- What wealthy British parents could find as they send their children to private schools abroad to avoid the VAT fee hike
Imagine a school where students wear £800 sunglasses with their uniforms, carry their textbooks in a £25,000 Hermes tote and spend downtime partying on Daddy’s private yacht or blowing £30,000 a night on private tables in exclusive members-only clubs.
It may sound like a Hollywood teen movie, but this was par for the course when I attended a top boarding school in Switzerland. And from there? Easy access into prestigious universities such as Harvard, which is where I went, and on to high-flying City careers such as my own.
Due to the impending VAT on private school fees, a growing number of British parents are considering moving their children to European boarding schools. The average British boarding school charges £14,000 per term; increasing fees by the 20 per cent VAT charge would therefore cost parents an extra £8,500 every year.
German schools have already started to try to lure British parents with the fact that there, as in other EU countries, private schools are exempt from VAT. Meanwhile, Alexander Wickham, head of Sage College and the British School Of Jerez in Spain, said last year that institutions like his ‘are gaining a lot more students from the UK’, with more expected to join after the fee hike.
In Switzerland, it’s legal to drink beer and wine at 16 and you can purchase tobacco at any age. Teachers would occasionally turn a blind eye to both – along with cannabis
These schools often teach in English to appeal to an international audience and follow the International Baccalaureate (IB) curriculum, a qualification accepted by all Russell Group universities.
Switzerland has long been considered the world leader for prestigious boarding schools, attracting the creme de la creme. Originally finishing schools, they catered for the bourgeoisie of Europe and America who wanted their daughters to acquire elite femininity based on travel, foreign languages and the creative arts.
Take, for example, Switzerland’s Institut Le Rosey, one of the world’s most exclusive boarding schools and seen as a gateway to academic success. It’s known as the School Of Kings as King Juan Carlos of Spain, King Fuad II of Egypt and King Albert II of Belgium were all students there (as well as John Lennon’s son Sean, Dodi al Fayed and assorted Gettys and Rockefellers).
Many years ago, I went for a taster day at Le Rosey and found the levels of privilege jaw-dropping. Girls wearing the latest Dior and Prada outfits with trainers worth thousands of pounds.
My parents chose a less flashy school in the end, which had a beautiful mountainous backdrop. That’s not to say there weren’t conspicuous displays of wealth, but the students who welcomed me were kind and humble despite being some of the richest people I have ever met.
I grew up in London and New York before moving to Belgium when I was seven. There, we lived in a six-bed house with maids to bring us breakfast, cleaners, gardeners and security staff. Between seven and 15 I attended a private international school in Belgium, where English was the first language. Then, after I became a victim of bullying, my dad, a property entrepreneur, decided I should move for sixth form.
Not back to England but to a boarding school in Switzerland. He wanted me to study for the IB because he believed it was more highly regarded than A-levels.
Of course I was apprehensive about being away from my family – aged 16, I was also excited about my newfound independence – but I would speak to them twice a week and see them twice a month.
Other students weren’t as lucky. I soon discovered loneliness and a deep sense of parental abandonment among some children.
There were children as young as five already boarding, which broke my heart. I was shocked by how many parents didn’t seem to see their children: no weekend visits, no calls or cards.
They appeared to use the school as an exclusive 24-hour babysitting service; a means of getting their kids off their hands.
One friend saw her dad rarely and when they did meet, he would take cocaine in front of her and was dating a girl who was 21, only a few years older than us. Many of the pupils didn’t even know what their parents did for a living – they just knew that they would transfer thousands of euros into their bank accounts as and when required.
Although we weren’t exactly hard-up ourselves, my two younger sisters and I had been taught never to be wasteful with time, money or food. Our parents made it clear that once we finished our expensive educations, we would have to make our own way in life.
As such, I was given a budget of 100 Swiss francs (around £87) per weekend, which would just about cover a glass of wine – everyone drank alcohol, even at 16 – and some sushi at local restaurants and bars (Switzerland is notoriously expensive).
Some of my friends, however, were given the equivalent of £9,000 to £18,000 a fortnight, which they’d blow on partying in top clubs, designer clothes and drugs.
When it came to discipline, well, money talks. Though only 16, we were treated as fully formed adults by the teachers (who mostly lived in areas where it was cheaper) and the house ‘mothers’, as the residential staff were called.
We’d sneak out in the dead of night and on one occasion I came back and my boarding house mother asked if she should drug- test me. I told her: ‘There’s no need, I’m so high right now!’
In Switzerland, it’s legal to drink beer and wine when you reach 16 and you can purchase tobacco at any age. Teachers at my school would occasionally turn a blind eye to both – along with cannabis.
We’d sneak out in the dead of night and on one occasion I came back and my boarding house mother asked if she should drug- test me. I told her: ‘There’s no need, I’m so high right now!’
It was the one and only time I ever touched pot and I never took other drugs.
But I wasn’t reprimanded. That said, anyone caught taking Class A drugs would be suspended.
It’s a far cry from the sort of discipline I’d have found in the British private school system.
It’s perhaps no surprise that there was a lot of sex at my school, too. Girls sneaking into boys’ rooms and boys sneaking into the girls’, or even having sex in the corridors in the middle of the night. If teachers were aware, they certainly didn’t say so.
Mind you, everyone became very good at sneaking around – although I never got involved, thankfully realising even in my teens what a terrible idea casual sex at school was. I was also careful because I knew my parents would be intensely disappointed if I was caught behaving badly. Not all my peers had the same safeguards.
After one night out during which some of my circle spent £30,000 on booze and private tables in an exclusive club, I asked my friend how her parents allowed her to spend that much money in a single night.
She replied: ‘Because it’s easier to toss money to your kids instead of dealing with them.’
Some of my friends were given £18,000 a fortnight, which they’d blow on partying in top clubs, designer clothes and drugs
This made me feel incredibly sad, but it was a common sentiment among my peers. High-end travel was a huge perk. In my first year, we went on an art trip to Venice, where we drank wine with our teacher over dinner.
My parents had wired me some money to treat myself and I spent it on Balenciaga shoes costing 550 euros. My friend was furious because I’d bagged the last pair, prompting another teacher to laugh at us and accuse us of being ‘spoiled-ass kids’.
Who could argue?
On an eco visit to Greece the same year, we took care of turtles and scuba-dived to help clean up the ocean – but we also partied hard, sneaking out of our rooms and down to the bar in the five-star resort after our teachers were in bed. We got very drunk and were horribly hungover when we got up at 5am to go to the turtle sanctuary. The teachers just rolled their eyes and asked: ‘Did you have fun?’
But the pinnacle was the trip we organised ourselves in the summer holidays. A group of 17 of us stayed in one of the most palatial villas on the Greek island of Mykonos, with a maid and a driver at our disposal.
The boys wouldn’t allow any of the girls to pay for anything. On the first night alone, they blew £15,000 on vodka and champagne at our private table in a top club.
One of the pupils produced a bag of cocaine to share and started snorting it at the table. I was so naïve I thought it was flour and didn’t touch it. It made me feel incredibly uncomfortable.
The problem is, when you have that level of wealth, you can get whatever you want whenever you want. In our spare time, we’d often go skiing. One memorable weekend when I was 17, a close friend invited me and some of the
others to party on a yacht in Monaco, all paid for by her parents with free-flowing champagne and a DJ.
At any ordinary private or state school in the UK, teachers would no doubt have clamped down on this behaviour. But I think our teachers were reluctant to cause a fuss with our wealthy parents, probably realising that many didn’t want to know anyway.
With all that money sloshing around, it’s not surprising
that it led to rivalry and one-upmanship. The fashion-conscious girls would sneer and make bitchy comments, pointing at a guy’s shoes and whispering, ‘I bet those Hermes loafers are fake!’ They could tell at a glance. I was always happy in clothes from Zara and Adidas trainers, just as some of my other friends were, too.
We had strong personalities so we’d confront anyone talking about us behind our backs.
I was unusual in that I spoke regularly to my parents and told them everything, including that I’d smoked cigarettes twice. (They weren’t happy about that and said I shouldn’t let it become a habit.)
Overall, though, my two years at the school were happy. We might have played hard but we worked hard, too.
Most of us went on to Ivy League and other top universities across the globe.
I left in 2014, having got through with the support of my parents.
The fact they had taught me to appreciate how privileged we all were meant I kept my feet on
the ground and didn’t take it all for granted. But there are many who aren’t so lucky. Teachers can only do so much to fill the hole left by absent parents.
Many of the wild kids at my school were going off the rails in a desperate bid to get their parents’ attention.
So, if you’re still thinking of the taking the plunge, allow me to offer some advice. Firstly, don’t give your child a budget of £10,000 a week when £100 will more than suffice. Let them know you love and miss them, make plans for holidays and weekends.
If there’s one thing I’ve learned, the lonelier a teen feels, the more likely they are to veer seriously off the rails – no matter how much you’re paying to have them looked after.
Names have been changed.
As told to SADIE NICHOLAS