Playbook, private school
The termly figure, the annual figure, and the gap between them
A school publishes a number per term, per year group, for the current academic year. A parent comparing schools wants a number per year, for their own child, with lunches and the coach in it. Those two numbers are not the same, and the distance between them is where nearly every fee complaint in this trade begins.
Why this is not the general answer
The handling pattern for pricing questions holds across every trade. What follows is the part that does not.
- The headline is a termly figure while the parent is doing an annual sum in their head, so an answer that quotes the number without saying per term has given a figure out by a factor of three.
- Fees are set per year group and step up at the move from the junior school into the senior school, which means the figure a parent reads for a seven year old is not the one they will be paying when that child is thirteen.
- The compulsory charges, lunches and examination entry among them, are billed alongside the fee rather than inside it, so a price given without them is incomplete rather than merely rounded.
- The registration fee and the acceptance deposit both fall due before a child has attended a single day, and a family that budgeted only for termly fees meets both of them within a fortnight of an offer.
How it arrives
- how much are the fees per term
- what does it cost per year for year 9
- are lunches included in the fees
- how much is the school coach on top of that
- do the fees go up every year
- how much are the fees for the junior school
What has to be indexed for this to work
| The fee schedule with the academic year written on it | Termly tuition by year group, boarding rates where you offer them, and the academic year the figures belong to, on the same page. A schedule with no year on it turns into a wrong price quietly, and it gets quoted back to you months later. |
|---|---|
| The compulsory charges, listed as charges rather than as extras | Lunches, examination entry, anything a year group must have. If a family cannot avoid it, publish it beside the fee, because that is the figure they are holding against another school. |
| The optional charges, each with a unit and a period | Instrumental lessons, the coach seat by route, wraparound sessions, individual trips. Priced line by line, so an answer can quote one rather than gesture at a range. |
| When fees are reviewed and how a change is communicated | The month a new schedule appears and the notice a family gets before it applies. Parents ask this before they apply, and a school that will not say gets read as a school planning something. |
The reply
Our fees are published per term rather than per year, and they are set by year group, so the figure depends on where your child would be joining [1]. Lunches and examination entry are charged alongside the fee rather than inside it, and the coach seat and instrumental lessons are separate again, all priced on the same page [2]. There is also a registration fee when you apply and a deposit when you accept a place, neither of which is part of the termly fee [3]. I cannot work out a total for your family, but the bursary office can.
It corrects the per term misreading in the opening clause, because everything after it is wrong otherwise. It names the compulsory charges before the optional ones, since only the first group changes an honest comparison. And it declines to total anything, which is a bursar's job and rests on facts the assistant does not hold.
Where it stops
The trigger. The visitor asks what it would cost for their own family, names a combination of children or year groups, or asks whether an award would bring the figure down.
I can quote what is published, but I cannot build a figure for your family, because that depends on year groups, the coach, lunches and anything you apply for. Leave me your name and an email and the bursary office will do it properly.
It stops answering before it guesses, says who will pick it up, and asks for the one thing that makes a reply possible. Nothing about it reads as a dead end.
Never say this here
Out of bounds
- Never give a fee figure without naming the year group and the academic year it belongs to, since both of them change it.
- Never describe a fee as inclusive, because the compulsory charges billed alongside it make that untrue at almost every school.
- Never reach an annual total by multiplying a termly figure, as the term count, the junior to senior step and the charges alongside all sit outside that sum.
- Never suggest an award would bring the fee within reach for the family asking, because it is means tested and decided by somebody else.
Questions
- Parents ask for a total. Should it add the published lines up?
- No. Adding published lines produces something that reads as a quotation from the school, and it will be wrong for any family with a sibling position, a coach seat or an application in. Quote the lines, then name the office that totals them.
- Should the fee page be indexed at all when it changes yearly?
- Yes, with the academic year inside the document rather than only in the file name. The assistant then quotes the year alongside the figure, which is the difference between a fact and a hostage.
- Will it stop parents ringing the bursary office?
- It absorbs the ones asking what is published, which is most of the volume before an offer. The families with a real question about their own circumstances still arrive, and they arrive having read the schedule.
Keep reading
- Everything for a private schoolAdmissions timelines, fees, bursaries and uniform lists are safe ground for a school assistant. Anything about a named pupil or applicant is not.
- Handling pricing questions in generalPublished price versus the price for this buyer. Bands, ranges and from pricing, and why a firm number for unscoped work is the damaging failure.
- Distance is an admissions question before it is a logistics oneThe route and its pick up points decide whether a family applies at all. The two gates, the barrier and signing in come after.
- Are you open is four different questions on a school siteThe junior day and the senior day end at different times, and a question asked in August is about the office rather than the school.
- Three requests that arrive as one question about accessLearning support, an arrangement for the entrance assessment and a step free route are three answers, and only one of them is a fact.
Try it on your own material
Upload a document or point it at your site, paste one line of HTML, then ask it something only your business could answer.