have definitely made the right decision.

Hopping, who is equating success with earning.

If you look at the arts, say, private school pupils are probably over represented. All those actors, musicians etc. In part down to broader education, high aspiration, diligence and a longer view, and some parental subsidy to help them on their way.

It’s a regular feature of threads on Private school
Somebody always knows somebody who went to Private school but “only” has a pretty basic job

For me, I would pay for certainty of subject specialists and a stable staff.

Unfortunately, paying doesn't guarantee you will get this.
I remember a thread not long ago where a private school was going to stop offering Physics GCSE on the basis of not having a specialist teacher. Private schools are not any more immune to teacher shortages than anywhere else.

Haven’t read the entire thread but I know that at Hampton, only the top two GCSE sets of 8 sets in maths are allowed to take A level maths. Even if you’re predicted 7, 8 or (in my friend’s case) 9 for GCSE maths... if you’re not in the top two, you’re not allowed. Those who aren’t in the top two sets don’t want to do maths anyway because after 5 years of feeling second class, they think they’re not good at maths.
Obviously this kind of thing happens at some level in other privates and surely in many state schools too. It just seemed quite extreme to me.

Hopping, first MN threads can be fairly batty, with very odd motivations attributed to parents. Second the range of outcomes is wide, just like any school - or University for that matter.

Paying does not give you a free ride on proper parenting or guarantee you that your child will be academic. It also won’t protect your child from poor influences and bad decisions. However a broad and good education with a peer group who are motivated and aiming high, provided the fit is right, should help.

Ours went to private schools because state options were extremely poor, and we did not want to move, tutor or get religion. They got the grades, but they would have got them most places. However they appear to have higher aspirations, more confidence, and more ability to consider the longer term than we had at the same ages. (And the schools suited our very studious son who enjoyed clever peers and good education, and a dyslexic daughter who might otherwise have got lost in the middle.)

@muchamuchas

Haven’t read the entire thread but I know that at Hampton, only the top two GCSE sets of 8 sets in maths are allowed to take A level maths. Even if you’re predicted 7, 8 or (in my friend’s case) 9 for GCSE maths... if you’re not in the top two, you’re not allowed. Those who aren’t in the top two sets don’t want to do maths anyway because after 5 years of feeling second class, they think they’re not good at maths. Obviously this kind of thing happens at some level in other privates and surely in many state schools too. It just seemed quite extreme to me.

That’s crazy. I’d take them out if I had a child with high grades who couldn’t to A level maths.

Totally agree it's not all or even partly about results. And if it is all about the results for some parents, there is a quite a Hugh liklihood if disappointment and it's awful for the kids to feel they didn't deliver on their parents' financial 'investment'. The choice has to be or should be about the journey too. People pay for a different experience. And often those who say their child at the good Comp or Grammar got exactly the same education, are looking more at results than the whole experience. Again, the experience could be similar, but it often is quite different. It's why every year, parents in receipt of offers for their child to both Tiffin and Hampton choose Hampton and not the excellent free option. To make that choice, usually means they are extremely well off and the sacrifices from the choice will be small, because otherwise, why no choose the excellent free option. But the reality is that paying does mean smaller classes, and probably even more extra curricular, and more chance for the parents to contact school and be responded to quickly, and more counsellors and more sports coaches and people devoted to the drama department wardrobe, and purley to running the DofE or the Oxbridge programme etc. It is all similar to what a good state school will offer, but different too...a different journey where the school having £20k per child instead of £5k means it can offer a different journey. And that's what some people will decide is worth paying for.....that and the slightly different expectations that come when a higher proportion of the parent body is affluent and has high expectations for the future, and just an expectation that this is their birthright. I think there can be a difference in the sense of entitlement. Usually we view Entitlement as a negative thing, but people are actually paying to go into this environment where all the kids and their parents just expect to go to RG Unis (and over 90% will) whereas, in a good Comp or Grammar, there will probably be a higher proportion of families from a less affluent background, who are unfamiliar with routes to top careers and do t see it as a given that their child will get there, even if they are pretty aspirational....and some may not be aspirational, especially in schools which take a wider range of background. It all just makes the experience subtly different.

And lots would say they want their children to mix with a range of children and see how they are very fortunate and not think everyone has a ski chalet. They want it to a point, as lomg as the majority aren't from troublesome families who disrupt the classes. And others perhaps almost unconsciously opt away from that, because they actually want their children in the atmosphere where success is simply taken as a given and other possibilities and outcomes not even considered.

I think that when people regret their decision to choose Independnet education at the end of it all, it is when they have made big financial sacrifices for it and when they only value the academic outcomes, and those haven't been what they hoped for. Or of course,me hen they've paid for some of the second and third rate schools which still exist (less and less) and they can see that the school didn't offer more and maybe less than their state school option and they were lured in by the idea that private is always better than state...simply not true.

Marsha, interesting one about the Maths.

The thing is, A Level maths is one of those subjects where you do need to be good at maths to do well. That might sound obvious, but in selective schools, lots of students will scrape a 7 or even 8 through good teaching, who essentially aren't good at maths, and then if they continue to A Level, would really struggle. The grades. alone at

@muchamuchas

Haven’t read the entire thread but I know that at Hampton, only the top two GCSE sets of 8 sets in maths are allowed to take A level maths. Even if you’re predicted 7, 8 or (in my friend’s case) 9 for GCSE maths... if you’re not in the top two, you’re not allowed. Those who aren’t in the top two sets don’t want to do maths anyway because after 5 years of feeling second class, they think they’re not good at maths. Obviously this kind of thing happens at some level in other privates and surely in many state schools too. It just seemed quite extreme to me.

Dds private school would not want anyone to do A level maths unless they had at least an 8.

Dd got a 7 and was in the third or fourth set. Absolutely no way would she have coped with A level maths. She was nursed through with excellent teaching.

I think that is about right.

With good teaching almost all pupils in a selective school like Hampton will get 7s and 8s in maths. More so as you move towards central London where tutoring is common.

A good number of these will find the step up to A level a struggle. Some will have parents who will be pushing their children to take maths A level. The school is right to discourage them.

Sorry.
The grades alone at GCSE don’t necessarily reflect the ability in Maths. Experienced teachers can tel if someone has got the ability to do well at Maths (get a B or above) or if they would be better doing something else and that would probably get them the higher grade.

I suppose you could say the child should be able to choose and so what if they don’t get a B and it’s all just about league tables. On one level that’s true, but on another it is about the kids too....if they really will get a C or D atA Level maths, when if they chose Geography, they could get an A or B, isn’t it better to tell them that and push in that direction? I know people differ i their view.

My DS is a case in point. Not a natural mathematician by any means but managed to get an 8 at GCSE. Was tracking for a 7 in a low set and knew himself and the teachers knew he wasn’t A Level maths material. That was fine as he didn’t want to do it anyway. He knew he had always found it quite hard and had to work hard to do okay. In the end, with a following wind and hard work he actually got the 8 and met the criteria for doing Maths A Level. But did that change his natural ability as a a mathematician? No it didn’t. In the school he went to, he probably could have really pushed to do it against teacher advice and been allowed, but it wouldn’t have been to his advantage. He would have had a horrible 2 years as it would have been beyond him and he might have got a C at very best. By playing to his strengths, he actually got 2 A* and an A at A Level. Yes, the school has better results for their league tables, but he benefitted too. Too many schools let students whose likely outcomes at Maths A Levels take it. Too many parents and children don’t realise the likely outcomes from 6s and 7s at GCSE or that even with 7s and 8s sometimes students don’t have the ability in the subject....and lots of schools just don’t tell them either.

@WombatChocolate

Marsha, interesting one about the Maths.

The thing is, A Level maths is one of those subjects where you do need to be good at maths to do well. That might sound obvious, but in selective schools, lots of students will scrape a 7 or even 8 through good teaching, who essentially aren't good at maths, and then if they continue to A Level, would really struggle. The grades. alone at

I think 7 is ok for that

But with predicted 9, as pp put it, it isn’t great to not have option.

Hard to say about an 8 as you’re all saying it’s coached to a certain extent. And that they’d struggle at A level. I can’t really comment as Ds is doing maths and likely FM without tutoring etc

@Needmoresleep

Hopping, first MN threads can be fairly batty, with very odd motivations attributed to parents. Second the range of outcomes is wide, just like any school - or University for that matter.

Paying does not give you a free ride on proper parenting or guarantee you that your child will be academic. It also won’t protect your child from poor influences and bad decisions. However a broad and good education with a peer group who are motivated and aiming high, provided the fit is right, should help.

Ours went to private schools because state options were extremely poor, and we did not want to move, tutor or get religion. They got the grades, but they would have got them most places. However they appear to have higher aspirations, more confidence, and more ability to consider the longer term than we had at the same ages. (And the schools suited our very studious son who enjoyed clever peers and good education, and a dyslexic daughter who might otherwise have got lost in the middle.)

Completely agree, our motivations were very similar to yours too, although DS isnt dyslexic, just lazy