Parents facing private school fee hikes of up to 25 per cent can now expect their children’s education to be hit by fewer teachers, a narrower curriculum and frozen food replacing fresh ingredients in school dinners, The i Paper has learned.
The fee rises, revealed last week, have been described as “ludicrous”. But they will not be enough to stop schools planning a further squeeze and cutting what they provide in return for their rocketing charges.
Nearly half of the elite independent schools that are members of the prestigious Headmasters’ and Headmistresses’ Conference (HMC) will be making teachers redundant, according to a new survey, The i Paper can reveal.
A third of these expensive schools are planning to remove whole subjects – like music, drama, computer science, and German – from their GCSE and A-level curricula.
Some private schools – not necessarily HMC members – are even considering reducing school dinner costs by swapping out fresh ingredients for frozen meals. Pupils’ extracurricular activities and clubs are also said to be at risk.
On top of all this, private schools are concerned that the teachers they do keep on are becoming stressed and may be more prone to absences.
Private schools fear their teachers will be more prone to stress and absences (Photo: PA)The changes are happening as the independent schools sector complains it is being hit by a “quadruple whammy” of VAT on fees, rising teacher pension costs, the removal of business rates relief, and increasing employer national insurance contributions.
Many schools are passing on the full 20 per cent VAT to parents through large fee increases.
According to the Independent Schools Council (ISC), the average annual boarding school fee had risen to £42,525 by January 2024. Parents have since seen fees increase again – in September 2024 and January 2025 – with another round of hikes on the way for September 2025.
Fee rises not enough to balance the books
However, the cuts private schools are now planning suggest that this succession of price increases has not been enough to balance their books.
The HMC’s internal survey of its 330 member schools, which received 240 responses, found that financial pressures cost them, on average, between £500,000 and £2 million a year.
And schools are also paying to expand their bursary provision to support parents who are struggling to pay increased fees.
Some private schools have closed in recent months and blamed VAT for their fate. But for the vast majority that are still open, headteachers, bursars and owners are engaged in a tricky process of trying to make cost-saving efficiencies while also ensuring their facilities and teaching are still worth the fees.
square PRIVATE SCHOOLS ExclusivePrivate schools blame VAT and Reeves for fee rises of 20 per cent and higher
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Last year, The i Paper revealed that private schools were set to go without “frills” like embossed stationery and “nice-to-haves” like new swimming pools and AstroTurf pitches, to cope with VAT on fees. But their cost-cutting drive is now hitting much more fundamental parts of school life.
School dinners are one area for potential savings. A source at a large catering company that works with independent schools has told The i Paper that some of them “want to move from fresher ingredients to frozen” to save money.
“Catering companies that would previously have only worked with state schools – and a private school would have never touched – are now getting those contracts because they are cost-driven rather than quality-driven,” the source said.
“[Private] schools are pushing far more than they ever would have done on costs – catering is such a big cost. The microscope is massively on now, even in the big schools where budgets were pretty flush.”
Private schools are looking at saving money on school dinners (Photo by Matthew Horwood/Getty)Private schools consultant Neil Roskilly, who ran the Independent Schools Association from 2010 to 2021, agreed that schools were cutting costs by moving away from pricey catering contracts.
However, he said this can mean the quality of the food improves, particularly if schools start catering in-house.
“Catering companies often come in with a low quote, but food quality can deteriorate over time,” he said. “Those companies also insist on schools using the companies’ ingredients. Schools realise that they aren’t always getting fresh local ingredients.”
Widespread teacher redundancies
Chris Fairbank, director of communications at HMC – which represents elite public schools like Eton, Harrow and Winchester – said responses from hundreds of members in March showed that nearly half the schools are making, or planning to make, teachers redundant.
The survey also showed that a further quarter are not making redundancies but are cutting staff numbers by deciding not to fill vacant roles.
“We know schools are also making redundancies,” Mr Fairbank told The i Paper. “It is happening in the independent sector. It’s happening in the state sector. It’s a combination of cost pressures and also demographics.”
The HMC survey also found that just over a third of heads were concerned about the stress their staff are experiencing due to increased financial pressures, which could potentially lead to absence.
“This is affecting teachers and their profession, and we are trying to offer a lot more support to teachers and heads,” Mr Fairbank said.
Julie Robinson, general secretary of the ISC, also warned that schools were cutting staff numbers.
“We have heard about many schools going into a restructuring process to reduce staffing, and we will see the result of that next academic year,” she said.
The GCSEs and A levels facing the chop
Private schools are also slimming down the subjects they have on offer at GCSE and A-level, with courses such as music and computer science at risk of disappearing from the curricula at some schools.
The HMC members’ survey found that a third of schools plan to reduce the range of subjects in the curriculum.
Mr Fairbank said: “We know that our schools are looking at the subjects that they offer. Where they’ve previously been able to run certain subjects at GCSE or A-level, which haven’t traditionally had a lot of student interest, maybe four or five students doing a certain A-level course, this course now isn’t financially viable.
Some schools will cut subjects such as music from exam curricula, says the HMC (Photo: Jeff J Mitchell/Getty)“So subjects will be getting cut from schools. Subjects like German, like music, like drama, like computer science are the subjects that are going to disappear from some school curricula.”
Ms Robinson, of the ISC, also said schools would be reviewing the subjects and extra-curricular activities they can provide.
“Schools provide a really broad range of clubs, activities and subjects as well so these are things schools are reviewing,” she said.
“But of course, they’re going to balance making cost efficiencies against what they know is really, really important as part of the educational offer.”
A Government spokesperson said: “Ending tax breaks for private schools will raise £1.8 billion a year by 2029/30 to help fund public services, including supporting the 94 per cent of children in state schools to achieve and thrive.
“It will be a commercial decision for individual private schools as to how they manage their finances in the same way as any other private business.”
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