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?

That's what happend to us mutz....we thought we were only able to have th one...and then another arrived! NO way is it doable for us with 2...but I wou rather have my 2 lovely girls and a nice state school any day!

State schools can't have HUGE classes as the legal limit is 30 children. My sister lives abroad where class of up to 40 with no teaching assistant is the norm.

My DD is very bright and a good state school teacher will find a way to keep bright children interested.

£70k isn't enough to privately educate 2 children until you had a very low mortgage etc - however its probably too high to be eligible for bursary.

If you can get a bursary then well and good but personally better I would think to go to state primary and save as much as possible (and try to increase earnings) to reduce mortgage and debt and then tutor for secondary & see if you can afford private then.

As others said will cost twice as much for 2, and if you can't really afford for one child then you certainly can't afford for 2.

Wearing my hat as Oxford Admissions Tutor and go-to-mum for advice on admissions, I want to say two things at once, VERY loudly. 1. Of course state schools provide a good education, though also of course some are really better than others at particular things

and 2. the state sector is not having as much luck/success as I'd like in encouraging their students to apply to top universities and guiding them towards the kinds of hoicesthat will help them.

This I think puts huge pressure on parents like the OP, who is probably and VERY DEPRESSINGLY right to assume that STATISTICALLY her dcs will have a better chance of a top-flight uni place from an indy school.

Also nobody has noted the way schoolfees have rocketed up in the past fifteen years, and will do so again as soon as bursars allow it - there is an utterly terrifying piece in this monbth's Standpoint about how this happened, which carols happily that parents will make almost any sacrfice to keep their children at a school (apparenlty not interested in sacrifices the children might be making as y'all have said). I suspect therefore that an income/professional group which might once have made exactly the assumptions the OP is making would now be completely wrong to do so; once quite ordinary middling people took private school for granted, but now you really have to be not merley well above average like the OP, but actually rich. I think the OP is a bit bewildered by the pace of change.

That said, I think the OP's assumptions are also almost entirely wrong, including the one about university entrance. Private schools are IMHO in many cases VERY overrated, and are often nothing more than educational factories where any sign of real curiosity is rebuked in favour of learning bullet points for exams.

Op, have you thought of Home Ed?

"... the OP, it's not her fault her income is higher than some other posters"

No, it's her blessing. And she should be rather a lot more sensitive than to post this kind of drivel on here.

She has many more means than most, and would be wiser to live within them.

I think that whatever your inkome, whether it is 7K or 70K a year you have to prioritise your spending.

As a direct andwer to the OP: quite possibly you live in the type of area where a high morgage does not necessarily mean that you have an excessively large house BUT you also state you have debts yet you are struggling to save £450 a month. You have to ask yourself why you are saving this money and looking at the possiblility of going further into debt by going down the private education route.

Use the £450 to start clearing your debts then possibly consider a fee paying school if and when you can afford it.

OP its people like you, that are going to end Surestart centres for people like me.

Disgusted (Of Tonbridge, not Tunbridge Wells.)

What's a Surestart centre ( not sure we have these in Scotland)

Ladies, I don't think the OP was winding you up, but she may have fled - can't think why. :).

DThing is that the sense of injustice - hers and yours - comes from the fact that ACTUALLY indy schools are NOT going to give EVERYONE WHO CAN'T AFFORD THE FEES A BURSARY. Virtually nobody can afford the damn fees. I'm interested because Oxford is looking at migrating to this horrible world. Are you all saying you're ok with bursaries to indy schools if people are on a low enough income? That seems a bit odd to me since it would still be unjust to the other kids who aren't getting such help.

sieglinde - I read your posts and feel . what you say is most true.

To be clear, i am not so sad about private education (it was never on our radar) more about the migration of university to this world, and the whole HE thing.

I think you're absolutely spot on. And you are absolutely correct about the bursary/affording private education thing.

OP, I think what you are suggesting is totally morally wrong. It is no different from people who fiddle the admissions system for state schools by pretending to live in the cachement area.

You are proposing to enrol your child in a school that you know you cannot afford with the intention of trying to persuade the school to bail you out because they want what is best for your child.

If you do this, what is to stop every other parent in the school maxing out their mortgage in the knowledge that the school will then reduce their fees meaning that they come out at the end with a nice house and a privately educated child? The inevitable result of this would be that the school would have to stop offering bursaries.

Bursaries are intended for children whose parents suffer genuine, unforeseeable hardship. My school, for example, offered a full bursary to two children whose parents killed themselves.

We have a household income higher than the OP's, mainly due to my high-earning DP. We have made the decision to move to a nice village, with a big mortgage on a decent sized house with outdoor space where DS will be able to play outside and have friends round and generally have a nice lifestyle. As a result of this we cannot afford the massive luxury of private primary school fees, although we may be able to manage private secondary if DP is promoted over the coming years. That is the choice we made. We would never consider cheating the system intended for people who have fallen on hard times by expecting a school to fund our lifestyle choices with fee reductions.

OP, you are basically saying "we have a nice lifestyle and therefore please give us some money so we can have an even nicer lifestyle."

Totally agree with Kungfu ^^.

Struggling to save £450, we are struggling to save £4.50

Lucky you

You have got to be fucking shitting me ???!!!

Seriously ???

Save your money and move to somewhere with good state schools, even if the uniform won't turn any heads or make them look like a twat when they're teenagers Straw boater anyone ??

They want to spend money they haven't got, on something that is not essential - no wonder they are already in debt.

Agree with Kungfu

Holy fuck. Seeing £70k a YEAR is astounding me. Yes, I'm young but wow. You can ONLY save £450 per month? I live on £700 to include rent, council tax, bills, food, clothing etc for myself, my husband and 2 DD's under 3. I say this: YABU. And, chuck us a tenner?

Bursaries are only given to those in need. You don't seem to be in need, you seem to be bad with the vast amount of money you earn. People with half your income only get half for a bursary. YANBU to ask but YABU to bank on it and expect one.

Just because your DC is developmentally advanced does not mean they have to have a private education. Your DC has never been to a real school yet so you don't know how he's going to cope or react. Give him a chance in a state school because you clearly can't afford private.

How will your DC cope when they have to leave prep school to go to a state secondary?

How will they fit in when your disposable income doesn't allow for the fancy holidays, IT equipment etc their friends will take for granted?

I know lots of people stretching themselves to the limit financially to pay for big mortgages and private educations, doesn't sound like much fun to me.

My dd is very capable and doing very well in a good state primary, I'd rather "top up" with tutoring later if it's needed.

Our joint income is probably not far behind yours and I wouldn't even consider it.

not read whole thread, only OP.

tbh, it doesn't look like you can afford it. you are struggling with one child at this school, and the other hasn't even started yet. unless you are planning on keeping one there, and sending the other to the local state alternative, then it looks like this is not th eoption for you.

having said that, yes, we have experience of getting a bursary when earning in excess of £70k.

our circumstances were exceptional, thoguh, and the child we were needing to keep at the school was in the middle of exams, so really not a good idea to move them.

we had a bursary, and also some fee re-structuring (which we are still paying off). but that was with the end in sight, not when we were starting out at the beginning (or not even there yet, as oyur dc has not even started school proper)

I do think you need to get your finacnes in shape and put your children in a good state school.I don't think 70k is enough to cover a huge moergage and school fees and as you have already got into debt and aren't even paying these fees yet its time to accept where you are and cut your coat according to your cloth.

ive tried to write something meaning full,

but im too fucking angry.

Agree with the general gist of other posts on here. If you are not sure you can afford it now then don't get into it.

We put 2DC through independent school. IMO it is unfair to your children who will do without extracurricular things that others in ind school have.

Also. if I was a parent struggling to pay fees on a lower income than yours I would be well and truly pissed off that you were being subsidised to pay off a big mortgage and debts! In DDs year a family applied for a bursary on the grounds of low income and the playground telegraph reported that it was turned down as several other families (NOT US!) complained on the grounds of the assets of this family being considerable.

Move to a good catchment for primary and save up to educate through secondary when the exams matter more towards higher education.
At primary level I think the main thing is the parental involvement.

Most private schools, when deciding whether to award bursaries, rightly look at your capital and assets. Bursaries are intended to supplement school fees, not expensive housing.