To not want my personal financial affairs to be pored over by randoms?

[MxGrinch]

i am looking into getting DC into a private school as he is way too clever for his state school.

I knew of one in the next county and discovered they had academic scholarships for Yr9 entry. Had to register with them (non returnable £100 fee! we are a low income family) and arrange for DC to take the entrance test and scholarship assessments which he’ll be doing next month.

I’m obviously nowhere near as clever as DS as I thought a scholarship meant the fees would be paid! It seems they are only 10-20% paid so we will need to apply for a bursary.

I was sent the application form last week and need to return it tomorrow.

They want so much personal information such as 3 months bank statements, full income and expenditures, children’s income and expenditure. debts, car reg and value etc.it’s really flipping complicated and will take ages.

I know they need to assess whether we can afford the fees but seeing as there is no guarantee DC will even pass the entrance test, this is not information I want to share at this point as it may not go any further.

Theg have said if we don’t return it by tomorrow DC may not get a bursary at all.

AIBU to not want to give loads of private info until DS is actually offered a place?

I think he sounds like he could get to Oxbridge DS was similar and has just gone this last October. But he did it from a SS state school.

Let’s hope they don’t fail the exam now!

Yes, this is true if you're looking at the bigger picture.

But if you're looking at the experience for the individual, then being in a school with other high achievers, high expectations and excellent resources can easily be a better learning environment for that individual.

FWIW I don't believe in private education in a political sense. I think we should close the private schools. If the rich people had to send their DC to state school, you can bet the government would suddenly find the money to properly resource them.

But, do DC in the private school have to read photocopies of extracts because they can't afford to give each DC a book like in my DC's school? (Actually they probably get parents to buy them, but every child has a book).

Are they constantly short of supplies and asking the parents to donate things like glue sticks? No.

Three schools in this town have swimming pools: two are private, one is state. On paper, equal, right? But the reality is the private schools have Olympic sized pools, the state school has a 10m pool that's constantly closed as they can't afford the repairs. Not equal.

My DC's state schools are wonderful and their teachers brilliant, on the whole, and doing an amazing job under difficult circumstances. That doesn't mean they might not get more opportunities in private schools though.

Way too clever for state school? Nice.

This!

he is way too clever for his state school

Riiight.

At a family members private school the scholarship/ bursary pupils are known as “the chavs” 🙄. so watch out….

😂😂😂

@TheaBrandt utter crap. Scholarships reflect ability and are given to the most talented students disregarding their financial circumstances. That’s why they generally only give a very small fee remission and sometimes are “honorary” with no fee remission whatsoever.

Op, I'm not sure you've understood completely what private schools are.

Private schools are for RICH children. No difference in their intellect.

You need a selective school. Who select on academic ability. Some will be private. In the state sector, these are available - they're called Grammar Schools.

Through my job, I know hundreds of teachers - the teachers are not better at private schools, often the opposite, but the resources are, generally, and class sizes smaller.

I work in a private school. I'll ignore the controversial stuff and tell you a bit about the process.

First off, the £100 absolutely won't have covered the full cost of running the admissions process for your child. That's particularly true of a bursary applicant. The bursary process is complicated and time consuming, whether a school does it in-house or outsources it. But we obviously don't want to charge more for those applicants, because they're the least likely to be able to afford it.

On the main question, the reason we need to have the info first is because of the timings. It takes a good couple of months to complete all the bursary assessments. When we offer places, our candidates are often holding offers from multiple schools. They need to decide within a couple of weeks whether to accept each offer, and then pay a deposit. When an applicant either turns down our offer, or turns us down later post-deposit, then we have to offer to another student to fill that gap (all schools over-offer, but you can't do it by that much). If we were assessing bursaries post offer, then we'd have lots of those families turning down our offers a couple of months later once we'd given them a bursary decision (because we can't give them all as much discount as they want/need). We would then have to fill those places - but other families would already have accepted offers elsewhere. Now, we're a very sought-after school, but we've still got lots of competition, and although there are plenty of parents who will forfeit their deposit to accept a late offer from us, there are plenty of others who won't.

There's also the impact on the pupil. Lots of our bursary applicants withdraw when they get their bursary decision (because we've only got so much money to offer), so that their child doesn't have the stress of sitting the exams and the false hope of a place, if there's no prospect of their parents being able to afford it. If we assessed post-exam, then there would be lots more disappointed children.

And yes, we get lots of either ridiculously over-optimistic or downright fraudulent bursary applications, so I'm afraid we do need all that detail.

Hope that helps explain things.

Lossy I know 🙄 I’m just reporting what the other little darlings call them. It’s not utter crap. My 13 year old niece casually referred to bursary pupils as that to my same age Dd who was horrified! Sure the parents and teachers blissfully unaware!

If he’s that clever then of course he’ll pass 🙄

If he is so bright, he should walk it and he should get the scholarship, so you actually have nothing to lose by completing the form?

Are there any state grammar schools or super selective grammar schools in your area or neighbouring counties your son could test for?
Private schools are NOT for clever people! It won’t be any more academic than an outstanding state school and in fact probably will be less so.
Im not sure where you have got the idea that people with money = bright children? Yes, their are smaller classes there but they still teach to the majority and if your son is 2 years ahead academically then he will still be bored, or if they move him up, feel incredibly out of place with kids aged 16.
We have super elective grammar schools in my area. They are literally for the top 1-2% of academically able kids. If your son were my child I would have looked into moving to another area with grammar schools.

Obvs he will ACE the entrance exam if he's Too Clever For State School 😃 😀
Dies he get it from you??

The thing is OP, thems the rules, innit. Play or don’t but the only person paying the price for your privacy is your DC.

Have a think about that.

Just seen the OP has done the form.

Well done OP.

I hope your DS flourishes, whichever school he is at.

Haven't RTFT but if your child is 'gifted' aren't there special schools for such children? I think they are usually boarding schools but I could be wrong.

www.goodschoolsguide.co.uk/choosing-a-school/educating-the-gifted-child

Look OP, just appoint your kid the president of the world and be done with it. He’s too clever for the private school and you’re too precious to send in your financial information.

I feel a bit sorry for the Op. It's obvious that her son's school is not stretching him and he is bored. She has applied for the private school a bit late so everything has to be done in a rush. She didn't understand the procedure presumably because she hadn't gone through it before. It's not unreasonable to expect an exam before financial assistance is discussed.

Could you go to the school and speak to his form teacher? He needs extra support just as someone who is struggling does.

Why get them into private schools? For uni? To get top marks and into a big co where everyone is MISERABLE??? Allow your kids a childhood and they’ll be grateful for it and not complain about the pressure and hell once they’re old enough to have a therapist!

@TheaBrandt well your DN is not a very nice person is she. My life experience has taught me that there are not very nice people in all walks of life. You have experience of one private school and I have experience at another. At my DC’s private school the scholarships are highly prized as everyone wants to be the best. The highest prize though is for those that get into the super selective grammar (like my DS1) as the kids know that is the most difficult school to get into. I have never witnessed any pupil or parent say anything negative about a family’s personal circumstances. It may very well happen but then it also happened in my comprehensive where I was laughed at because my dad had a shit car.

From my experience the academic bar is set much lower in private schools.

Have you an 11+ grammar school in your area?