Both of our children have attended our local state school since we started our family schooling journey. We have been really happy with their education so far and have been thinking more and more about the future. Our eldest is in grade 3 so a few more years of primary school for her until we become high school parents.
It has nearly become a weekly conversation in our house about what high school we plan to send our kids to but as yet no decisions have been made. My husband and I were literally speaking last week about how stressful we are finding even thinking about this. We are at a point where we need to start putting our eldest daughter’s name down at different high schools in order to get an interview in a few years’ time.
We are partly influenced by our own upbringings and have spent many nights talking to quite a few of our friends in the area with kids at different schools about their experience of those local schools. Then there is each of our children to think about and consider in terms of what will work best for them. Have said all of that the biggest question is still left to be answered …. CAN WE AFFORD IT?
It’s nice to make plans but the reality is those plans can only become a reality if we can afford it. Like anything we need to know all of the information before we could make a proper decision or have a goal of what we are working towards.
I received some useful information this week from ANZ and have since discovered that sending children to private school is the second biggest financial concern for parents. Research shows that 24% of parents believe planning their child’s private schooling should occur when they are between ages 1-3 and that only 10% report actually do anything about it.
To help parents plan and save for private schooling ANZ has launched their School Ready website which is an amazing new resource for parents. They have developed this free tool where you can find your local private and Catholic schools at the click of a button and forecast the cost of these schools. Best part is that you can generate your own personalised ANZ School Ready report that provides a fee forecast of your selected schools for the projected years you plan to have your children attend. This website is the first of its kind in Australia, and features an online calculator using school fee data from more than 2600 schools in Australia. How awesome is that?!
I may have spent a few hours the other night playing with this amazing tool and have included some screenshots of how it works below.
Firstly, you can use an interactive map to easily find private schools located in your area, and filter them by year level, gender, type (e.g. Catholic, Anglican, Lutheran) and price range. If we were to send our children to private school it would be for high school so I am looking with those parameters.
As an example above I looked up three of the private schools in my area when I was growing up. You can write the name of the school in the search bar as pictured above or a suburb or postcode. Once you have found the school you are looking for you click on it on the right hand side and drag it down into your school shortlist at the bottom. Once you have selected all of the schools you are considering you click next.
You can then go through child by child to select the specific school and the years you plan to send them there. As a way of showing you how the website works, I have selected all 3 schools for my 3 different kids for high school. Pictured above I selected Redeemer Lutheran Collage for my eldest daughter from year 7 to year 12. You can change what year your child will begin and end at the school by dragging either side of the box.
Above I selected Calvary Christian College for my middle daughter and John Paul College for my youngest son. You put into the website the year your child starts prep so it can project the year you will start paying fees for your children and how much that will be.
Using up to six children’s details parents can simply drag and drop schools into the timeline to forecast fees for a shortlist of six schools they’re interested in sending their children to.
Once you are happy with your selection you click next and a free personalised ANZ School Ready® Report will be emailed. The report covers a year by year fee forecast based on the private or Catholic schools you selected for each child including a savings plan and tips to be financially prepared.
And can I note this is all completely free 🙂
Once you have downloaded your report an ANZ Priority Banking Specialist will then be in touch contact discuss the report in more detail.
This is definitely worth checking out and it won’t cost you a thing. I just personally want to say thanks to ANZ for creating this amazing resource because it really made my life easier reviewing all of our options at the click of the button. Remember, you can check it out here …
