Our family is badly off. My DD is very bright and talented in an all round kind of way. The comprehensive she goes to is not great, and is not challenging her.
So we looked into the possibility of her moving to one of our local good reputation private schools, by way of a bursary.
When I wrote to these schools, to explain our interest in the school, but that DD would need a bursary to enable her to attend, the responses were beyond frosty. Although the schools advertise bursaries of up to 100%, 2 of the schools didn't even respond. When I pressed one of them, I was told that they didn't offer bursaries. That was despite the fact that their website clearly stated that to enable talented children to attend the school, they offered bursaries of up to 100%. They also claimed that they had not seen 3 emails from me because 1) 2 of them had got lost in the vast number of emails the admissions officer of this small undersubscribed private school received, 2) 1 email had not been received because their email account was full.
It seems to me that schools are advertising bursaries - including 100% bursaries - in order to satisfy the Charity Commission. But without any intention of actually offering a bursary to anyone.
Was I stupid to take them at their word, and enquire about the possibility of a bursary? Is it common knowledge that these statements on websites are no more than window-dressing?