Private school paupers
Selling off jewellery. Trading in cars. Even downsizing houses. The hard-up parents sacrificing everything to pay for private education
WITH her white teeth and bouncy blonde hair, Jacqui Bennett blends seamlessly into the crowd of yummy mummies at the gates of her daughter Jessica’s £22,500-a-year private school.
And yet, as she walks past the ranks of 4x4s and climbs into her Mini, she feels every bit the poor relation.
For, since her divorce from her children’s father, a banker, in 2011 she has shouldered the burden of the school fees alone — an impossibility on her £20,000-a-year salary as a spa receptionist.
So rather than moving 15-year-old Jessica to a local state school, Jacqui has downsized her home and sold many possessions to pay fees.
‘There’s absolutely no element of me keeping Jessica at the school to try to save face,’ insists Jacqui, 49, who has two older children, Scott, 26, and Georgia, 19, and also paid for Georgia’s fees at the same school until she left last year.
‘I do it because Jessica struggles academically and benefits hugely from the smaller class sizes. She’s happy there with a lovely group of friends and has had enough upheaval since her father and I separated.’
Jacqui believes that the financial sacrifices she is making are ‘essential’ to her daughter’s health and happiness. And she is not alone.
Rising numbers of cash-strapped, middle-class parents are going to extreme lengths to put their children through private school, working two jobs or eschewing holidays and evenings out to keep them out of the state system.
The Independent Schools Council says there are a record 518,000 children in private schools in the UK, up 1,300 from last year, despite the average fees being more than £15,000 per year.
While some of this rise is due to growing numbers of overseas pupils, it’s also partly down to more bursaries being handed out by private schools to poorer pupils.
Julie Robinson, general secretary of the ISC, is adamant it’s a myth that everyone in private education is from a well-off family. ‘Our typical parents are not particularly wealthy but have chosen to make schooling their top priority and make sacrifices to achieve that,’ she says.
Jacqui would certainly agree with this. While once money was no object, thanks to her husband’s six-figure salary and annual bonuses, post-divorce she immediately had to adjust to a more modest standard of living. She swapped her Range Rover for the Mini to raise £20,000. She also sold her private number plate for £7,500. Not such a hardship, many would say.
But, previously a stay-at-home mum, she doesn’t receive any contributions from her former husband towards Jessica’s education.
So she took a job as a PA in London before moving to the spa where she now works, and downsized from a five-bedroom home in Camberley, Surrey, which she had bought with the proceeds of her divorce, to a four-bed townhouse in ‘the cheaper end of Ascot’ to free up a further £100,000.
AND when that money was swallowed up by several years’ worth of school fees for both daughters, she began selling her jewellery, designer clothes and handbags to raise a further £30,000.
While comfortably off by most people’s standards, Jacqui says that she now feels like a veritable pauper at the school gates.
‘The teachers and parents know our situation and they’ve all been very supportive,’ she adds. ‘But it doesn’t stop me feeling very self-conscious of the fact that we are now pretty poor.’
‘While the other mothers chat about their next trip to the Maldives or skiing in Verbier, my children and I haven’t had a holiday abroad together since my divorce.
‘When Jessica turns 16 this month, there will be no party. Instead, I’ve bought her a new bike as a gift so that she can cycle to school.
‘I’ve explained to Jessica that her education is far more important than material things. She no longer has designer clothes like her friends. And I shop at Lidl and Aldi rather than Waitrose, limiting myself to £50 a week on groceries compared with £250 previously, which sounds obscene now.’
With just one diamond bracelet still left to sell, Jacqui is pinning all her hopes on Jessica receiving a bursary so that she can stay on to do A- levels next year. If not, she faces downsizing her home yet again.
She might be in luck, since the ISC reports
that a rise in the number of bursaries has also contributed to more pupils attending private schools — although the reality is that strict criteria mean schools are hardly dishing them out.
‘I’m quite prepared to sell our house if we aren’t granted a bursary,’ says Jacqui. ‘All I ask in return is that she works really hard — and she does. Jessica wants to be a sports teacher, so she needs good A-level grades.
‘I’m teaching my daughters that they need to work hard, be financially self-sufficient and never rely on a man for money.’
And she adds: ‘Nothing is as important as my daughter’s education.’
Kate Wilkinson, 34, also knows about sacrifice. She’s juggling two jobs, as an administrator and a healthcare assistant in separate hospitals to pay the £500-a-month boarding school fees for her son Charlie, 11.
She is adamant that it is worth sacrificing her own health and wellbeing to pay for Charlie’s education — not least because he was severely bullied in the state middle school he previously attended.
‘Charlie would come home with cuts, bruises and in tears,’ says Kate who lives in Somerset. She and her husband Mathew, 36, an environmental health-and- safety manager, also have a daughter, Grace, eight, who attends a state primary school.
‘The school failed to tackle the main bully and by May this year it had become untenable,’ Kate adds.
Almost 70,000 children now board at independent schools, and there are a further 5,000 children like Charlie, who attend Britain’s 38 fee-paying state boarding schools — which provide state- funded eduation but charge parents for boarding costs.
Having heard encouraging reports about the nearby boys’ boarding school, Kate and Mathew took Charlie for a visit in May. ‘His face lit up when we viewed the boarding house, with its pool tables and Tvs on the walls,’ says Kate.
‘Neither of us wanted Charlie to be away from us, but there were no spaces left for him to go as a day pupil. I said to Mathew: “I’ll do absolutely anything to be able to afford to send him — I’ll take two jobs,” because he can’t work any more hours than he already does.’
Typically, she works six days a week on zero-hours contracts, often from 7.30am or until 11pm.
She and Mathew have an agreement with the school that Charlie boards for just three nights a week — the only way they could afford it — but attends lessons on six days.
‘I’m desperately looking for a permanent, better-paid job that would be more conducive to family life and my own well-being,’ she adds.
With a total income of £45,000, the couple have also given up expensive holidays and restaurant meals.
‘We can’t risk losing this wonderful opportunity for Charlie,’ Kate says. But she admits that being among the poorest parents at the school gates isn’t always easy, especially as many of the children come from wealthy, land-owning families.
‘It’s a school in an agricultural area, so the gates are awash with 4x4s, although I do know of a few other parents there for whom it’s also a real stretch,’ she adds.
Charlie may have been at his new school for only a few weeks, but his mother says the difference in her son’s happiness is palpable.
For Kate, though, there’s the risk that one day they may be required to pay more than £900 a month for Charlie to board full-time or lose his place.
‘Whenever I’m driving home from work late at night shattered and tearful or wondering how we’ll afford Charlie’s uniform, let alone the fees, I remind myself of the bullying and it strengthens my resolve to keep going,’ she says.
When fellow mum Jo Wheeler, 44, writes out the cheques to cover her seven-year-old son Luke’s £10,400a-year school fees, she also can’t help but wince.
Yet she is adamant that the financial struggle and the 90-minute round- trip to Luke’s school in Rochester are worth it.
Her decision to send him there was driven by the fact he had openheart surgery as a baby and suffered seizures as a toddler.
‘Although there are good state schools in our area, I wanted him to go to a private school because the class sizes are small and teachers can keep a close eye on his health,’ says Jo, from Rainham, Kent.
She took redundancy from her advertising job seven years ago and has been a full-time mum since, apart from running an online children’s boutique for a while.
She and her partner, a business manager, also have a one-year-old daughter, Savannah.
‘When Luke was a toddler we went to an open day at the prep school and almost hoped we wouldn’t like it because of the cost, but we were absolutely sold on it,’ adds Jo.
‘We had to make changes to afford it. My partner swapped his BMW for a small Peugeot, and we decided not to buy each other birthday or Christmas presents. Home improvements had to stop, as did most meals out and socialising.
Around 30 per cent of the Wheelers’ total household income is swallowed up by Luke’s schooling.
‘After all the household bills, food shopping and school fees, we have just £50 left over per week. I also have to factor in paying for school trips for Luke,’ Jo continues.
‘I put away around £100 a month so that we can afford to take a holiday in Cornwall each summer — where some of Luke’s classmates have holiday homes — and to buy gifts for the children.
‘My partner and I have very few nights out, but it’s worth it. Luke is very happy and the facilities at his private school are fantastic.’
SHE adds: ‘Although no one talks about money, it’s evident that we are very definitely the poor parents there. But none of it is ever discussed, no one has ever made us feel inferior. I actually have a lovely circle of mums around me.’
But the differences often come to the fore. Although Jo has a fivebedroom home — the legacy of her career — Luke is invited to play dates at houses where, she says, there are swimming pools and ‘ gardens the size of several football pitches’. Still, Jo is unfazed. ‘We would like to send Savannah to the same school. As soon as the time comes, I’ll return to work and take whatever jobs I can.
‘When you send your child to private school, people naturally assume you must be rolling in money, but that’s not the reality for many of us.
‘ I’ve never been so poor, but Luke’s happiness, well-being and education are worth every penny.’