HUNDREDS of British families are sending their children to private schools abroad, saving up to £15,000 a year on fees.

They are prepared to send them as far afield as South Africa to get a public-school education at lower cost, although France and Spain are more popular because they arecloser and benefit from low-cost flights.

Hilton College, one of the most exclusive public schools in South Africa, has six British boarders who fly home for the holidays. Iain Macmillan at Hilton College said: “Many British families are attracted by the price. They get a classic public-school education comparable with that available in England at half or even a third of the cost.”

Hilton has fees of 105,000 rand (£9,800) a year, while the average British boarding school charges £18,828, and Eton and Winchester cost nearly £25,000.

You can get flights from Gatwick to Johannesburg for as little as £420 return, so Hilton would still work out cheaper than a British public school even after several trips home.

But cost is not the only consideration, said Macmillan. “We have a strong emphasis on sport and discipline, and parents perhaps feel that we are like British public schools used to be — not in terms of the style of the teaching or the facilities, but in terms of how our pupils behave.”

Many French boarding schools also have annual fees of less than £10,000, and low-cost flights make them even more compelling. The Ecole Privée de Tersac, near Bordeaux, for example, charges €12,000 a year (£8,300). It has 160 pupils, including six from Britain and Ireland who fly home for the holidays.

They follow the French curriculum, but are given intensive language tuition before being integrated into mainstream lessons. The school has a 100% pass rate for the French equivalent of A-levels.

Olivier Gaultier, director of the Ecole de Tersac, said: “Daily flight links with Britain, as well as internet connections, have contributed to its rapid development.”

You can fly from Gatwick to Bordeaux with British Airways for just £64 return.

While British pupils at the Ecole de Tersac follow the French curriculum, the Chavagnes International College near Nantes is British-run and pupils sit GCSEs and A-levels.

Chavagnes was founded by Ferdi McDermott, a British teacher, nearly four years ago. He had searched Britain for a site for a Catholic boarding school, but settled on a former seminary near Nantes because it was so much cheaper. The school has 40 pupils, more than two-thirds of whom are British. The rest come from France and Spain. All broadly follow Britain’s national curriculum.

McDermott said: “We chose France because we would not have been able to find such an excellent location in Britain for such a reasonable price. At just over two hours from Paris on the fast train, Nantes is easily accessible for families in southern England.”