Unofficial Christ's Hospital Forum

That's it! I've got it. Flog a lung, half my liver, my hair, teeth, a kidney and at least one eye ... I'd lose over half a stone! If everyone did that we'd gain financially clearly ... sorting out the national recession as well as saving the NHS vast amounts of money coping with the obesity problem this country faces! Oh, CH fees ... bring it on! Don't know why I didn't think of it sooner!

cupcakemom wrote:That's it! I've got it. Flog a lung, half my liver, my hair, teeth, a kidney and at least one eye ... I'd lose over half a stone! If everyone did that we'd gain financially clearly ... sorting out the national recession as well as saving the NHS vast amounts of money coping with the obesity problem this country faces! Oh, CH fees ... bring it on! Don't know why I didn't think of it sooner!

You seem to have overlooked that selling the above will all result in extra INCOME, which will raise your fees! I have removed my eye, kidney, half liver, hair and one ear from the Dodgy Donor List, and I am looking into money-saving tips instead - anyone want a copy of my new book '1001 Yummy Toenail Recipes' (there will also be some virtual toenail recipes for when times are really hard and there is a toenail drought) Get the whole family to contribute to the ingredients

YadaYada wrote:

I feel your pain Lonelymom. My assessment hasn't arrived yet but if yours has gone up by 16% then I expect mine will too.

Like you I have managed to pay my fees in 10 months leaving the summer fees for the summer. Guess can go to 12 months but what happens if fees go up by this much every year? Pay is frozen, everything else is going up.

5 years left to go. This is a ridiculous position to be in. You sign up to a school for the duration of your child's education, not on a year by year basis.

Big sigh

Sorry to be serious again, but I think I've already answered this question.

I've also previously argued YadaYada's point that parents need to be confident when committing to CH that they will be able to keep their child there for seven years. But maybe we're being naive! It is certainly the case with state education that if you are lucky enough to get your child into a 'good' school then their place is secure; however, our children don't have a right to independent education. The bottom line is that we are paying customers, buying a commodity - and yes, we are paying for it on a year by year basis.

I guess there is no guarantee even for the most affluent parents that their own financial circumstances will remain secure; and there's no guarantee either that the circumstances of a school won't change. In the current economic climate many families are having to move their children from independent to state education, and a number of independent schools have gone / will go out of business leaving families in the lurch.

In the past CH has been able to market itself as different, and many of us were encouraged to believe that we could afford this option and that our children's future would be secure. Unfortunately in a few short years the economic climate has changed, and CH has changed with it. I for one really regret the direction the school is taking, and I'm not trying to defend it, but things being as they are maybe we all need to accept that we are buying our children's education on a year by year basis. If you can't afford to keep up with the demands of the Foundation, then the hard fact is you will be forced to take your children out of the school.

Been there, done that.

My fees have gone up -no shock there but I have two so it is my own fault and when I look at what the Foundation are paying
in bursaries I can't complain.This afternoon my mother and I looked at the figures and decided none of our organs were worth a light but wondered if we could sell my son into slavery. He is so inactive that I had to take his pulse several times over the weekend to check he was alive. The purchaser of his talents would soon return him and possibly pay me for taking him back. I could then sell him on and he would duly be returned and so on ad infinitum.

dinahcat wrote:My fees have gone up -no shock there but I have two so it is my own fault and when I look at what the Foundation are paying in bursaries I can't complain

Ditto! And couldn't agree more!

Dinahcat, Lonelymom

You are right, it would indeed be churlish to complain about an increase in fees while CH is giving you a bursary generous enough to allow you to keep two children at this fantastic school. You (and more importantly, your children) are very fortunate.

Well ,it's swings and roundabouts. I don't feel very fortunate that I only have £402 per month for food, petrol,clothes, birthdays and what ever else you can think of to spend money on. My children feel very fortunate to be at the school so what can a poor girl do? It was my choice to send the third one there as I felt she would resent it later in life if she didn't have a go even though she had a grammar school place . I also felt it important that all three had a shared history in case anything happened to me as there is no one else . It is impossible but it was my choice and so I can't complain. The school made it very clear that having more than one child at the school is almost imposssible unless you have no income and all the children are on full bursaries.I ignored that advice and carried on regardless.I am not quite sure how I will make it through next year as the irony is that two children cost me more than three as the eldest had a massive grant from a charity which disappears when she leaves this year and coupled with the rise this has meant an increase in my contributions . I have decided to adopt the Scarlett O' Hara approach and think about it tomorrow. Looking at my curtains I wonder if they could become next year's Speech Day outfit...

seriously? £402/ month. That doesn't even cover dh's travel expenses

I'm very worried now, and I wish that a. i hadn't declined my son's state secondary school place, what was I thinking? and b. my financial contribution would hurry up through the post.

And yes, I am here worrying about it a 3am

pinkhebe wrote:seriously? £402/ month. That doesn't even cover dh's travel expenses

I'm very worried now, and I wish that a. i hadn't declined my son's state secondary school place, what was I thinking? and b. my financial contribution would hurry up through the post.

And yes, I am here worrying about it a 3am

Excuse my 3am witterings, I assume that it's £402/ AFTER bills such as electric/gas, telephone, life insurance, tv licence etc. Which is close to what we'll have assuming the estimate they sent us is correct.

I really feel for the parents on this thread. I had an unsatisfactory experience with my son’s application to CH a couple of years back, not due to fees charged.

Over the past 25 years society has been positively encouraged to purchase their housing - be that council or otherwise. Many people have “equity” in their homes, but it isn’t “real” money. Its only value is to secure the accommodation in which you live. We have to live somewhere!! And in order to do that we take on the risk of borrowing money which is subject to the vagaries of the economy. So a modest two bedroom house in Brighton, for example, is worth £200K and even if that £200K is unencumbered by a mortgage, that perceived wealth means realistically nothing more than facilitating living in that house albeit without interest costs.

Talk of remortgaging modest housing is unrealistic surely? Is CH in danger of having kids from very difficult backgrounds with fee paying wealthy ones with no one in between? And how on earth would that dynamic work between the kids? Not well I suggest. That’s a big danger over the coming years if they don’t find a better mechanism for attracting and holding onto low/middle income families who are relatively together and responsible (I consider myself in this bracket), who have worked hard, bought a house, have a fantastic kid, lousy local schooling, a very low income, and find themselves alone and without support.

My heart goes out to Dr Mummy. My son did secure a good scholarship and I’ve moved to another county to put him into the school as a day boy (I couldn’t have hoped to make the financial equation work as a boarder anywhere even with a scholarship and bursary).

Well ,it's swings and roundabouts. I don't feel very fortunate that I only have £402 per month for food, petrol,clothes, birthdays and what ever else you can think of to spend money on. My children feel very fortunate to be at the school so what can a poor girl do? It was my choice to send the third one there as I felt she would resent it later in life if she didn't have a go even though she had a grammar school place . I also felt it important that all three had a shared history in case anything happened to me as there is no one else . It is impossible but it was my choice and so I can't complain. The school made it very clear that having more than one child at the school is almost imposssible unless you have no income and all the children are on full bursaries.I ignored that advice and carried on regardless.I am not quite sure how I will make it through next year as the irony is that two children cost me more than three as the eldest had a massive grant from a charity which disappears when she leaves this year and coupled with the rise this has meant an increase in my contributions . I have decided to adopt the Scarlett O' Hara approach and think about it tomorrow. Looking at my curtains I wonder if they could become next year's Speech Day outfit...

Dinahcat, you have my sympathy. It is almost impossible for most families choosing CH to make ends meet. But I think that the important distinction to make here is that the Foundation must surely take some responsibility for making it impossible.

Before accepting a place for our first child, we considered very carefully whether we could afford to support both of our sons through a CH career – we simply were not prepared to offer this opportunity to one without knowing that we could do the same for the other, whose ‘need’ for a good education was equal. Without going into detail, we were specifically encouraged by the school to believe that this option could be affordable for us. Unfortunately the goalposts were subsequently moved, and it became unaffordable. But I blame the shifting circumstances – I certainly don’t blame myself for ‘choosing’ to have two children and trying to do my best for them!!

The contribution assessment is currently calculated on the basis of gross household income minus deductions for tax, NI, mortgage (a grossly unrealistic max. 12.5% of income or £4000 pa), council tax, buildings insurance, water charges, essential childcare, and a £500 allowance for each dependent child not at CH. Exactly how each individual family’s contribution is subsequently derived from the resulting balance is shrouded in mystery. It is clear that the higher your income, the greater the percentage of it you will be asked to pay as school fees - this seems a fair principle, but in practice it can mean that a relatively affluent family will end up with as little to spend in real terms as a much lower income family. In addition, the assessment considers only household income – aside from the dependent child allowance (which is deducted from your gross income, and results in very little actual difference to the fees payable), no differentiation is allowed for the size of the household, and this seriously disadvantages larger families. I am not trying to be personal, but where a single parent might find it almost impossible to live on a disposable income of £402 a month, a couple with double the expenditure on food, petrol, clothes etc. (I’m thinking haircuts, dental care, spectacles, prescription charges… the list goes on and on!) will find it completely impossible.

I have referred before on this Forum to The Minimum Income Standard for the UK, an annual report published by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation. The most recent report (http://www.jrf.org.uk/publications/mini ... ndard-2010) indicates that in order to maintain a basic standard of living in 2010, a couple with two children required a weekly income of £402 after housing and childcare costs (coincidentally exactly the same amount of disposable cash as Dinahcat has for a month!). For a single parent with one child the equivalent weekly minimum is £233. I would be surprised if many CH families, no matter what their level of gross household income, are left with anything like this basic requirement once their contribution has been calculated.

The Foundation is currently reviewing the fee structure for bursaries with a view to introducing further changes in September 2012. It will be interesting to see whether these changes in any way reflect the financial reality for lower to middle income families trying to afford a CH education for their children. Without this recognition, then as Donald suggests there is a real danger that the school will become accessible only to the very poor and the very wealthy… and then sadly CH will be just like any other public school, without any of the qualities which have traditionally made it unique.



P.S. Dinahcat, I'm sure you'd look lovely dressed in your curtains -although there's always a danger you might look less like Scarlett O'Hara and more like Maria Von Trapp.

P.P.S. Pinkhebe, I'm worried about you. Do try to get some sleep!

I find the Rowntree figures bizarre and completely OTT. My wife and myself have not had that kind of disposable income since our first child was born (11 years ago) - for the last few years until the youngest started full time school childcare costs meant my wife worked for -ve salary ( being in a technical role she had to keep her skills up to date).

Unfortunately another reason was I worked on a low wage to invest in the company I worked for with a view to taking over ownership only for the recession to put the company down so I lost that 7 years of investment but that was my gamble and i lost.

I agree with other posters though that CH is in danger of having the 2 extremes of family with little in the centre - we are not poor enough due to wife's theoretical wage and home ownership to qualify for any state benefits and therefore don't own Sky, fancy contract phones or a 42'' TV yet we can see people near us who don't work with all those and who take a foreign holiday each year (we last went when son was 9 weeks old in 2000). Free school dinners entitlement seems to be the measure used by most organisations to define children from a poor background but it is a horribly poorly targeted benefit and thus skews all programs using it as a qualifying criteria. Luckily having grown up in poverty (before CH) I don't actually feel deprived by the above but it does irk me how the definition of Breadline has moved to such an extent that you a better off not trying to earn a living in many cases due to the handouts.

I am sure Dinahcat will agree that the entire system of benefits etc is a shambles in this country and in that light the fact CH foundation is also unable to 100% effectively target it's funding (which obviously needs to tie in with other benefits parents might receive) is not that surprising

ailurophile wrote:

P.P.S. Pinkhebe, I'm worried about you. Do try to get some sleep!

I'm only worrying because we've put all our eggs into 1 basket with regards to this school. If we don't accept CH and it's fees (still waiting) then we have no choice but to send him to the non local (the local which we were given a place at before I rejected it, is full now) and very poor sink school

But I am trying not to worry until I know one way or another.

If you have a governor's presentation, the governor MAY be able, and willing, to help a little.

Wurzel wrote:

I find the Rowntree figures bizarre and completely OTT.

As it happens Wurzel, I tend to agree. TBH my family would not have much more than this suggested minimum income to live on even without CH fees to pay, and we enjoy an 'above average' income. However, while the Rowntree Foundation probably overestimate the income required for a basic standard of living, I would argue that the CH Foundation are equally guilty of hugely underestimating this - as is evidenced by the experience of many parents posting on this Forum!

I also think that the Rowntree report shows very clearly that there is a significant difference in the income required to support different types of family group, a point which the Foundation stubbornly refuses to recognise.