If you are paying nursery fees a private school will probably work out cheaper and better value. You only pay for when you are there as opposed to the 50 odd weeks you have to pay at a nursery. Where we are the termly fee for a 3 year old is £1800 but when you take off the nursery funding which next term is about £600 it's £1200 and over 11 weeks say, well less than £120 p/w and that includes a two course lunch cooked by a proper cook as opposed to a nursery assistant warming up tins of beans and serving with instant potato. I'd look into it if I were you and it's more important at this age, what they learn now will prepare them for the future, if it's left to secondary it's harder to adjust and, yes it's a lot of money when you work it out but you only have your children once, invest in them now.