Parents have started to withdraw children from private schools as fees are hiked by as much as 19 per cent in a year.
In a warning shot to Sir Keir Starmer, who wants to impose VAT on school fees, parents have said that children are being moved to the state sector next term because fee rises are unaffordable.
Schools have announced the highest fee rises in decades for the next academic year as they pass on increases in energy, food and wage costs.
The highest recorded increase in day fees so far is at Queen Elizabeth Grammar School, an independent boys’ school in Wakefield, West Yorkshire, and its sister school, Wakefield Girls High School.
Annual fees for September have risen by 19.2 per cent to £16,620 for Year 8 pupils at both schools, after two fee rises were announced in the past year.
The schools, where alumni include Mike Tindall, the rugby player, Dame Barbara Hepworth, the late sculptor, and Helen Fielding, author of Bridget Jones’s Diary, are overseen by the Wakefield Grammar School Foundation, which dates back to 1591.
