If I had a penny for every article written about the introduction of VAT on school fees, the extra £10,000 I must now pay for my own two children wouldn’t hurt as much. Disappointingly, press coverage around the issue omitted a crucial detail. It’s something that may not be obvious to many journalists – or the Labour government, for that matter – but it is to any public school parent. Tuition fees are only the cover charge for admission into an elite club; full-blown membership costs considerably more.
How much more, you might well wonder. Approximating from the dozen or so invoices I was able to collect from obliging sources, the non-discretionary, variable cost of a public school education is anywhere between 15 and 50 per cent of the advertised sticker price. The precise amount depends entirely on what type of child and which school.
Adventurous children – those willing to try their hand at rowing one term and kayaking the next – require adequate kit in addition to their regular uniform. If the distinction between the two is not apparent, you may not be the intended audience for this piece. Count your blessings.
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If, like me, you have had to scold a young child to hold still while a seamstress measures their precise sleeve length for a coat, you know of what I speak. It is a rite of passage, my memory of it none the worse for having forked out £240 for the double-breasted, serge greatcoat. Only for it to be promptly mislaid on the first field trip to St Paul’s Cathedral and with alarming frequency thereafter. Interestingly, when it comes to school uniforms, size does not seem to matter. The thick corduroy shorts and skirts that constitute many a reception uniform cost almost as much as a pair of pinstriped trousers for Eton (£60), without the additional benefit of doubling up as wedding guest attire.
The expected outlay for a complete set of this foundational layer, the school uniform, is £1,500 and must be repeated annually or every time said child has a growth spurt. Additional kit costs approximately £250 per child per activity – and sometimes much more. Activities that require specialised kit include but are by no means limited to rugby, gymnastics/ballet/dance, rowing, hockey, lacrosse, bouldering, swimming and skating. When it comes to pursuits such as cricket and skiing, that additional £250 might not even be enough to get your child to the batting crease, nor to the chairlift.
The more extracurricular activities a school offers, the more expensive it is likely to be. In that respect, it’s similar to the breakfast buffet at a five-star hotel. Swiss boarding school Institut auf dem Rosenberg, for example, where the curriculum is offered in 47 different languages and the student-teacher ratio is 2:1, asks that parents set aside £50,000 for variable costs, in addition to tuition fees (£82,000 per year). The more linguistically inclined may be frustrated at Eton, where English is the only language of instruction, but at £62,000 a year I would argue it is a veritable bargain.
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As it stands, extracurriculars at Eton are billed on actuals and paid at the end of term, rather than estimated at the start of the year. A parent with two children at the school tells me these tend to be around 20 per cent of tuition, even during a term when the boys go on a ski trip (as they did to Canada recently).
Indeed, school trips – of which there are multiple in any given academic year – are the single largest line item of additional costs. Class trips occur during term, beginning in year 5, and include all children in a class. Iceland and the Azores are popular for geography; Rome, Athens or the battlefields of northern France de rigueur for history. No soggy sandwiches at Stonehenge for this lot.
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Selective trips, for which children must win a place through competition or by taking part in a ballot, begin in year 6 over half-term holidays. Parents and their progeny are keen to pay for the privilege of jetting to the United States to play lacrosse (Marlborough College); South Africa for netball (Cheltenham Ladies’ College); the Caribbean for cricket (Harrow); Spain for tennis or France for bouldering (Radley). Each once-in-a-lifetime experience – now merely a once-a-term event – costs approximately £3,000.
‘Are you joking?’ scoffs a Winchester parent when I ask whether he thought the school trek to the Himalayas was a discretionary expense. ‘There is a special place in hell for parents who do.’ The economics of the household should not trump the pursuit of excellence, I suppose.
And we haven’t even mentioned private tutoring yet. Middle-school tutors for core subjects such as maths, English, verbal and non-verbal reasoning command £50-80 an hour, and specialist GCSE tutors can cost twice as much. Interview prep, debating and public speaking classes are more expensive still, at £250 for 90-minute sessions. And that’s only if you can get in.
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‘It’s not unusual for families to spend a term or two on the waitlist,’ explains one popular London-based tutor. ‘Slots generally become available in February or September and are quickly filled.’ The Lime bike he rides around town serves as an effective cover for his enviable hourly rate and jet-set lifestyle. Over the past four years, he has travelled to New York, New Delhi, Dubai, Rio, Singapore and Madrid with families who prefer a more immersive approach to education.
When I mention the H-word – ‘hothousing’ – he blanches visibly. And he clams up completely when I ask how he charges for trips that have, on occasion, lasted an entire summer. Somehow I suspect the hourly rate no longer applies.
