to bank on getting bursary whilst earning £70k?

[Leafysuburbia]

We have enrolled our child at a fabulous pre prep. We could afford the fees at the time but after job changes it just is no longer an option once the 15 free hours nursery provision finishes and DC has to enter Reception.

When I spoke to the head she was non committal but told me that all financial circumstaces are looked at and although salary figure is too high to normally consider bursary that things like excessive mortgage (tick), very high overheads including debt (tick) would all be taken into account. Tbh every month we are struggling, really struggling to save even £450. She also told me that generally once a child has started the school she considered it negative to their education to have to let them go so she would usually recommend a bursary be approved.

Said child has not yet started pre prep.

We have another younger child and my concerns are partly that if we can't afford one we certainly can't afford two.

How many people have managed to get bursaries while earning well in excess of the usual low income expected and has this continued to work when two children are in attendance?

Am I being ridiculous in even trying? Am very concerned as DC1 is considered exceptionally advanced in terms of development (genuine concern please do not flame) and needs a high level of attention/stimulation (no idea about DC2 yet, very very little indeed!). Local state schools said to be good but HUGE class sizes and very oversubscribed, hard to get into.

Anyone? Is it fantasy to start pre prep with no realistic hope of remaining? Or do we really have a hope - is it possible, is it reasonable to consider successfully claiming bursaries?

If you can't afford it, you shouldn't send them, simple.

yabu Think you should quit while you are ahead. Why are you saving if you already have debt ? Ime it will only become more of a struggle as they get older and you lose the nursery funding, plus allow for a 5% year on year increase and incremental increases frm reptionot Preprep and againot prerp then senior. You'd be very lucky to be considered for a bursary on that income at any of our local schools regardless of outgoings (which you should look at reducing ie downsizing first). The drive towards helping those who would otherwise not be able to access the education for their child would knock cases like yours out of the window. You could manage if you altered your lifestyle, depends how important it is to you really.

Op
you are coming across as a total wanker.

OP, you are crazy. You CANNOT AFFORD PRIVATE SCHOOL. End of conversation, surely?

YABU.

To go off on a slight tangent...

The only real educational difference (as in how a child's opportunity to learn is enhanced, rather than social or cultural education) between private and state schools is that:
a. class sizes are smaller
b. resources (as in equipment, drama studio, ICT) are better

These bonuses obviously have their advantages, and I think every parent and teacher would love to ee them in all schools, but a good state school can provide a good education without them.

Apart from that the standard of teachers are the same mix as they would be in good state schools, etc.

So I am a little confused about the horror of having to 'top up' your child's learning at the end of a school day - do the parents of privately educated primary aged children not read with them in the evenings, then? Or do their homework with them?

Parents have a role in their child's education regardless of which school system they are part of. OP, you can't afford private without some serious rejigging of finances. I agree that if this had been such a priority you would have been thinking ahead.

Your child being super-duper bright has nothing to do with it, IMO. Give yourself a reality check, please.

Some schools do do bursaries up to this level of income (eg Whitgift), but that is a well-endowed secondary school and the value of the burden for income £71k is £200 per annum. Most have cut-offs below, and many prep schools offer bursaries only at 7/8+.

"Only" 4k a month????

Bloody hell.

ok, am not going to flame you BUT

You are obviously spending more than you earn therefore;
move to a smaller house? (less mortgage each month)
Look at your utilities - get them cheaper?
Sell your current car - smaller/older one?
e bay stuff you dont need/want?
sell any jewellery you dont want?
grocery shop at a less expensive shop?/menu plan?

There are loads of ways to cut your expenditure.....time to look at them I think!!

If you want your dc to go to private school it will require sacrifice on your part.

Totally agree with frgr what a fucking cheek. Surely it's a wind up. Or the op has their head firmly up their own arse!

I feel a bit sorry for the OP, it's not her fault her income is higher than some other posters' and as others have said, she probably CAN'T afford private school fees for two DC on £70k. I think it's as unreasonable to mock people for having a higher income than you as it would be to mock people for having a lower income. People have different lives.

But OP, you are being unreasonable to think you will get a bursary. There is no way your mortgage will take you down to the level where most places have bursaries. There is also no reason your decision to have a large mortgage and build up debt should make you more of a priority than people on a lower income who have made sensible financial decisions to be able to afford private school.

Assuming you're in England, local class sizes just can't be huge as EY is capped at 30. If you child is Gifted and Talented, this is recognised as a SN and he/she will be given extra funding and extra tuition to the tune of several thousands (though this applies in our local authority, not sure if it's true for across England).

As for topping up learning, my DD's private school friends (aged 6) were doing, on average, 3 hours of school work per day in the CHristmas holidays to prepare them for eg, the 7+ - all supervised by their parents.

Plus 10k a year saved in school fees buys you an awful lot of dance/swimming/music lessons.

Don't mean to sounds all sanctimonious but if you have a large mortgage and high levels of debt surely it should be your absolute priority to pay off this, not raise your outgoings even further.

You are not earning enough to pay for one let alone two children to go through state school unless you plan on reducing your outgoings (move to a cheaper house) or earn more. It's that simple. I would go and look at your local state schools - I am sure they have dealt with clever children before.

YABU

Your thinking seems a bit short term to me - ie you're only thinking one or two years ahead from pre-prep to prep.

The fees go up every single year. They don't just go up by inflation, they go up by more than inflation, and the fees increase in any event as they move up the school.

And what will you do for secondary? And what about the fact of tucking away a bit for them for university and potential professional exams?

We wouldn't be able to afford to send two children through independent schools on an income of £70k. You probably could do it, if you were enormously frugal and never bought a new car or went on holiday and stuff. But you will be at your absolute limit.

So I think you need to think not just of bursaries, but of the whole lifestyle thing, and really plan the whole thing out. Really think about your incomings and outgoings and plan. You could consider getting the DCs into a state grammar for secondary, and just struggle through pre-prep and prep. You could move, you could get better jobs etc.

I agree with staranise and would send them to a normal state primary, and spend the money on extra-curricular activities, musical instruments or sports equipment, lots of books, interesting holidays etc. And on paying off your debts and morgtage!

Don't agree at all that you need to 'supplement' the teaching at a state primary, yes take an interest in what they're learning about, encourage reading etc, but surely you'd do that regardless of the school type. I don't have much time for private schools personally, it's always seemed like a huge waste of money to me. I've done well in life despite going to ordinary state schools, and so have most of my friends and colleagues.

you yourself have said that you cant afford it.

if you cant afford it, stop torturing yourself by looking at stuff you cant afford.

if you had a budget for £30 for shoes, why would you try on a £300 pair?

the £70k pa is irrelevent really. If you do not have enough money to meet even the basic pre- prep fees without the £600 a term that the 15 hours a week equates to- then it doesnt matter how much you earn.

and i would think that bursaries should be available for those who have had a sudden, unforseeable change in fortune- like redundancy. not those who go in knowing they havent got enough resources in the first place.

OP my DD goes to private school and I know for a fact that the bursary limit is £40k joint income as one of the mums I know was made redundant and looked into whether she would be eligible ( they weren't).

TBH I don' think a £70k income is enough to privately educate I child let alone two - with uniform fees, music lessons etc you are probably talking over £1300 per child per month.

I would maybe look at a good state school for primary and then see if you can get an academic scholarship for senior school.

Good luck!

If it's OK for poor people to game the system then it's OK for rich people.

tinkertitonk Sun 16-Jan-11 11:13:26
If it's OK for poor people to game the system then it's OK for rich people.

We've all focussed on the income versus expenditure thing (which is the glaring issue) but not many of us have addressed the OP's question which was is it possible to consider successfully claiming bursaries.

It wouldn't be possible at my DCs schools. I don't suppose it's beyond the realm of possibility - but it sounds enormously unlikely. If they do give you a bursary for DC1, what happens if they don't for DC2?

So all I need to do to be eleigible for bursaries for things I can't afford is to run up substantial debts and get a huge mortgage for a nicer / better house?

great tip - thanks!

Valid point Blu when you look at it like that really. I think it would be different if it was just the one child and if the OP was struggling temporarily to keep a business afloat...but in this case and with 2 children involved, I really think it's a case of if you can't afford it...you can't have it.