News

UK: Parents tested by school sums bill of £129 billion

16 August, 2006

Norwich Union ‘School Sums’ Index reveals the true cost of sending the nation’s children to school

The new school year marks the beginning of an 11-year spending spree by parents costing as much as Ł129 billion*, a new index reveals today - an increase of over Ł40 billion in four years.

Norwich Union’s ‘School Sums’ index reveals that the total average cost of sending a child to state school - from the age of 5 through to age 16 - is now just over Ł14,000 compared to Ł10,000 in 2002.

In total UK parents can expect to fork out a staggering Ł11.8 billion just in the 2006/7 school year on the everyday costs associated with their kids’ education. That works out at Ł1,300 per child per school year.

The top three most expensive components of a child’s schooling are:

1) Transport – costing UK parents a total of over Ł2.5 billion a year (Ł301 per child per year) with a third of children being taken to school by car

2) Food – parents spend Ł2.4 billion a year on lunches (Ł270 per child per year) with more being spent a week on packed lunches than school dinners

3) Shoes – costing UK parents a total of Ł618 million a year (Ł70 per child per year), which comes in more expensive than text books

Other findings from the Norwich Union ‘School Sums’ research were:

Over a child’s school lifetime - totalling 11 years - their parents will have to pay on average for 43 shirts or blouses, 48 pairs of trousers or skirts, 38 jumpers, 37 pairs of shoes and 33 school trips
Parents of boys face a slightly larger total bill as they have more spent on after school tuition, clothes and after school clubs, although parents of girls can expect to fork out more on shoes than for boys
Mobile and internet technology continues to be a major cost coming in at approximately the same amount as sports kit over a child’s school lifetime (Ł550 per child)
In 11 years of schooling parents can expect to spend on average around 1000 hours (the equivalent to six weeks) helping their children with homework

Making extra financial provision for the everyday costs associated with school may be something that is overlooked by many parents.

Simon Quick from Norwich Union said: “Many parents think of state schools as being free but the costs are significant. Over Ł1000 of parents' money gets spent per child each year just covering the everyday costs of sending our children to school. This quickly racks up for families with two or three children and with an increase of Ł200 per child a year over the last four years, parents need to consider the increasing needs and demands of our children!”

“It’s important to allow for these costs when managing your finances. If parents do their school sums now, they’ll know what they need to put aside and be more prepared for the future.”

The national shopping list for parents just for the 2006/7 school year will include around:

35 million shirts or blouses
38 million trousers or skirts
30 million jumpers
29 million pairs of shoes
13 million schoolbooks
15 million coats
14 million bags and rucksacks
15 million sets of sports kit

-ends-

Notes to editors

ˇ * This figure does not include allowance for inflation or population changes.

The total cost of sending a child to school was calculated by the following method: Parents were asked to give the average cost and frequency of purchase per year for a selection of school related items. The sum of all items taken as an average, is the cost per year per child. This figure was multiplied by the total number of school years (from 5 to 16) to give the cost per school life. The overall national cost over 11 years was calculated by multiplying this figure by the number of school children in the UK (National Office of Statistics figure for 2003 (not including children in nursery, non maintained, special, pupil referral units or “other” secondary education) 8,819,000)

Norwich Union commissioned RaisingKids.com to interview 1000 parents of school age children in August 2006. Regional statistics are available on request.

Norwich Union is the UK’s largest insurer. It is a leading provider of life, pensions and investment products and one of the largest Financial Adviser (FA) providers. FAs provide over 70% of the company's long-term savings business in the UK.
Norwich Union is the UK’s largest general insurer with a market share of around 14%, with a focus on insurance for individuals and small businesses.
Norwich Union’s news releases and a selection of images are available from Aviva's internet press centre at www.aviva.com/media

For Norwich Union press office contact:
Cheryl Cox 01904 452 791 07800 695 275 cheryl.cox@norwich-union.co.uk
Robert Pell 01904 452 659 07800 699 563 robert.pell@norwich-union.co.uk

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