The end of scholarships and changes to private schools - who can still afford to pay?

The most interesting development the Good Schools Guide has noticed in private schools over the last few years hasn’t been the steep fee increases, the facilities arms race, the introduction of baffling exams like the Cambridge Pre-U, or even Jamie Oliver’s influence in the kitchens.

Instead, it’s been the complete overhaul of scholarship criteria at the country’s most famous public schools. Janette Wallis explains...

"Bullied by the Charity Commission - and led by schools like Eton (which you can see above), Rugby and St Paul’s - most big schools that you could name, and lots you’ve never heard of, are now means testing all their scholarships.

Awards for academic, sporting, musical and other forms of excellence are capped at 5 or 10 per cent of fees, or are in some cases purely honorary. A scholarship to academic powerhouse St Paul’s School in London brings with it the princely sum of not £6000 – not £600 – but £60 per year. The serious money goes towards means-tested bursaries that top up these awards to as much as 100 per cent of fees.

Britain’s public schools, so long the symbol of privilege, have in effect thrown down the drawbridge and opened their doors open to any child clever or talented enough to excel on the entrance criteria. True, the number of free or heavily subsidised places these schools can currently fund is limited, but the principle is there, and all of these schools are working hard to expand the bursary kitty.

Who could fault it? Bringing in children from a range of backgrounds is a win/win situation: Artful Dodgers rubbing shoulders with Little Lord Fauntleroys. For many schools, it is simply a return to their roots when they began as charitable foundations on the largesse of a wealthy merchant’s bequest.

Of course scholarships for the poor are nothing new. At Christ’s Hospital in Horsham, 97% of pupils usually receive some level of support, many of them free places. The Whitgift Foundation in Croydon has long provided generous funding to needy pupils at Whitgift, Trinity and Old Palace Schools. King Edward’s School Witley, Lord Wandsworth College Hampshire, Kingham Hill Oxford and Reed’s Surrey all have special funds for children from broken homes or where a boarding education is badly needed.

Good schools have always pushed fee discounts in the direction of the most needy families, while still keeping the parents of middle class brainboxes sweet. What is new is the complete void in the new regime for parents on average, or slightly more than average, incomes but who are not wealthy.

Two years ago Bedford School told me that its then new means-tested awards were available to parents with a joint income below £50,000. Sounds grand. But parents together earning £51,000 (before tax) could no more afford Bedford’s boarding fees of around £25,000 per year (if you include extras like uniforms etc) than they could charter a private excursion to the moon.

It is these stoutly middle class parents who have traditionally formed the backbone of independent schooling – the hearty souls who spend their holidays bird watching in East Anglia rather than on a beach overseas, who send their children to Kumon maths and Suzuki violin, and who forego restaurant meals in order to pay for Emily and Thomas’s schooling.

So who will populate the Etons, Harrows, Rugbys and Charterhouses in coming years? Will they end up as bipolar communities peopled on the one extreme by wealthy foreigners and “super-rich” British for whom fees are no object, and at the other by children on bursaries? While the central core of private school parents herd themselves into lesser known schools where means testing of scholars has not (yet) arrived?

Also watch out for increasing numbers of tales of abuse. With so much at stake, it’s not surprising if financially literate parents play the system. Instead of help going to the rough diamond from the poor neighbourhood, it is just likely to go to the child with diamonds on the soles of his shoes.

So sociologists, get out your notebooks – a huge educational experiment is unfolding all around us. As Spock would say: fascinating.

Read School Gate:

Tips for that private school interview

The cheaper way to get into a private school

Do boys need boys' schools?

Jade Goody's dying wish: private education for her sons

Comments

[Alistair Owens]

Eton could become on of the super-school brands that Ed Balls had in mind to take the operation of failing schools. Interesting to see "Eton Schools" operating up and down the country.

[Hol]

Most of the people at my school who have a bursary have parents who earn way more than mine, but come from families where the parents are divorced and they only put down the mum's income. One of my friends gets £30 a week from the government just for staying on in sixth form, plus £100 just for showing up for his exams. And his dad is an accountant!

[Chris Cherry]

"...the hearty souls who spend their holidays bird watching in East Anglia rather than on a beach overseas, who send their children to Kumon maths and Suzuki violin, and who forego restaurant meals in order to pay for Emily and Thomas’s schooling."

God, Janette, you make them sound so... sacrificial... almost... martyrs to their children's education. I mean, most people can't LIVE without two weeks in Florida, and eating out is positively essential...

I worked for Liverpool College a while ago, curiously enough as a credit controller at the start of the school year - payment time!

There's one fundamental philosophy underpinning these moves: most public schools were originally charitable institutions for the majority of children, with no entrance prerequisites like religious leanings, etc. (hence the name, right?)

Most retain charitable status because of the way in which they issue bursaries. Having only worked for one private school, but having seen the way in which bursaries are doled out, you have to admit that you have to leave it up to the school to a certain extent. It's the school's culture, and the school, I'm sure, cares enough to teach its pupils the value of social levelling and the negatives of exclusion. The same goes for the mechanics of the system - schools can and do root out those who try to play it.

Bursaries should be based on need and merit - not some idea that the schools would be divided in strata and so we need to mix it up with the middle classes.

[s]

"But parents together earning £51,000 (before tax) could no more afford Bedford’s boarding fees of around £25,000 per year (if you include extras like uniforms etc) than they could charter a private excursion to the moon."

Too right I'm a stay at home Mum who's other half earns a little more than this and we've still had to tell our 2 Daughters that there is noway they can go to private school even as day girls.
There is the mortgage, two cars and higher rate tax to pay.
A nice holiday is perhaps £3000, school fee's for two would be replacing both our Ford focuses every year - £20000+++
For families like ours, with no large savings and thus large mortgages school fees are just a step too far :-(

[Charlie]

That's how I went to private school. And what Hol mentioned was not my case, but it's well-known. Then again my school wasn't even £10,000 a year in fees. What gets me is that a man I work with now worked out how much it is for him to send his kids to state school, including lunches, trips, uniform -
most of that was included for me with the bursary - it was cheaper for my parents on a low income to send me to private school than it is for him to send his kids to the local school.

[Helena]

It's probably cheaper to home-ed with subject tutors shared between several parents to spread the cost, than to send your children to private school. Odds are they'll get just as good an academic education. Science labs would be the missing factor.

[Helena]

Anyone got any idea how many children in the UK are privately educated? However many, they are directly subsidising state education as they still pay taxes but don't take up their free places.

[Elle]

Do you reckon parents who can afford to tutor their childeren but can't afford a private education would be able to manipulate the system? Their kids would be able to ace the exams which determin academic merit, what if you can't even afford tutoring? The education system in this country is so unfair. My mum earns under £10,000 p.a, we live in one of the most deprived areas in the country so naturally the school I attend is rubbish - pass rate 39%. I'm one of a handful in my year predicted all As (GCSEs). I would love a scholarship, it's so frustrating seeing all the rich kids getting fantastic educations while I'm stuck sitting next to some chav (predicted Es) giving me horrid looks for trying to work. What the hell happend to grammer schools?

[James]

This article is silly, Eaton and Harrow aren't largely populated by the lower middle classes and never were. Schools like Blue Coats and Liscence Vichelors have been the schools of choice for those in these categories and still are because they are not public schools.

You have to take into account the massive range in school fees so you don't lump them all into one labeled "posh upper class".

[Johnny]

Could secondary schools go the way of universities, with students/parents accumulating debt before they even enter the work force? Would it be fair for parents to take out loans to pay for a superior education for their child, and then ask for the child's help paying it off once he attains the ability to secure better jobs? Surely if you look at long term cost-benefits then a loan would be more than justified?

[Karen]

To James -
It's not just Eaton and Harrow that are means testing scholarships now, but all kinds of schools. Most likely including the ones you've mentioned. On the other hand, less wealthy parents used to be able to have a crack at schools like Eaton if they got a 50% scholarship. No longer.

[Ronni]

There are now many "1st Division" public schools who have scaled down scholarships to virtually zero, not just the "Premier Division" ones. My daughter's was £100 of books for a 6th form academic scholarship. Boarding fees £8,500 per term. The super-rich will always afford Harrow, Eton etc. but if you are not in the top league but charge top prices, what will the future be? Apparently a fund raising campaign to raise millions of pounds! Let's hope someone has some spare cash!

[MS]

Hi Elle,

It's nice you have been predicted all A's at GCSE, but 'grammar' is spelt with an 'a', not an 'e'.

[Ian Rosebery]

Today there are, broadly, two groups of parents who send their children to non-state schools.
First, the very wealthy, who send their offspring to the most well known public schools, and do so without any thought of other options.
Second, the parents who have realised that state schooling is no more than a lottery with the odds stacked against most of the pupils.
The second group does make a scrifice to give its offspring an education rather than an mental and physical assault course that is taxes fund.
The all-but-extinct third group of people that once sent its children to the 'local' private school became poorer and poorer by the effort to pay the fees, to the loss of both them and the schools, many of which have merged or closed altogether.
I won a competitive scholarship to a state selective school in Scotland in the 1960s, the equivalent of a grammar school in the English tradition. Such schools became the casualties of class war by Labour local authorities and are now history. The able pupils from areas descibed with whatever socio-economic euphemism is currently applied, but which all would recognise as 'non-aspirational', are now caught in a trap from which there is no easy escape. Nice one, Labour, and something that my Grandfather, and ILP Councillor in the 1930s, could never understand. It wasn't his kind of Socialism.
My daughter attends an independent school. The fees are in excess of £10,000 by some margin, but not out-of-line from the norm among the independent schools that educate 25% of this city's [Edinburgh's] school pupils. If we had more than one child of school age, they would not be at the school because we could not afford it. Between us, pre-tax, we earn about three times the means-test target amount. After tax the so-called 'disposable' remainder is fully utilised in living [and paying the other insidious taxes that 'living' requires]. We drive ten year old cars and, yes, we need two because we both work, and work on a peripatetic basis. We live in an expensive city, with expensive housing and expensive mortgages, and we just about keep up with ours ours. We do take holidays and I confess that we do not conform to the 'hearty' stereotype of holidaying in the UK with poor weather, service with a scowl and high costs. Some sacrifiecs are not worth making.
What I would like to know is what the Labour party is trying to achieve by racing to the bottom and forcing eveyone to follow it. Is Anthony Crossland's bigotry and self-loathing now the accepted orthodoxy in the party's education policy? I would also like to know how the Conservative party can find a way to break its link with this consensus madness and start to represent those who wish small government that does not interfere with the lives of people as much as government does today. It might also consider standing up for elitism rather than kerb-crawling for votes amongst the salariat that it and Labour have jointly fostered. [As an aside, use of the phrase 'Bonfire of the Quangos' by any politician should be punishbale by deselection. They all know it's a hollow promise].
It would also be good if some party had the balls to make the case for less spending on health, education and welfare rather than more. The population would be better off in all three areas if less money were spent more effectively on the elements of each that actually matter. This need is greater than ever now, given the politicians' denial of their role in enabling the finance sector to destroy the finance systme. The need was there anyway, given the bloated expectation, encouraged by governments over the last 50 years, of a growing number of the population that cannot distinguish between 'need' and 'want'.
Rant over. Now looking forward to my birthday champagne cocktails after a trip to the local recycling centre because the bin men are on strike!

[John Doe]

MS, you are a smug turd. Get back to fapping to donkey pr0n.

[DAVID VINTER]

What happened to Grammar Schools? Well we have 20 in Lincolnshire. AND EATON USED TO MAKE LORRY BACK AXLES!

[Julia]

You British are really funny about private schooling. It is much more about status and socializing then about education. Education comes from one's being clever OR from bookish parents. School is ALL about socializing. But - please do stuck to your social class thing - it makes Britain so charming!

[Jamie]

I wonder how many of these comments have been written by the same person under various pseudonyms? I'm thinking in particular the people who are spelling 'Eton' as 'Eaton'. Though I think means testing is fair enough, as long as it recognises that for a 2 child family 50k pre-tax just isn't going to cut it as a 'bottom' for affordability of private school

[Mike Evans]

Elle:
Don't worry about "all the rich kids", and poison your life with meaningless envy. 7% attend private schools; 93% are in your position. If all could attend schools like the 7%, that would be good. Meanwhile, it's good (and lucky - Labour is out to shaft them) that even 7% are accommodated. No, let's concentrate on your last and most relevant point - the grammar schools. Led by Labour, all parties conspired in the destruction of these key institutions, in the name of equality. If you go the way of rich kid envy, you will join the equality brigade. You are obviously a hope for the future, someone with sensible human aspirations and values. I do hope you join in the attempt to mend this broken society, including giving people some stake in their own lives with school places offered on merit (where a school is over-subscribed), and support for marriage as the foundation of society.

[Mary]

To Julia,
I really don't agree with you - public schools may be about status and socialising (I wouldn't know, not having attended one) but private schools are all about education - the decent education that just isn't consistently available from the state system in this country.

[James]

There are plenty of people who can afford to send their children to private schools. They work in the public sector.

[Ivan]

Forget grammar schools.
1. Introduce a "grammar stream" into all comprehensive schools;
2. Emulate the best private schools with an uncompromising focus on academic excellence;
3. Pay teachers more but insist on a 2.1 or better to improve the reputation of the profession. Those with lower-class degrees can still teach...in private schools.

[MB]

It's true that parents on £51k could never afford to pay full fees at these schools but the scholarship programmes have to set the earnings limit somewhere. If they set it at £70k, then those on £71k would complain. Setting it at £100k makes a mockery of means-testing as a household income of £100k puts a family well into the affluent category. Even if such a family couldn't afford Eton, they could pay for a minor public school.

The most important thing is that bright but financially challenged children get the chance to get the best education. There is always someone who loses out when an income threshold is set but I'd rather see someone on 51k lose out than have a child who is bright but poor having to compete with the children of the wealthy for the few scholarships that do exist.

[James]

Why should rich parents be able to purchase better grades for their children?

Private schools should be abolished. They are simply a means for the rich to exclude the poor from elite universities and elite occupations.

[TSM]

MB - you are wrong when you say a family income of £100K puts a family into the affluent category, able to afford school fees. It really depends on many factors such as stability of income, job security, size of mortgage, number of children, dependent elderly relatives.....etc

[Andrew]

James: "Why should rich parents be able to purchase better grades for their children?"

Why should the rich be able to buy better houses, better cars, better food, better clothes, better holidays, etc, etc?

There is an incentive to go out and earn more money and it comes down to what you can buy with it. Some people become successful and wish to spend some of their gains on educating their children. That's their choice. I went to a state school and did ok (I ended up with an engineering PhD) and if I ever become wealthy enough to afford it (currently looking unlikely) then I would consider sending my kids private if I felt that they were unhappy or unchallenged at their state school (as I was for much of my time there). I would rather spend my money on that than on buying a new car every two years. But that's my choice.

[Jan]

Ivan

You can't start demanding minimum educational standards (2:1s or basic English and maths) into the state sector - the Unions would never allow it. (see last week's Times).

And therein lies the problem.

Interestingly a couple of years ago a retiring head of one of the top private schools (Wellington? Westminster? St Pauls? Can't remember) wanted to "give something back" after a lifetime of private school teaching, and volunteered himself to a "sink" secondary. Turned down. No PGCE.

[James]

Andrew,

So you're saying that rich parents have the right to rig the competition for university places in favour of their own kids?

What rubbish. Oxbridge is stuffed with AAB grades from £25k crammers, many of whom are very average minds. Your personal history does not have much bearing on this.

[HB]

It depends on the nature of means testing for bursaries. There is too much focus on salary.

What is disposable income? - with three kids in private school (and paying £45k per year for the "privelige" before school clothes, mortgage etc) even earning £100k I would see that put me in the 'struggling' category.

This is the end for hard working Middle Class parents.

and yes - I did try the state system (an "outstanding" primary school) for two years and they could read less well at the end of the experience than they did at the start and don't even talk about maths let alone a wider curriculum.

[Angelo Basu]

I find this topic terribly hard to care about. I accepted long ago the fact that despite being higher up the income scale than my parents it was unlikely that I'd be able to afford to send my children to the same school I attended. The principal impact this will have is that it means that despite having enjoyed my years at the school I have to politely decline their invitations to participate in their fund raising, whether for scholarships or otherwise. I pay more than enough in tax to pay for opportunities for poorer people and I'm damned if I'm paying anything out of my taxable income to improve the opportunities for rich people.

I suspect that about half of my contemporaries at my rather middling Cambridge school will not be able to afford to send their children there. The impact on the schools will come, if any, in possibly reduced fund-raising as a smaller proportion of alumni feel the need to donate.

[Wendy]

I am one of those few girls in my 'below average' rural secondary school not to be pregnant before 16. The teaching wasnt great, nor were my exam results but with a bit of determination I worked my way up. 3 years ago I got my PhD at Imperial College. Sponsorships and free places got me there. As a PhD student I was actually getting a bigger post-tax income than my parents!
However, now as a professional I have an income approaching 50k but can't even get a morgage (I live in London). To think that parents on the same income can afford to send their kids to an expensive private school on the same income is ridiculous.

[Leigh]

James, your words are at best naive! Private schools are full of kids with Parents who work very hard (bricklayers, plumbers etc..) to give their children a better education, and say what you like, across the board it IS a better education on many levels...

If the government could afford to keep class levels down to private school levels they would, and the fact that 1000s of people pay for private education has helped the government to spend the amount per capita that it has... take them away and the education system would be much worse than it is!

[Peter Cressall]

If there were no private schools, the educational system would collapse. The government should compensate those parents who relieve it of the need to pay for schooling. This would be logical and fair.

[Frank Upton]

It's unfortunate that you illustrate an article on private schools with a picture of Eton, because it is so untypical. Unfortunately many people cannot read the words 'independent school' without thinking of a top hat. If you were doing a piece on pubs you wouldn't have a picture of the Rivoli at the Ritz.

[DF]

The vast majority of parents sending their kids to public school do so at significant sacrifice to their own materialism. So for those who would prefer the new trainers / cars every 2 years and whine about the "elite", just remember that it is a matter of choice. Why wouldn't you want to give your children the best chance. And comments made that the "elite" universities and jobs are an opportunity only for public school kids is just rubbish.

[Ex Pat Old Etonian]

I was very fortunate to have received an amazing education, thanks to a generous scholarship in the 1980's. Scraping through my A-levels and getting into Cambridge to complete my "elite" upbringing.
I find it most unfortunate that there are so many people like "James" who seem to think that elitism is something bad. Would he really prefer the country to be run by mediocre, poorly-educated powergrabbers? Class-based idealism just does not work, just as the "no child left behind" programme in the USA doesn't work. Until politicians will bite the bullet and allow the combination of hard work and intelligence to be celebrated rather than be an embarrassment, we will sink even lower than the Jane Goody vs University Challenge trough.

So to those who are making huge sacrifices to pay fees for their offspring (who probably complain at not having the latest iGizmo) - Congratulations on being excellent parents.
Rant over, thank you.

[Jay Samuel]

Means-testing will mean that those on middling PAYE salaries will likely miss out & and those able to reduce their income level (i.e., the self-employed who can "cook the books") will be best placed to pick-up the scholarship cash.
The big stick of the Charity Commission seems to be rewarding social engineering (susidised places for some) over scholarship, which is what awards were originally supposed to nurture.

[M]

I'd like to know exactly how many journalists working at the Daily Times, The Telegraph, The Daily Mail etc. have degrees that are not from Oxbridge? I bet most media groups only employ the graduates who are the most middle class, the most polished, the most privileged. They are certainly not the most naturally talented because I find the same drivel is regurgitated again and again. There is never any genuine analysis, only opinion. It's like the debate on grammar schools. Everything needs to be viewed in the correct context. For what it's worth, both of my sons attend a pre-prep owned by Cognita. I think it is much better in lots of ways than a state school simply because the class sizes are smaller. All the state sector needs to do is provide more qualified teachers to achieve the same results. That costs money though and no one wants to pay higher taxes even though countries like France with top quality state education are paying more than us. Also, bearing in mind that teachers working in the state sector get more job security and better training in special needs. I would say that there is quite a social mix at my sons' school. I come from a working class background and so does my husband to some extent - he did get a scholarship to a top public school and went on to Cambridge. In answer to the question how much someone needs to earn, it's relative, but I think about £100k plus if mum is at home.

[M]

Amongst all this doom and gloom about state education, I'd also like to say that it is possible to grow up on a council estate, get middling GCSEs and A-levels (excellent compared to peers) and go to an okay university and be educated! If you love learning that is something that stays with you for life. I know plenty of people who may have higher grades/better careers (because they went to a better school) than me but wallow in ignorance. They don't read for pleasure, they have no hobbies apart from socialising, they are not creative. I think we are much, much more than what's on a bit of paper, so probably it's best not to get too hysterical about it.

[s]

I reckon M's about right - one salary of 100k (remember with higher rate tax Gordon takes ~half) would allow both our children to go, as day pupils to to the local private school, pay for uniform and trips.

[Ted]

My father (a Chartered Surveyor) earned enough to educate 4 sons privately.

Despite holding a similarly senior position to that which he held at the time, I could not even afford to send 1 son through those schools I attended - much less 4!

In the 60's and 70's, being professionally qualified set you apart from the herd and meant good pay. Nowadays, the herd have "qualifications" coming out of their ears and the buying power of much-diluted salaries is hopeless in comparison.

[pdev]

Reading these posts is incredibly depressing. Is the class system in the UK so embedded that only those who go to elite private schools and Oxbridge are able to succeed?? Sounds like Blighty needs to shut down and new management brought in. Is any one of these posters incredibly upset that you have created such a desperate system that you all feel you need to spend 20k+(A$55k!!!) on school fees. In Australia there is a real swing back to state high schools especially in the inner/middle suburbs of Syd and Melb. many, many students of these schools are successful at Uni and out perform private school conterparts because they are not so spoon feed through upper high school years.

[Karen]

The news this morning is that two schools have failed the English Charities Commission review - out of the first five schools they've looked at. It's specifically because they don't offer enough bursaries, even though they do lots of things to help neighbouring state schools, etc etc. One of the schools says it just tries to charge the lowest fees possible - so I guess they'll have to charge more now, so that fewer families can afford it, just so they can offer bursaries. Where's the sense in that?

[oneopinionatedmother]

first point: weird concept of 'middle class' - roughly 40% of people are 'middle class' only 7% go to private school -

surely this makes private schooling 'upper class'? (in general)

second: a previous labour govenment looked at making private schooling illegal. It decided it couldn't, without doing away with e.g schools for the blind, other specalist educators. if someone is willing to pay their taxes *and* pay for their kid to be educated without it costing the state, why shouldn't they be allowed to?

third: charitable status seems fair enough to me so long as they follow the rules already within the tax system (ie that the sole aim should be education, not profit)

fourth: there are only 14 selective state schools. Most 'grammar' schools are in fact comprehensives. Many of these still offer an excellent standard of education without offloading the bottom set to a separate school.

fifth: it is an often repeated falsehood that kids who do well at private schools are not *really* bright. the friends i met who had been to Eton and Winchester would have got the same results at the schools i went to. In general, people who earn 100k plus are pretty clever. It is not suprising that their offspring are also intelligent.

sixth: i have heard of many kids from divorced backgrounds having fees paid as part of the settlement (even when the mother is herself on benefit) i believe this is because this amount is not treated as income and therefore not deducted from the benefits paid to the mother.

seventh: our local private school is utterly, totally, unbelievably, beyond our means. £18k per year per child - almost twice my income. As the average income per household is 40K - with most of that going on housing - that makes schooling 2 kids beyond impossible for the 'middle' class.

i think that this post shows, like many comfortably off people, the poster doesn't realise that they are in fact well off and views 'middle class' as something alien to them. The poster is middle class. Private schooling, on the other hand, is (typically) upper class.

[Jan]

Re M 13/07/09 .........teachers working in the state sector get more job security and better training in special needs.
Yes to the first but better training........?????? Tell that to my extremely intelligent granddaughter at a state school where her dyslexia was totally ignored/unrecognised in spite of her mother's persistent requests for attention.Needless to say she was not Popular Parent.
It was only an excellent private school coupled with a local dyslexia centre which turned the situation round at 1O+.
Special needs training is a postcode lottery.

[TSM]

Oneopinionatedmother - You need a new fact checker. There are 164 selective grammar schools in England. There are 33 in Kent alone.

[MB]

TSM: how can you say that a household income of 100k is not affluent? The top 20% of households in the UK bring in an average income of £72,900 so if you earn 100k you are well beyond the average of this percentile, let alone the rest of society.

Some of the commenters on this thread need a reality check. Since when was a household income of 150k not sufficient to send a child to private school, as one poster claims? Since when was it normal for people in middle-class professions to send their children to Eton-level schools (as the picture with this article implies)? The reality is that Eton is not a school for the middle-class and never has been.

For the middle-class - those with a household income of about 70-150k if we can judge from national statistics - it was never normal to go to Eton. Day fees for a minor public school or a charter school, maybe, or the ability to afford a house in a good catchment area for a top-ranked state school but Eton? I don't think so. It - and the schools like it in that fee range - were always schools for the upper class i.e. aristocracy, multi-millionaires and the occassional 'normal' professional with inherited wealth. Not being able to afford Eton on an income of 100-150k per year should not come as a surprise to anyone!

[TSM]

MB: Because it's true. Affluence depends on capital, primarily and disposable income, to a certain extent - not gross income. Affluence comes from generations of property owning legacy granting relatives. It is rarely found in first generation zero inheritance home owners.

[oneopinionatedmother]

@tsm..guess i shouldn't believe 'facts' from the internet..

[M]

State schools train all their teachers in various things like physical exercises to help children concentrate i.e. relaxation, special needs, autism etc. My sons' private school didn't even have Inset days until recently. They are excellent teachers, but they aren't very up on modern teaching methods. I have volunteered in a state school (which was also very challenging) and it's not all bad. It was chaotic but that was mostly because there was a high teacher/pupil ratio and also the kids have problems that a private school never encounters like different languages and cultures. I'd love it if my sons' school did kids yoga for example (which would boost concentration and yoga is something that can stay with you for life), but they aren't that creative. It is very basic and no frills, but I think private schools should be more progressive and evolve for our changing world.

I don't think slagging off the state sector is completely fair. The teachers have a difficult job, but a lot of money has been ploughed into education. Unfortunately it is a bit of a lottery as to which schools have benefitted.

[oneopinionatedmother]

Median earnings of full-time male employees was £521 per week in April 2008; for women the median was £412.

http://www.statistics.gov.uk/cci/nugget.asp?id=285

a typical couple then, with ft man + pt (3 days pw) woman earn £768.2 pw = £39946.4 per annum. This is the middle income (presuming the governments figures to be correct!) .....how does one arrive at 70k plus as meaning 'middle class'???

that kind of salary is only available to e.g company directors, senior lawyers, accountants etc, and doctors...(nods to James below)

i think that might be a definition thought up by high-level earners who wish to con themselves that they are still 'working' class and feel hard done by.

please offer a link :)

[John, London]

The background to this is that lower middle class people who went to an excellent state school (selective or not), or a bottom end private school 15 years ago are now looking at how they are going to educate their own children.
They value education because they realise how lucky they were to be educated at a level above the state comprehensives, and they see how this has enabled them to be much more financially secure than their parents and peers.

Now they look to their childrens' education and they despair - the few excellent state schools have disappeared, and the bottom end private schools are relatively much more expensive (than their parents paid) and beyond their means. At the same time, the state comprehensives are no longer merely bad, but truly awful often dangerous places.

To the non British reading this, we often use class distinctions to describe socio-economic groups. Too often this is read as class obsession.

[John, London]

Middle income isn't middle class.

The upper class owned the land (nobility) and the working class worked the land (peasants). The middle class was added as an intermedite including finance and merchants, now extended to include management and professionals.

[oneopinionatedmother]

actually, much though i hate to say it, the daily mail had something relevant t0 this...

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-385206/Are-growing-middle-class.html

[steven]

Besides all the class war comments above the story doesn't point out that a lot of private education isn't nearly as expensive as the common perception. I agree that for many people private education might not be affordable but a huge number of private schools are faith affiliated and, by definition, half the schools charge less than the average annual school fees of £14,000 quoted recently by allaboutschoolfees.com.

[Liza]

It's true that parents on £51k could never afford to pay full fees at these schools but the scholarship programmes have to set the earnings limit somewhere...Setting it at £100k makes a mockery of means-testing as a household income of £100k puts a family well into the affluent category.

Posted by: MB

Yes MB - but the difference is that 51k is only two average earners on c.25k each. If the discount is set too low then such people will be priced out absolutely and completely. Which does support the argument made here that the upper working / lower middle classes are being completely priced out.

Incidentally, schools used to offer proper (free) scholarships for anyone who was clever enough and the government used to offer a means tested scheme - assisted places. That scheme from which I personally benefitted was absolished by Tony Blair. Thanks Tony!

[M]

My parents were both retired on state pension when I came to attend high school which was a typical 'bog standard comprehensive' in quite a rough area. After a few years of putting up with being bullied for working hard I got a full sponsorship to attend a private school fourty miles away and got a class size of no more than twelve and in some subjects I was on my own. It was well worth it. You don't always have to pay tens of thousands for a private education though. I went to a school that cost £1800/year + books.

[M]

"20% of households in the UK bring in an average income of £72,900 so if you earn 100k you are well beyond the average of this percentile, let alone the rest of society."

My household income is just shy of this at £92,000. We have a two-bed house worth £120K in Wiltshire, a second which is rented out because we couldn't sell it. One car worth £4500 and no debt beyond mortgages. We save a fair amount each month but not masses. We can afford to live and live fairly comfortably, save a bit and even go abroad for a holiday once a year. I would hardly call that 'affluent'.

[oneopinionatedmother]

@M

i find that amusing, i don't consider mself 'poor' and yet live on a total income conisting largely of benefits
we have enough.

you either don't appreciate just how enormously well off you are or someone in your family has an expensive habit they are hiding from you (gambling?, dodgy women?, dodgy men!?)

treat yourself to champagne on my behalf: live whilst the livings good!

God knows I wish we'd done more with our cash before my husband got fired.

interesting that people presume 2* average full time wage to be ypical household AT 51K- wrong on two counts
1) women often work part time
2) the average woman with kids earns much less than the average man. - Therefore 40-45k seems more like it to me.

@liza
sad though the demise of the assisted places scheme is (Especially as it would have been my way of weaselling my kids way into the local public school) I had to agree with the logic: make all schools better so that they are all suitable places to educate the brightest. Shame it hasn't worked though.

I also like the way people assume comp= jungle whilst public school = civilisation -

my hsband got away with things at his public school that would've got him expelled from any of the three comprehensive high schools i attended.

schools just seem to be brutal places, and i think i got away pretty lightly with the unpleasant psychologial bullying that was rife at the comps i went to.

and my 'a levels' were as good as my mates from public schools, as well as having been free :p

[Liza]

To One Opinionated Mother - I agree with you on two counts i.e. it is a shame that assisted places didn't exist any longer and that comps aren't always hellholes. I also got away with murder - as did many of my peers - at my very expensive private school.

... That being said, I can only speak from my own experience. The standard of education is incomparable. I won prizes for maths at my comp but was initially streamed in set 5 (of 6!) at my public school at 13 years old and it took me 3 years to get to top set. Which speaks for itself.

And whilst I would completely agree that the notion of making every school cater for children of all abilities equally well is a laudable aim, it will just never, never happen. I was given different work with 3 other children at primary school, as we were judged to be able (i.e. streaming by the back door). Two didnt go to university, one went to a Poly and now earns naff all, I went to a Russell Group uni and got a 2:1 and now earn very well. Which again, speaks for itself about what happens to some able kids in not very good comps.

And finally, we all know what happens if the middle classes can't afford public schools. They buy 600k houses in 'nice' white middle class areas where the schools are superb, leaving everyone else to take their chances.

I don't know what the answer is but it must be very hard to be a non-wealthy parent with educational aspirations for their child who is priced out of the best housing and public schools.

[Neena]

@ Ted: Too right.
@ Elle: Keep up the good work - in a few years' time, the 'chav next to you' will, no doubt, be on the dole or in a minimum national pay job unless there is a serious change in attitude (no, can't see it, either....) while you'll be sitting on the beach, enjoying the holiday your decent job and hard work have afforded you.

Generally, I don't think it is just a question of affordability but also very much of who you know. I am sure, that I would not have been given a place at my parents' schools of choice had it not been for their status in society (land owners) away from their day jobs, and whilst this was 25 years ago and various reforms have tried to address this issue since, it will take another generation or so to truly open education options to everyone. This would also include a change in attitude in other pupils and their parents towards a child whose parents could just about afford to send their child to a school but are not part of a preferred 'set'. Bullying, snide comments, freezing out etc. are entirely commonplace still and this behaviour is by no means limited to little Tabitha and Henry.

[Liz]

Let's not get too excited about the idea of bursaries getting all kinds of kids into private schools. After all, it still entails the kids' parents &/or teachers knowing about this possibility, ideologically agreeing with it, and prepared for the work of putting the child through the application process. Be clear, there are certainly plenty of parents (who aren't especially 'bad parents') who aren't like that.

Likewise, Assisted Places...AFAIK children were NOT chosen for these by Prince Charming going round the urchinhood of Britain proactively testing for gifted children, but by (?pushy) parents who knew the system and put their kids forward. Which is why it seems to have been disproportionately used by professional if relatively low-paid parents such as vicars and teachers--parents whose offspring one would imagine would do OK pretty much anywhere.

[L]

'My household income is just shy of this at £92,000. We have a two-bed house worth £120K in Wiltshire, a second which is rented out because we couldn't sell it. One car worth £4500 and no debt beyond mortgages'.

My heart bleeds for you - how can you cope with only two houses, no real debts and a household income only 30% above the average. Compare that to the minimum wage and you'll see why you're affluent.

[b]

Reed's is by far the best school