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What a weight off your mind after months of worry Volupturaptor! Perhaps we can all look forward to lower fees next year than we'd anticipated. Well, I can dream..Now we know the actual amount, it is nothing like as much as the original estimate, let alone the RR one. We have had a change of curcumstances, but I didn't think it would make much of a difference. I can't tell you how relieved I am...
This has always been a difficult conundrum. Because the Counting House calculate fees for the forthcoming year based on your past year's income and outgoings, they need to wait until all the documentation (P60s, March payslip etc.) is available at the end of the financial year. This year, employees had to submit their financial declaration in mid-May, and I believe the deadline for self-employed parents is not until sometime in June. Then of course the Counting House staff must face a huge amount of work to process 800+ assessments. No wonder we don't get our final confirmation letters until well into the summer.I don't understand why the school (foundation?) are so bad in getting the fees to you - surely you need to know what is going on!
Notice of our bursary award, yes. It says actual invoices will be sent approx. 3 weeks before the start of term. There's a direct debit form giving a choice of termly or ten monthly payments which has to be returned by 5th August.pinkhebe wrote:
Does this mean you've had your bill Volupturaptor?
It would have been a bargain at the highest estimate, just not sure how we would have paid it!ailurophile wrote:What a weight off your mind after months of worry Volupturaptor! Perhaps we can all look forward to lower fees next year than we'd anticipated. Well, I can dream..Now we know the actual amount, it is nothing like as much as the original estimate, let alone the RR one. We have had a change of curcumstances, but I didn't think it would make much of a difference. I can't tell you how relieved I am...
This is exactly the situation I find myself in!ailurophile wrote:Great Plum wroteThis has always been a difficult conundrum. Because the Counting House calculate fees for the forthcoming year based on your past year's income and outgoings, they need to wait until all the documentation (P60s, March payslip etc.) is available at the end of the financial year. This year, employees had to submit their financial declaration in mid-May, and I believe the deadline for self-employed parents is not until sometime in June. Then of course the Counting House staff must face a huge amount of work to process 800+ assessments. No wonder we don't get our final confirmation letters until well into the summer.I don't understand why the school (foundation?) are so bad in getting the fees to you - surely you need to know what is going on!
On the other hand - yes, parents do need to know what is going on! That's why I'm astonished that new parents this year have not been given any formal estimate of their fees as a matter of course. Real problems can arise when families are faced with unexpectedly high fees at such a late stage; I remember an instance reported elsewhere on this forum a couple of years back, for example, where a parent whose assessed contribution had risen by £2000 with no explanation was forced to consider withdrawing her child from CH - and the school threatened to pursue her through the courts for a term's fees in lieu of notice!
If you want to know what your net assessed income is, ask for this information. For the first few years after DS joined CH, we were sent an annual confirmation which stated 'Your assessed income is X, and the contribution payable is Y'. Straightforward, simple and understandable. However for some mysterious reason, the Foundation has chosen in recent years not to give parents any context against which to set their assessed contribution. I suspect this may be because each year the amount left after Y was deducted from X got smaller and smaller... perhaps they thought that if they stopped giving us the figures, we wouldn't notice and ask awkward questions (like 'Why have my fees gone up by so much more than my income?', or 'How are we expected to live?'!!).I don't know how much music tuition will be though, and I'm not sure what our net assessed income is, so although it gave a guide in the new entrants pack, I'm still none the wiser.
