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??

I am hoping they will only increase in future years if they need to.

Usually they only do increase if they need to!

You should expect that the fees WILL increase every single year.

To be honest, they would be daft not to increase by a small percentage even if they didn’t need to, because people can cope with that much better than leaving fees for several years and then needing to apply a massive increase.

Again, it’s all relative and the dilemma of those who are already well-off and not facing the dilemmas of those choosing between heat and food, but for anyone with younger children just entering fee paying schools, or multiple younger children, it is a real dilemma about whether to commit.

We will swallow hard and absorb the 7% increase for this last year of schooling for our last child. For us, it will mean we don’t go skiing next year….and I don’t expect any sympathy for that. But if we had more kids and several years to go still, I think we would go for the good Comp that our children could have gone to.

6% increase - day school south east

Yeah, I mean I hope the 15% is a one off and future years are less. We have buffer, but still.

12.5% is loads. I would be looking into state options if you are not in Year 9 or 10.

And I have fully sympathy for parents in this situation. I personally would rather not heat my home than take my DCs out of schools where they are happy and thriving. I think people are naive to think there are not some private school parents who are really struggling this year due to choices about schooling, high mortgages etc Anyone can struggle when prices go up suddenly and unexpectedly.

And although I am normally a labour voter, I won’t be voting labour if they stick with the 20 per cent VAT on private schools policy because it will harm children in both sectors in the short term, just after a pandemic and in a cost of living crisis - so it is bad for children. I have no sympathy for the timing of that. I have 4 DC and our state schools are struggling and we don’t need more private school kids showing up now. It will just inflate house prices and cause more havoc.

I'm not surprised fees are going up, local private school nearby has had its heating bill increased from £500,000 to £1,500,000.

Our state schools are struggling because the Tories are starving them of funding. Let's not pretend it's something that's happening by accident.

Ironically, now some private schools are also struggling, in part because of the damage Tories have done to the economy and because they've allowed unregulated energy bill increases outside of households.

I think it's much more sensible to leave him in a school where he's happy, settled and doing well.

Well, I genuinely hope for your sake it's a smaller fee rise next year.

But I think costs for schools are only going to keep going up unfortunately.

Scroll on by then. You may not like it, but it's true. Different sacrifices to other people perhaps but sacrifices none the less. I'm so bored of hearing people moan about their state school while going on multiple tropical holidays. Getting loft conversions. Driving 2 nice cars. Shopping in wAitrose. Tutoring like crazy. Having cleaners, dog walkers, loads of Beaty treatments and tweakments. All while no working and saying private school is beyond them. Really? No, it's a matter of priorities.

@SmallandSpanish "all whole no working"

Who on earth is not working, but getting loft conversions, shopping at Waitrose and going on tropical holidays?

Comments like this make you sound utterly stupid. And absolutely reinforce the issue others have referred to. No one is able to suddenly afford independent school fees of thousands a month just by switching supermarkets and not having the dog groomed FFS.

Most things are a question of priorities and most people's priorities are being safely houses, warm and fed first and foremost.

We live in a double income household where we both work ft, very hard. We prioritise the happiness, wellbeing and education of our children, don't go abroad on holiday, shop at Lidl and have no beauty treatments but there is no way, ever, we could afford thousands of pounds a month from post tax salary for private schools for 3 DC. None.

If being privately educated results in lack of critical thinking and perspective to your degree then I'm even more sure it's not worth it.

@HockeyJock You might not, but there's lots of people who do. Why do you assume what @SmallandSpanish said applies to you when it obviously doesn't? I don't pay fees for my kids school and there's plenty of parents like this at my DDs school. You should've stood next to me at a recent residential trip pick up. Lots of her friends could've gone to private school. They won't, their parents talk about them like they're owned by the Nazis or something, yet are completely fine rolling up to school in their brand new cars, going to the (I'm not joking) Hamptons every year or to their second home in Cornwall or Corfu.
There's nothing wrong with owning things or going on holiday but it does rub me up the wrong way that they feel so comfortable bashing private school parents when they have more flashy lifestyles than the parents they're criticising.

Same where I live. Lots of Asian families with just 1 or max 2 child sending their DC to private schools and living in flats or small houses. White middle class families in larger houses with 3 DCs and dogs and holidays in state schools.

My point being no family or child should be put under extra pressure by government.

As for the private schools, I am sure energy and food prices have gone up massively for them. However, perhaps charter a few fewer minibuses for sports etc and start with proper cost cutting first like our state schools have done, rather than pass on everything to parents. Maybe some of the head teachers don’t need the huge whopping salary increases.

I don't personally think paying fees over everything else would ever be worth it.

My siblings and I all went to private schools and never had a holiday outside the UK, lived in rented accommodation, had really unreliable cars, secondhand clothes. I absolutely disagree that that was the right balance of things and found the social side of it all incredibly difficult.

You could definitely level criticism at me - I've got 3 kids and a nice house and lifestyle but I could move somewhere smaller (it would cost more) and radically dial back on lifestyle and we still couldn't afford fees. The maths just doesn't add up for most people. Admittedly I could have only had one child but that seems a really weird calculation to make to me (and we possibly still wouldn't be able to fund fees!)

We haven't been abroad in years and only twice since having DC, but I'm planning to try and get away more. Bit a couple of holidays of £2k each does not private schooling for 3dc for 7 years make....

Many people don't see these expenditures as equivalent though. While most people wouldn't argue if you want to spend your money on a nice holiday or new car, there's a valid moral argument that by paying for private education, you are using your money and privilege to give your child a leg up on other children, and trying to give them certain advantages that not everyone has access to, and also disadvantaging state schools by depriving them of largely bright, well behaved pupils and caring, involved parents. I myself believe this to some extent, and yet here I am sending my children to private school anyway because we all have a deep drive to want the best for our children, even at the expense of others, even if it doesn't sit right at some level!

But of course these lifestyles (and inheritances) absolutely do give children a leg up, of course - perhaps just in a less obvious way than private education (which many on MN would argue doesn't really give children much of a leg up, if compared with a really good state option).

It’s ok, no need to apologise, the forum isn’t all about you and she wasn’t asking you specifically.

Op means original poster. You are the original poster. No one else can be the original poster. It can also be opening poster or opening post. Again, all you.

Exactly. Most private school pupils are not at Eton or whatever equivalent it is that'll give them a leg up. There are many who can't afford to move to a good state school and paying fees for a school that'll meet their children's needs is what they're choosing to do. Yes it's a privilege but so is the ability to move to a great catchment and have tons of disposable income to provide your kids with endless culture capital. Not to mention the flats these state school parents are buying for their kids and the questionable morals behind that.

We've been in state, private and home Ed communities and by far the most flashy was the 'nice' state primary where rich stay at home parents moved house to be in catchment. And then stood around in the playground slagging off the local private school while booking 3 ski holiday a year.

By contrast, the private school was mainly double income parents working theirs butts off to afford fees.

The home Ed community is by far the most diverse, but even that involves a lot of sacrifices for most cos it's not cheap.

All I'm staying is, there is nuance in every situation. Private does always mean more privilege than everyone in state.

Ours has only gone up by 4% for next year and I'm feeling grateful!

@SmallandSpanish I agree wholeheartedly. I also have experience of all 3 of those sectors and the leafy comp I worked in and the one DD is now, has some of the snootiest loaded parents I've ever met. They are always the most vocal about state schools and now much of a waste private schools are.
There are parents making huge financial sacrifices for private school fees. Very often they've been failed by state schools and they acknowledge the privilege they have to be able to move their kids. No one denies that. However, there are many many state school kids who are far more privileged. I'm aware however that this discussion is useless for OP so I'll shut up now!