I'm in the same dilemma. I have my heart set of a private school half an hours drive away. Luckily the fees aren't quite as high as the school you are looking at, but now I have to factor in three kiddies, not just two (fingers crossed they have a good sibling discount!). I've already done the "pre-enrollment" paperwork for Kyson to put him on the waiting list so hopefully he gets in.

I guess my main concern when it comes to deciding between a school I think will be really good for them and the financial hardship, is the fact that they are going to be spending soooooooooooo much time at the school. I mean 9-3.30ish, 5 days a week is a huge amount of time, so the environment and basically the entire schooling system is going to have a huge affect on how my kids learn and grow. It's for that reason that I am inclined to bite the bullet and go with the more expensive school that is further away from us, rather than any one of the 5-6 public schools within a 10 minute walk/drive from our house.

Oh, I forgot to mention that the school I'm looking at goes from pre-prep through to year 12, so I have already been looking at outcomes for the senior schools in the area, and this particular school I want to send them to has a really large and varied range of subjects offered in year 11 and 12 (the public school seemed to be quite limited around here), and it also has one of the highest average year 12 scores for not only this area, but in general. I feel really strongly about how important those final two years are even though Kyson's only 2yrs9mths and one bub is not even born yet, lol!!!