scholarships to private schools specifically aimed at state-educated pupils

The higher up the food chain a school is the more money it will have in its bursary pot ZFD

That was the only reason behind our approach to EC. Not that those were the precise words I used.

I've learned that that even applies to the 'top' schools, and that some of them outreach to state pupils.

We had no clue either kit, and we never cease to be amazed at the interest they have taken in our DS, and us as a family.

If you want your DS wants to try and go to a school like Eton (and more importantly your DS does too) now is the best time to try, IMO.

I'm not putting this plainly enough am I?

The higher up the food chain a school is the more money it will have in its bursary pot. (Observation not statistics.) Richer schools are generally successful for a reason - one of those reasons being an understanding of the need to constantly replenish and diversify the brainpower going into the school. So they have more money and not just can be but are keen to be generous with it - because they do actually want clever kids to apply and attend.

The corollary of this is that they are very selective - you can't just buy a place with money or a family tradition at the dear old place.

Please ring some schools - I'm boring myself now! (And I want to hear what they say to you...)

I can completely understand what you're saying OP have you actually sat and talked to the bursar in person at your chosen day schools and explained the situation. IME bursars are often men, I think sometimes with men you have to spell things out in black and white. It may seem bloody obvious to you but sometimes men just don't see it. Have you said something along the lines of: "I've inherited 50k so I can pay for the next three years up until yr 10 but after that baring an unexpected windfall I can't afford the fees, what would happen then? Would you expect me to increase my mortgage, or perhaps save £X over the next three years and then you'll consider making up the difference, I'm happy to look/retrain for a more lucrative job but realistically I'm unlikely to have enough money to fully afford the school fees and therefore will need a substantial bursary. What would be the schools position? Would you ask my DC to leave?"
If they say no then I guess at least you can go away knowing you've really tried.

Hmmm ... You may be looking at this from the wrong end of the telescope.

The thing is you're not desperate for your child to be parachuted out of a difficult or even slightly less than ideal environment. So you're looking for a relatively easy entry to any old fee paying school.

If you genuinely thought he would be terribly disadvantaged by not having the chance of a full boarding education at a (perhaps particular) major public school with all that that entails - academic competition, like minded peers, 24 hr sporting facilities on tap ... you would, in the three and a half days since starting the thread, have phoned each of those schools to ask about their scholarship and bursary timetables and policies.

Your local schools are not expensive enough to justify offering you a bursary. "Grander" schools are much more likely to be able to help you; but you won't know if you don't ask!

kit
All schools operate their bursary policies slightly differently. Some schools (all the ones whose bursary policies I am familiar with) take bursary students in year 7 and year 12. If you fall on hard times at other stages and you have never been a bursary student there is no guarantee that you will be offered any bursary funding, but some schools will offer hardship funding especially around important exam stages. They couldn't allow somebody to have a bursary just because they have spent all of their savings because otherwise lots of people would deliberately fritter away their savings rather than spend it on school fees.
Also, you are talking about 7 years of education but many schools give out bursaries at the start of year 7 and those bursaries last for the first 5 years (subject to annual means testing) and then there is a separate application required for bursary funding for 6th form. There is a good chance that somebody who has spent all their savings on fees for the 1st 5 years could get a bursary to cover 6th form and equally somebody who has had a bursary for the 1st 5 years might not get a bursary for 6th form.
Some schools offer bursaries for the full 7 year period, but not all.
I suppose people are expected to have a long term plan for funding if they are not a bursary student from the start.
Even if you are a bursary student but not getting a full bursary there is no guarantee at some schools that your bursary will be increased should household income fall.

Kit "there's no way I'd enrol DS.....knowing I could only pay for 3 years" - blimey 3 years savings seems like quite a longtime to me!

I have 2 at prep school and although DD gets a 30% scholorship, we pretty much wing it from month to month (as I suspect do many other parents)

Perhaps start at year 9 (many schools have an entry point then) have the 3 years covering GCSEs. And reassess options for 6th form (scholarship/bursary then, or change school to cheaper independent or the state sector).

Bursars generally will take everything into account. But that doesn't mean they will support awards to those who have assets at the time they are applying for the award. They should however tell you what the school can consider if pupils financial circumstances change for the worse. But they cannot guarantee who the governors/awards committee will approve in 2-3 years time.

"aimed in particular at boys who would not be able to attend Eton without very substantial financial assistance (in certain cases, full assistance may be given)" seems clear enough - means tested. I'd also read this as saying that, if means testing shows you only need a moderate amount of help, that counts against you, presumably because then you could have sent your DS to a prep school and applied in the usual way.

happygardening, do you know if the Peter Beckwith Scholarship of Harrow and the New Foundation Scholarship of Eton are the pure "scholar"ships or the mean test bursary type scholarship? I can not find clearly information from their websites. Thanks.

Don't take this seriously as it's intended to prove a point ...

Why not raise a huge mortgage against your house and put all the money into a pension scheme? Your incomes would be low, your net assets would be low and your pension would be too far away to be able to pay school fees. Taa daa!

I have sympathy for parents of bright kids that don't even know there is an opportunity for better education for their kids.

I have sympathy for parents that work hard and have been caught out by house price inflation so that they fail the means test. I don't agree that you should have to sell the roof over your head to afford fees that oligarchs have as loose change. People on these forums can be cruel and green eyed.

I'd rather see your kids do well at a private school and free up a state school place for a "less able kid" than another oligarch's kid. But that's not how most people will see it.

A scholarship is awarded because of exceptional academic/sporty/art/drama/music achievement generally it now carries little financial reward especially at the big names it's a status thing.
Bursaries are means tested reductions in school fees. At most schools a scholarship is required to be considered for a bursary but at small group of usually super selective bursaries are available to all who meet their academic criteria.

Question, what's the difference between scholarship and bursary? The OP seems asking information of scholarship.

In the end it should be remembered that private education is not a right. I support bursaries for DCs from deprived families for whom it may well be the only way to avoid very poor schooling and an environment that is hostile to education. However, I'm not sure of the value for a DC from a relatively comfortable middle class family
Golden I really see the moral line in this. However you yourself are partly providing the flaw to the argument. Despite being a supportive parent you still think that one of your DCs is much better served by a private school.
Supportive parents may not always be able to compensate the 'wrong fit' of a DC in a particular state school (even if that state school may be fine for another DC as the OP illustrates).

I suspect that a lot of bursaries are applied for and go to teachers' DCs. The parents are educated, are ambitious for their DCs to access something more than is locally provided, perhaps themselves are working in the private sector but obviously can't afford the full fees.
You could argue that teachers provide the most supportive parenting for their DCs' education. Does that exclude them from the bursary pot?

It's a mine field. Certainly I would find it hard to understand someone getting a bursary to a day school with 50,000 in the bank, I have just skimmed this thread but did you say you had investment property?

Conversely, there maybe someone with some equity in their owner occupied house/flat but cannot liquidate it ( high early repayment charges, no one buying etc.). If they then do sell to downsize they may have such a high loan-to-value that they can not get a mortgage at a good rate. They may then end up with very high monthly mortgage costs despite downsizing. Schools will have their own criteria for selecting who gets a bursary. I do not think just because someone comes from a state school they should get a bursary to a private secondary school (some pupils from private primaries may well have less assets/income). A private school is a business though and it may make more financial sense for them to give lots of small bursaries to encourage those that would have gone state to go private.

But Golden obviously individual circumstances have to be very much taken into consideration. 50k in the bank sounds a lot but that's only going to pay the first year of boarding fees, when you add in extras uniform etc then the OP will require a substantial bursary so need she needs to be sure of help before embarking on a five year journey of paying school fees.
Can she increase her mortgage; does she have sufficient earnings to do this? Should she retrain and get a better paid job and thus be able to increase her mortgage, where do you draw the line at a better job? Should she retrain to be a nurse or a corporate lawyer? Is any if this reasonable?

What about future inheritance? A friend of mind received a very substantial bursary for her DC as she had a modest income and life style. 6 months after leaving school her elderly parent (late 90's) died and she inherited 800k, she'd always know this was likely to occur. Is there a case for saying that schools should investigate these sort of things and draw up some kind of contract stating if substantial money inherited in the say five years after leaving that a payment to the school bursary fund would be expected? I'm no lawyer so this may not be possible but nursing homes take charges against homes so maybe it is.
I just want to add I don't know the answer to any of these questions just thing out loud.

Happy - all the conditions mentioned by you I have seen as conditions imposed by schools to qualify for bursaries. Quite rightly so.

I am living with most of of those conditions in order to get the money together to pay full fees and I think that is fair.

In the end it should be remembered that private education is not a right. I support bursaries for DCs from deprived families for whom it may well be the only way to avoid very poor schooling and an environment that is hostile to education. However, I'm not sure of the value for a DC from a relatively comfortable middle class family.

OP

we've been going round in circles over this one for the last six months, happygardening put us onto the Sherwood Award at Harrow, which is particular to our location, and we are looking into it

Harrow awards

However, you could do a whole lot worse than contact Francesca Moultrie, access advisor at Eton College, who's very approachable and helpful, and represents a school determined to widen access [and probably the only one with the capital to do so]

Our beloved DS is chafing at the bit to go somewhere else, and can't wait to sit 11+ and go on elsewhere, anywhere? He's still dreaming of going to Eton, but that may change by Y9. Long road to go yet. He's in Y5 still, so our 'brain on a stick' won't be competing with yours

It's complicated IMO and is vey much depends on the individual. You could argue that everyone should have some money in savings in case the boilers breaks down and needs replacing or something similar. How much equity in your home is reasonable and how much is too much, especially as few can get 100% mortgages now a days? What about mortgage length is it reasonable to expect a couple in their early thirties to extend their mortgage to say 35 years and reduce their monthly payments whereas a couple in their early fifties buying a house are unlikely to even want or get a 25 year term mortgage. What about house size? One room for each child or should same sex children share, or house value; you could sell you pretty cottage and buy the same size ex council house for 100k less but is this fair to expect parents to do this? And the thorny issue of holiday, is there a case for saying that parents receiving a bursary and working hard to pay the school fees should have a cheap family holiday every year? No school is trying to kill off parents in the process of earning sufficient funds to pay fees? What about cars, you can't expect high millage parents to be driving around in clapped out death traps, or those who are rural with no public transport to have on,y one car but can you say for example those living and working in London might have in some circumstances good enough public transport links to only require a small run around car or only own one car?

Yup, there are posters around the schools listing those pupils who went to XYZ prestigious schools for 6th form.

... Pitching to pupils rather than parents does sound highly unethical.

There's a lot of recruiting from DD's (state comp ends yr11) to private 6th forms, including boarding schools at other end of the UK. The private schools come in and do a pitch at the top ability pupils, with bursaries etc. potentially on offer.

I can't decide how I feel about it. Blatent poaching of the best pupils from the state sector.

Kit, sorry I probably seemed quite harsh was feeling a bit grumpy

The thing is, you don't seem to realise how fortunate you are having £50k in the bank which is not earmarked for something essential.

I am one of those parents who have run down all savings due to paying school fees and now pay solely from income. We just about manage day fees for DS as we don't like the state option for him but DD goes state as there is a good option for her. We can't even consider boarding as can't afford it.

In my circumstances it would stick in my throat that I was expected to pay towards a bursary for someone who has £50k sitting in the bank when I have run down all my savings.

I know a relative of a friend who has a boy on a bursary place. She is a single parent of 3 on low income living in a small council flat. I would be happy to contribute to that bursary as his mum would simply have no way of funding the fees herself.

I don't qualify for a bursary and that is fair as I am able to scrape the fees together though now have no savings. Bursaries should not be for those with a spare £50k in the bank!