Every Business Manager knows the quiet frustration of a well-made decision that nobody notices. You hold a fee increase below what your costs demanded, you protect teacher wages to keep quality in the classroom, you find savings across three departments so families are spared the full weight of a tough year, and the thanks you get is a parent at the gate saying fees are too high.
The 2026 School Insights Report, produced by our good friends over at Edstart from responses across more than 4,000 parents and 300 schools, helps explain why. Its standout finding is that families and schools are now closely aligned on what matters most, which sounds like good news until you reach the line that follows it. Alignment on paper means little if the work schools are doing isn’t visible, clearly communicated, and easy for parents to recognise.
This is a sharp piece of research, and it raises an obvious question for anyone running a school’s finances. If the judgement is already right, and the gap is visibility, what should schools actually do about it? Below, we walk through three of Edstart’s findings, and for each, we recommend what we believe to be the most practical response.
Edstart’s report puts hard numbers on how schools handle a tight year. Teacher wages are the single largest cost in most schools, and when they rise faster than fees, something has to give. According to the research, schools overwhelmingly protect the classroom and absorb the pressure elsewhere, with only 12% increasing class sizes to manage wage costs. The rest trim operating budgets and draw on reserves instead. The report frames this as the invisible work behind a fee rise, and we would agree that this is exactly the problem worth solving. These are decisions families never see, yet the ones they would value most if they could.
The report also compared what parents expect to pay against what schools plan to charge. It found schools expecting fee rises of around 5.5% for 2027, while parents expect closer to 2 to 3%, a gap Edstart notes has persisted for years, even as actual increases landed near 6%.
It is tempting to read that gap as parents being unrealistic, but would it be more reasonable to read it as a lack of information? Parents have no line of sight into wage settlements, funding changes, or rising operating costs, so they anchor on inflation and hope. If that is right, then closing the gap is not a marketing job so much as a business office one. A school that explains the reasoning behind its fee setting early, before the invoice, rather than alongside it, gives families the chance to plan instead of react.
The report makes a strong case that visibility is the missing piece. It stops short of the operational detail, which is the part we see up close, working alongside schools. Among those that get through the fee season and maintain their community’s trust well, a few patterns tend to emerge.
They break down the fee, not just the figure. Where a fee dollar goes, wages, facilities, technology, support, is shown in plain terms, so an abstract number becomes a set of choices parents can understand and repeat to each other.
They share the reasoning before the notice, not alongside it. Families hear the “why” while there is still time to absorb it, so the invoice confirms a story they have already heard rather than delivering a shock.
They keep their numbers within reach. The scenarios behind a fee decision, enrolment sensitivity, wage assumptions, and the rest, are close at hand, so the figure can be explained with confidence rather than reconstructed under pressure.
They make paying and giving effortless. The easier it is for a family to say yes, whether to fees or a voluntary contribution, the more a school has to hold its position on price. None of this is about spending more. It is about the same information made visible on purpose.
Edstart’s third insight is the one most likely to reshape a budget conversation. The report found voluntary building funds are the most common non-fee revenue stream in the sector, yet schools often leave money on the table through how they ask, rather than who they ask. A family’s fee bracket, the research shows, is a poor predictor of what they will give. What moves people is picturing what their money builds, with well over half of parents most motivated by specialist facilities their own child will use.
The same visibility principle seems to apply. The schools that raise the most tend to frame the ask around something tangible and current, and make the contribution easy to spread over time, turning quiet goodwill into real budget. It is a communication and process question, and it sits right alongside how a school already manages fee collection.
Edstart’s School Insights Report lands on a genuinely useful conclusion: that the sector has largely closed the gap between what schools offer and what families want, and the work that remains is visibility and turning sound financial decisions into a story parents can follow and trust.
The schools navigating this well are not doing anything revolutionary; they are simply making the care already in their budget visible, showing the working behind the number rather than leaving parents to guess it. The judgement, as Edstart makes clear, is already there. The advantage in 2027 will go to the schools that let their community see it.
We have only touched on a few of the findings here. The full 2026 School Insights Report digs much deeper into fee expectations, enrolment demand, non-fee revenue, government funding, and how families are managing the costs of independent education, with benchmarks you can hold your own school against. If these insights are useful for the year ahead, it is well worth a read in full.
Click below to access the full report and learn more about Edstart.