By Adcote School for Girls

Being a working parent often means juggling a hundred priorities before lunchtime, and when it comes to your child’s education, you want the very best balance between quality, care, and value. For many, the idea of an independent school can feel out of reach, yet when you look a little closer, the difference might surprise you.

Let’s take a typical example of what parents currently spend for a child in Year 6 or 7 in a mainstream school, between September and July:

That’s over £6,000 a year, and that doesn’t yet include school trips, uniforms, or the extra time and coordination required to manage multiple providers for childcare, clubs, and tutoring.

Compare this with Adcote School where the annual fee is £19,800, but with scholarships, bursaries and CLEAR Awards worth up to 30%, the cost can be reduced to £13,860.

For that investment, families gain so much more than an education. In this blog, the Shropshire parent of one of our current Year 6 girls reveals just how much more…  

“As a single parent, the decision about where my daughter should go to school felt all-consuming. The standard of education obviously played a key role in my decision-making process, but it was actually about so much more than grades. 

Like most working parents, I’ve spent years spinning plates and trying to make everything ‘fit’, and I’ll be honest, it’s an impossible juggle. The working world simply isn’t geared up for parents, much less those of us going solo. The school day finishes hours before the working day, so with no family support close by it was impossible to work full time without being fully reliant on breakfast clubs, after-school care, and a patchwork of activities just to keep things ticking along. I actually had to turn down a fantastic new role simply because my daughter’s breakfast club provision didn’t start until 8am, I just couldn’t make it work. 

When I did the sums I also realised I was spending a considerable amount of money on wraparound care and extra tuition, for the privilege of all the stresses and strains that came with it. And despite all that, I still felt something was missing (alongside my sanity).

My daughter was doing fine, but ‘fine’ didn’t feel enough. Her classes were large, and I felt like she was slipping through the cracks a little. I knew she had so much potential, but every week felt like an exhausting balancing act between school, tutors, and care clubs. Surely there’s a better way?

Enter Adcote School

I had actually come across Adcote a few months prior, but at first, I’d dismissed it. Don’t get me wrong – the moment I became aware of it I dreamt of my child attending this historical all-girls school set in its own beautiful grounds – but I’d made the assumption that an independent school was completely out of my reach. Yet once I decided to explore my options more thoroughly, the numbers told an entirely different story. 

Adcote’s fees at first glance seemed unachievable, but speaking to them about their various Scholarships and Bursary programmes and after a successful application, I was pleasantly surprised at the final figure I’d be looking at, especially in comparison to what I was already spending to make her ‘free’ state education work for us. Suddenly sending her to an independent school didn’t seem that far away at all. Yes, it’s more than I was spending before, but what we get for that has made a whole world of difference.

Why We Chose Adcote

From the very first time that my daughter and I set foot into Adcote, it just felt right.

The class sizes are small, so every teacher truly knows each pupil. Not just by name, but by personality, strengths, and potential. My daughter is already so much more confident than I’ve ever seen her, and I wholeheartedly put this down to their perfectly sized all-girls setting, that negative competition you often see between girls just isn’t there, without boys in the mix the students just seem so much more supportive of each other, which is so lovely to see!  

She’s being taught by specialist teachers in every subject, even in Junior School. The depth and excitement the teachers bring to learning is incredible and she’s so much more engaged in her lessons.

There’s a real sense of consistency and care too, and feeling the pressures of being a solo working parent means I notice this perhaps more than most. I’m no longer trying to piece together after-school care, extra-curricular activities, and external tutors. It’s all there, under one roof – and it’s done brilliantly.

The pastoral care has been truly outstanding. They always notice when my daughter is tired, when she’s unsure, or even when she’s proud, and they celebrate her as a whole person, not just as a student. I no longer feel like she’s slipping through the cracks, in fact quite the opposite. 

There are so many opportunities to broaden her horizons too, from sport and debating to musical theatre and national competitions, so she’s thriving in ways I couldn’t possibly have imagined a year ago! In fact, the selection on offer means we’ve even been able to drop the weekend activities as she now does these at school, so we’ve also claimed our weekends back. There’s even a wonderful international mix of students, which is giving her such a healthy, global perspective on the world. 

And the cherry on top? The grounds are simply breathtaking. Space to run, breathe, and just be a child. After the pressures of modern life that freedom alone really is worth everything.

Looking Back

If you’d told me last year that my child would be at Adcote, I would’ve laughed. It felt like the impossible dream – financially, practically, even emotionally. But now that it is our reality, I can see what a difference it’s made, not just to her, but to us as a family.

My daughter is happy and confident, and more settled than she has been for a long time. And for the first time, I’m not constantly juggling a dozen moving parts to make life work. I can’t tell you what a difference that has made in our home. It isn’t just an education, it’s complete peace of mind – I only wish I’d found Adcote sooner!” 

More Than a School

This is just one parent’s story - and there are many more that tell a similar tale. When you add up the true costs of education and enrichment elsewhere, and then consider the opportunities, environment, and consistency of care that Adcote provides - the value becomes clear.

At Adcote, education isn’t just about lessons. It’s about developing happy, confident young people in a supportive and nurturing setting. And that, truly, makes a whole world of difference.