Private school announces fee increases for upcoming year

The country’s oldest private school will raise its baseline tuition fees past the $50,000 mark for the first time as it focuses on attracting and retaining excellent teachers.

The King’s School in North Parramatta was the first of Sydney’s elite private schools to inform parents of tuition fee increases for 2027, under which parents of year 12 students will be charged $52,380, up nearly 5 per cent compared with last year.

King’s Council chairman Ken Chapman told parents they were mindful of balancing cost pressures with the need to maintain the quality of education, programs and opportunities for students.

“In doing so, the Council is conscious that many families are themselves managing higher costs across their household budgets.”

He said staffing remained the school’s biggest cost, which reflected “the importance of attracting and retaining excellent teachers and staff”.

“Costs have also increased across areas such as insurance, technology, utilities and the regulatory requirements associated with operating a school of our size and complexity.”

The King’s School reached a confidential settlement with its former headmaster Tony George earlier this year. It was subsequently revealed in court documents that George joked about a staff member’s violent remarks towards an autistic boy, the day before he hit a student on the head with the back of his hand. He was subject to an external investigation.

For King’s parents, next year the cost of day boys’ daily lunch will increase by $29 a term to total $2516 for the year, equating to $13 per school day for a fresh chef-cooked meal. The technology fee, bus levy and the cost of digital textbooks will also increase.

A parent with a child enrolled might realistically sail close to spending $60,000 once lunch, the technology fee ($1932), the King’s bus service ($554 a term), plus a new full uniform (an initial $2300 outlay) are all factored in.

School councils have cited rising wage costs as the reason behind fee hikes, along with the need for information technology upgrades.

Some high-fee schools are set to pay their teachers as much as $160,000 a year under a new wage agreement next year.

Paul O’Shannassy, whose business, Regent Consulting, helps parents in both Sydney and Melbourne secure their child a spot in a private school, said constant fee rises had made some parents with double incomes seriously reconsider their options.

“There’s a combination of factors at play: the cost of living, interest rates, inflation – they were zero basically five years ago,” he said.

Parents were not abandoning private schools altogether, he said, but were trying to be strategic by considering lower- and mid-fee options, or alternatively, sending students for senior grades only.

“They’re looking at systemic Catholic schools, schools which charge $20,000, or staying longer at primary schools and not going from kindergarten and grade one,” he said.

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