Bursary to attend Independent schools - insights sought

[User404]

I'd be very grateful for any insight current or former bursars could offer, or from anyone who typically sits on the decision making panels/boards for your independent school. Panels which decide whether to offer a bursary or not, and if an offer is made, how much should be offered.

A neighbour of mine has a 10 year old daughter who was advised by her under performing state primary that her daughter was gifted and that she should consider sitting her daughter for grammar school 11+ exams. Unfortunately we don't live anywhere near any grammar schools.

My neighbour investigated other options and decided to try her for a bursary place at local independent schools. The family are local authority council tenants, former refugees. One parent is able to work full time and works a minimum wage job. The other parent works for minimum wage, part-time, their hours are fitted around their children's school/ nursery hours.

The daughter sat 3 exams and was offered a place at 2x schools (Channing and Francis Holland (I'm unsure which site). However neither school offered her a bursary, as such this extremly bright little girl is now on her way to the local underperforming comprehensive school in September, 2022.

I understand that bursary pots are finite, and there will always be many deserving applicants each year.

I'm particularly interested however in understanding which types of applicants are offered bursaries. I was surprised by my neighbour's experience and I guess I'm trying to rationalise it. If this little girl was not found worthy, can someone venture ideas on which types of applicant are.

Many thanks for reading.

Well, there are holidays abroad and holidays abroad. Are you talking three weeks in the Maldives or a week's package holiday in a cheap hotel in Spain or bargain flights to a property owned by a friend or family and costing very little or maybe just a holiday to visit family abroad? No, it would not necessarily break the terms and conditions. Schools don't necessarily think that a bursary family should not occasionally go on holiday. Do you even know that the family paid for the holiday themselves?

The bursary is to fund education and to ensure that the provision of that education doesn't mean that the family has to go without things that a normal family might be expected to enjoy once in a while. A bursary family would be able to enjoy a yearly holiday that doesn't cost a ridiculous amount without forfeiting the bursary.

If one parent is not working at all I'm guessing there's a reason for this, as most schools would expect anyone capable of work to work. The bursary process is detailed and intrusive and absolutely capable of picking up someone who is gaming the system.

Full and clear answer from @BonjourCrisette. I’m wondering, @Habsmummy, whether you are the holidaying family, or whether you’re looking to ‘dob someone in’ because you don’t think they deserve the financial awards?

As pointed out above, family holidays are an experience that one would want every child to have - and an independent school would not want any pupil’s life to be so far removed from that of their schoolmates that they can find no cultural meeting point. As far as I recall, the bursary application guidance I’ve seen mentions ‘frequent costly / extravagant holidays’ as being inimical to the awarding of a bursary. That doesn’t mean children are expected to spend every two month long summer vacation sitting in a hole in the ground eating worms …

At my son's school a bursary requirement is that both parents work full time to avoid people gaming it by artificially reducing their income.

Both the schools you mentioned are also not that wealthy in the grand scheme of independent schools and won't have that many students on full bursaries (I don't know this for sure, but I would guess). Girls independent schools tend to have less cash in endowments than the big boys ones, so all their income comes from fee income and they have to raise bursary funds themselves. Lots choose these days to give full not partial bursaries as it attracts the genuinely deserving, which means she might have only been competing for 2 or 3 bursary places in a year group. Someone else might know more about exactly how many bursary students they have in each year group at Channing and Francis Holland. Did they apply to mixed schools? Because e.g. Highgate would have more kids on bursaries. And South Hampstead now has a big fundraising drive for more places, so it's 10% of the cohort as goal for full bursaries moving forward.

Certainly no local independent day school can compete with the traditional boys’ full boarding schools in terms of financial heft. Had the OP’s neighbour been born a boy she would have stood a good chance of a 100% bursary to the place over the bridge from Windsor. Lots (or at least a sizeable number) of children have those …

How much can you earn and get a bursery?
We have a good income but could never afford private school fees. Mortgage, bills etc make it impossible.
But I hear all the time on Mumsnet about them. Are the state comps full of all the squeezed middle class families now with super rich and poor in private?

Highgate doesn't have that many actually. There's a huge drive to increase numbers but they spend most of that money on outreach with schools like London academy of excellence Tottenham etc

Yes both parents have to work plus they expect you to have approached grandparents etc

This isn't true for all schools. Certainly grandparents' finances play no part in a bursary award at my daughter's school. And although they do expect people to work where possible, they also recognise that specific family circumstances may make this difficult or even impossible in some cases.

Obviously comprehensive schools are not full of all the squeezed middle with all the rich and poor in private schools. For a start, you have to pass the entrance exam for most private schools and some of them are extremely selective. I would guess that any that are not academically selective will not have the money to spend on bursaries in the same way.

The amount you can earn depends very much on the school and on location. For instance, at my daughter's school in London a family can be bringing in up to £110K before becoming ineligible. I guess a family on £110K would be unlikely to get a full bursary though. The only way to say for certain if you would be eligible is to contact the schools and ask. They will be happy to discuss the criteria with you if you tell them about your finances. They are obviously aware that families need somewhere to live and that rent/mortgage payments and living expenses can be pretty high in some areas of the country.

I think the message of this thread is that individual schools have different policies and different resources to fund bursaries.