advice, saving for school

emmamc252

Hi, I am hoping someone can point me in the right direction and give me a little advice. My husband and I are starting to try for our first child, we own our own house so have a mortgage to pay and all the usual bills etc but we both have ok jobs, Im a teacher and he has his own business, we live in the north west so cost of living isn't what it is else where in the contry so we do fine. We have about 12k saved up at the minute, the majority of which we have saved sinc moving into our 1st house 2 years ago.
we know we cannot afford to put our children through private education right the way through school, but we have talked and agree that we would really like them to go to a private secondary school, there is one in the area that I went to that gets excellent academic results and as I am an ex pupil and now work in a state school, I can totally appreciate the huge difference and definately think it is worth the huge bills. (anyone that feels the need to make a comment about me only being a teacher now please don't bother, I had to go to a local uni because my dad became very ill and i had to help care for him, I came out of my high school with a place at cambrige to read law. I do however love my job and wouldn't change it for the world!)
What I would like is some advice on how we should save for this? obviously we wouldn't have to make tuition payments until the child is 11 so about 12 years off, we would hope that he/she would attend for the full 7 years and do a levels there too and at the minute the fees are around £3000/term. We don't know if we need to save the full amount of money, or if we tried to save 5 years worth and save the rest when they are there, and our biggest concern is what kind of an account/savings programme should we get to put it in.
I know that it is ealry to start thinking about this stuff but i want to make sure that my kids will have the same opportunities that I had.
any advice would be much appreciated.

Batchy

I don't think the school makes the child or gives them the opportunities, its Hard Work, Ambition, Determination, and Upbringing.

If you want them to go to private school, then so be it, I would max out your ISA's, simple as that. By the time 12 years come, I'd hope to have saved enough for the interest to cover the lot (unlikely, but would of course be nice). Here's to hoping 8% rates in 12 years time for you!!!

Good luck.

I did a brief calculation and basically 5100 per year for the next 12 years, will cover it pretty much along with compounded interest assuming 3.1% interest on ISA, and 2% average inflation over next 12 years (assuming fee's will rise in line with inflation). Just make sure you get the best rates available at the time, be careful about fixing for too long where interest rates are rising significantly.

If you are willing to make it higher risk investment over 10 years, there are many potential gains out their its just picking the right ones, but it could all go wrong nearer the end so be careful.

Speak to a financial advisor if i was you!!