School fee hike - freaking out slightly

[wingingthings]

I'm under no illusion that we haven’t been very lucky to be able to send our 2 children privately. However, we've done this without foreign holidays, new cars and making sacrifices- we shop at Aldi etc. Choices we've made happily and it's been fine. We also worked on the basis of 5% inflation each year. We just got the fees increase letter of 12.5%. I'm freaking out as this pushes us very close and will still have another 5 years to go. Curious as to others experiences this year??

Regarding staff, many private schools are overstaffed. I am not talking about excellent quality maths teachers, but admin staff, multiple languages & sports offered - that kind of thing. That will have to go in some cases. It is sad for modern languages, for example, but needs must. Less choices does not necessarily make for a lesser education in all cases.

All the research shows that at secondary school in a selective environment 20 vs 26 in a class makes no difference. The teacher just has to mark a bit more. If you have better paid better quality experienced staff that actually can pay off.

Maintenance of facilities is hugely expensive and that has to be addressed, of course. However, state schools cope with not repainting every second term etc , maybe private schools will have to cut back a little bit. Allow packed lunches more etc.

Energy costs have gone up a lot but teens tend to be too hot anyway. If you have more kids in the classroom and smaller classrooms you actually need to heat less…

I just think the private schools are going to have to do what the state schools have had to do and get their act in gear.

Moreover, keeping the middle class parents and the teachers’ and doctors’ kids there is really important because they tend to add to the high grades and keep the standards up.
London, in particular, has a lot of working professional parents paying school fees and has a lot of international parents from Asian background as well that push their kids. It is in the interest of schools to keep those kids and parent groups as they tend to be high achieving. Obviously that is a vast generalisation - but keeping the hardworking aspirational parent group in your school and their kids is vital to future success.

Private schools in UK really need to avoid just attracting rich kids because that is what has happened in many other countries and academic standards fell greatly as a result. No matter how good the school and teaching the child needs to have a high IQ and supportive parent to achieve well, typically.

@belladonna22 Tbh most of the popular, selective independent schools in London already have quite high numbers in classes. It's not unheard of to have 26 in a KS3 class. They tend to get lower in GCSEs for the optional subjects but that's the case in state schools too. My daughter is in a state school and currently has 8 in her DT, 8 in music, 18 in science and her the most is 23 in English. This is less than some of her friends have in private schools. Shes in the lower/middle sets but still, the class sizes isnt really something private secondary schools have room to change for the most part.
I don't include preps in this as they can be tiny, however most parents who would struggle with fees, save up for secondary.
I think for the most part those that can afford private prep, would be fuming if classes became much bigger than 15 in that age range.

I think you are forgetting (in my area anyhow) independants are more inclusive for sports. My local state secondary is very much A team only for fixtures whereas the indis put out A-E teams regularly.

There are local fixtures in my area but they are A team only and irregular. I have friends that have moved state to private purely because their child never got to represent the school in sport.

@nowinhouse I'm not forgetting that. Why do you think I said they can help subsidise local sports? I'm under no illusion that state school sports is dire in most places.
Helping the local community and setting up ways local schools can take part in fixtures would benefit all kids, including the ones in the independents and would save time and money on fuel. It's ridiculous how far some schools travel for fixtures, not to mention the cost of running them.

This wouldn't up provision in state schools. There are no teachers to supervise additional provision. It will just be a reduction in school sport across the board.

@nowinhouse you're clearly purposely not reading the part where I said independent schools help the local schools with sports training.

I said I’d update when we had our fees info through - around 10% increase. South east.

We are due to start a independent school in September for my 4 year old and knew that at some point yes fees would increase. What shocked me was the school didn't notify me of the increase, I accidentally stumbled upon the fee increase via their website.
I can see that most people here have had notifications via email which was my expectation also. The lack of communication has left me with slightly ruffled feathers and we haven't even stepped through the door yet.
This can't be normal can it?

@tinatea That's strange. As you've not started yet you may not be fully on their database. Worth emailing them about it.

I have DC at an independent and I am neither rich nor do I pay for a luxury product. DC is neurodivergent, and indys actually do provide SEN services that states don’t, so I am working like hell 24/7 to be able to pay the fees as that is the only acceptable alternative.

This amazing 20sthing blogger at the Times seems to label the “richest” family households with maximum 100k income. That’s two young intellectuals earning 50k each in London. Not exactly the richest, are they? Yes Mr Calver’s chart defines that as the top of the crop. The snobbery is appalling, and this new generation of a so called journalist seems to be proud of his work of misleading millions.

@belladonna22I am sorry if someone hurt your feelings, but your use of language is similarly disgusting.

@PerSeer I agree re the 100k households. Id understand if it was 100k per working adult. 100k for a household isn't much now and if that's the top percent, it just shows the dire state of salaries in this country. If that's the top earners, the middle class is now on UC than.

I'm sorry the state sector has failed your kid and thousands of others like them. Your kid is extremely fortunate to have a parent with the motivation and ability to give them the best possible education - but as I'm sure you are aware, many other kids won't be that fortunate even though their parents also want the best for them. I'd probably do the same if I were in your position - it's more a comment on the dismal state provision than anything else.

The graph I linked to lists income by percentile, not amount - so at 100 it is referring to the richest 1% of households in the country, not those earning max £100k (though even this view is limited as it only looks at income, not family/inherited wealth, etc).

We had letters from both my DCs schools.
1 GDST in SW London and 1 Large Co-Ed in London. Both 'academic' and 'highly sought after' in Mumsnet world. Both increasing by 7.5%- not as bad as it could have been..

Printing brochures and programs isn't a major expense for schools, though. You'd have to be printing thousands and thousands for it to have any real kind of impact. Many schools have in house reprographics (or at least good printers) so can do most of the actual printing in house. And once you have a template, it's relatively easy to update year on year.

I agree with you though, it's long term experienced teachers who make a school, and also being able to attract new ones when they leave who will want to stay, plus obviously being able to attract maternity cover etc. It's increasingly difficult for secondary schools to find people to do maternity cover- I guess for some private schools, especially big names, people see it as a foot in the door. But how many people can risk a temporary contract vs a permanent one (even at a less desirable school) right now?

I'm not saying maternity cover makes a school, but if you can't find someone to do it, it can make life really difficult for the department.

State schools keep costs down by increasing class sizes etc, though. And many state schools are at breaking point. (This is not me slagging off the state sector, I work as a teacher in a state school at the moment). A lot of the costs going up will be the same for private schools.

And the really big cost cutting measures (e.g. leaving the teacher pension scheme) are very unpopular with staff and will make it hard to recruit new experienced staff when needed.

I can see schools moving to a more pay as you go model- most now have fees that are all inclusive of exam entries/extra curricular/lunches etc.

I would imagine if they took all of this out, parents could evade VAT on those fees BUT then I assume you'd get issues with people who'd sign up on a baseline cost, and wouldn't be aware of the costs of the extras, which might not be very viable for anyone.

Gosh how awful you have to shop at Aldi! 😂

@Postapocalypticcowgirl Tbh I'd go as far as saying the majority of private schools don't have an all inclusive fee model. Esp preps. The vast majority charge extra for clubs, after school provision, special coaching, exams, learning support. When we were looking at private schools now for my daughter to go into Y9, most reminded me of my state school under labour. 25ish kids per class, clubs, trips, drama productions etc. Except we also had free instrument tuition. It's sad really.

Pay as you go is actually the state model, where a school only teaches to the curriculum and then call it a job done. Parents would then take over the extracurriculars in terms of academics, sport, music, ferrying around, etc.

Agree to cut back on printed materials for environmental reasons, but that will not be a massive cost saving in and by itself. Cutting back on sport teams and travelling to competitions is a terrible idea in my view. This is one of the main reasons many parents choose private, as those cannot be efficiently arranged at the local club usually, unless you’re in a big city like London.

For me it’s amount of people working in admin that’s appalling. Celebrity headmasters on 200k salaries must go, but what about the dozens of secretaries guarding the doors everywhere at most boarding schools. Why?

Maybe so, but he conveniently forgot to label the x-axis so it reads as an absolute value. In any case the über rich will have little taxable income, as it all sits in trust funds anyhow. So his methodology is very poorly informed and amateurish at worst, or a politically motivated hit piece at best.

I sit on both sides of the fence - DS at one independent whilst I work at another. I sat through a financial briefing earlier in the week which boiled down to teachers needing to take a salary cut to pay the increase in employer pension contributions next year. I feel that this cost needs to be passed onto the service users but understand that parents may not agree.

It is fundamentally wrong to start by passing the bucket to teachers and pupils/families without any introspection. Bursars should be looking first and foremost for inefficiencies, ranging from admin staff to energy efficiency. Schools can get their hands on 20y+ infra loans with 3-4 year grace periods. How about investing in insulation, wind power on the fields, or solar cells on the roofs of buildings?

@Cyclingmummy1 But nobody knows what the increase will be! We got a 7% rise at our place and the governors have stopped talking about leaving the TPS, at least for a while. We got as far as "indicative ballots" when they raised it about 4 years back, then they backed down.

I tried to find an article on current pay of headmasters in the independent sector but instead stumbled across this https://amp.theguardian.com/education/2021/mar/20/english-secondary-school-headteachers-among-best-paid-in-the-world
—which to be honest I found even more shocking! Sounds like the state sector can pay even more…

If I were a journalist I would trawl through the accounts of the best performing private schools to see what salaries are currently doing at the top level. My bet would be that they have increased since 2019.

@PrivateSchoolTeacherParent that was one of the points we made. It went a lot further than indicative ballots before we got an agreement to pause until the figures are known.

@Cyclingmummy1 Hope it works out well for you. Based on that last comment I'm 90% sure I know where you work, but I won't out you in case parents or your SLT are reading!