Is it possible for a normal child from a normal school to get a bursary for a top flight private school?

[Hisnutsroastingonanopenfire]

Idly wondering while reading the thoughts on what schools the royal children will attend and I looked at the schools mentioned, their entrance policies, scholarship and bursary schemes. It's not possible, is it, for a state school educated child to make the leap from what they learn at school to being able to pass those exams. Why don't state schools educate their brightest pupils to these standards? Or coach their sporty pupils to this level? Or support performing arts?

Education is failing our children because of poor funding and we seem to be pulling for a race to the bottom which widens the gap into a complete canyon. What's the answer?

Because 1 in a million gets the 100% scholarship. We all hear the wonderful news of one kid but forget about it. The 95% state school kids don't stand a chance for a free private education.

You probably still earn too much for a bursary though.

I don’t think you understand the position: most private schools are charities, so they have to demonstrate “public benefit”, which they do via bursaries and allowing local schools to use their facilities (and not renting them).

Charities are businesses; they don’t make profit but reinvest any surplus in the core business. State schools are also exempt charities. The funding model of a private school is not in essence any different from a state school or academy, except for where the money comes from.

I also don’t think you quite understand contextual offers. The top universities do take contextual information into account, but they don’t make “contextual offers”. Contextual consideration (or offers, at universities which do make them), are largely only for those who are in very poor schools or postcodes compared to the national metrics, eg. POLAR 4/5 neighbourhoods, free school meals, in care, extremely low performing school, etc. They aren’t relevant to the vast majority of state university applicants.

Exactly. It's not about providing access to the average, bright kid. It's about finding a very small number of extremely bright children who can push the scores up.

No, not true!

Yes — though in many cases or areas the local state schools and local authority can’t or deliberately won’t provide a suitable education for these children either, so it isn’t as if there’s a great state option they’re turning down.

Sorry, correction, POLAR 1/2 neighbourhoods not 4/5!

This so most families can forget about funded private education. It's just a show for the few.

I think the more interesting question is why the charitable largesse of private schools is only offered to those children who are doing really well academically in the state sector, rather than those children who actually need input from an education charity - namely those children who are failing in the state sector.

Private education has always been about elitism and about entrenching and widening inequality. Always has been, always will be. You take those children who have the most in terms of money, brains, ability, parental support, and you lavish twice the spend on their education as the children who have less than all of these things.

Morally indefensible. Unfair to children.

With tutoring, there is no reason why this can't be done if the child is smart and sufficiently motivated. However, it is not at all a state school's responsibility to coach your child for a private school. State schools follow a national curriculum whiich has objectives for each year group and subject and you do not go beyond that. Private schools have their own curricula, some of which are more challenging and others less so. If that is what you aspire to, then you do the leg work and pay for the clubs and tutoring. It is not the state's responsibility.

There are plenty of charities which have restricted objectives: it’s been an essential part of charitable legislation for centuries.

Would you prefer that they don’t offer any bursaries and become profit-making businesses based only on ability to pay? That would widen the gap a lot further between the really rich and everyone else. (Presumably this is what the current VAT policy seeks to make happen.)

Or are you planning to abolish any private educational foundations whatsoever, because then swathes of tutoring/music lessons/professional colleges/dance schools/theatre schools/sixth form crammers/legal and professional training etc. all fall into that category? Is the state going to provide it all?

@Juliagreeneyes

Do your children attend fee paying schools?

Is this why you're so vigorously defending unfairness in our education system?

And noted the way you've jumped straight from what I said to "are you planning to abolish any private educational foundations", because, of course you have. Who's 'planning' anything of the sort? Nobody. Nobody is threatening the privilege of privately educated children, not even our current Labour government with their VAT plan.

"Would you prefer that they don’t offer any bursaries"

There's a number of things private schools could do - they could use the money they currently spend on bursaries to fund an extra member of staff for a local state school so all children benefit from their charitable largesse, rather than just one or two already very successful (usually middle class) bursary recipients. Or they could to fund free music/art/science lessons within the nearest state schools. Maybe targeting this provision on poorer, lower achieving children, who currently the the one demographic entirely missing from the entire mainstream private school estate.

Private schools could lower their fees by increasing their class sizes - at present the average private school class size is half that of the average state school class, and that's one reason why private school fees are so ridiculously high compared to state schools: because they have double the number of teaching staff per head of pupil. That would reduce inequality of provision between the state and private sector and open up the private sector for the families you're beating your breast about - middle class families with bright kids who think their kids are too clever for state school.

Huge amount of parent support and way more likely to be from dual parent households with middle incomes.

I'm a Rainbow leader and we have an exceptional little girl in Year 1. I spoke with her parent and asked if school were doing anything to support her and the school had said to the mum "she's so far ahead, we need to wait for the others to catch up".

My DD at the private school is very ahead but not as much as this little girl and they give her additional work, she does phonics in the year above and has 2 half an hour sessions a week with a TA to do additional work with her.

My daughter will most likely continue to fly. The other little girl will coast and become bored and dissatisfied in education.

Or are you just trying to convince yourself that your child will do better because you’re forking out for private? You don’t know anything about how this child’s life will turn out.

Same here, my son will be joining the school in Windsor (September 2025 Year 9 ) full funded. It is a dream come true. Everything is possible, if you release your child’s gift and nurture it.

@Eton2025 Many congratulations! Your ds will have a fabulous time.

Many of us pay for private schools because our children need smaller classes. We're not all rolling in it.

But the teens they know from the famous public school are not the sort you would want your child to know. To be fair the girls are fine it’s the boys. The things they come out with! Hideous.

@TheaBrandt you have posted this on practically every private v. state school thread and I guess you’re talking about Marlborough.
I have to say I’ve had the opposite experience and I’ve found the boys to be polite, pleasant and unsnobby - or certainly all those I met through my dd who was there.
If your dd is friends with children from another private school how do you come across so many Marlborough boys?

"Many of us pay for private schools because our children need smaller classes. We're not all rolling in it."

'Needs'?

As in, they struggle with learning more than your average child in a state school?

I think that there is a misunderstanding about bursaries, a friend’s son got offered a scholarship but it was 50% of the fees. They couldn’t afford even 50% and they own their own house/have reasonable jobs etc. So I do think it’s extremely unlikely a bright kid without a reasonable household income behind could get into a place, or if they do it’s probably under a 100 children a year across the whole system.

Yes.

@izimbra “unfairness in our education system”

There are lots of “unfairnesses” in any education system. Some children will be more able than others, and some will require more support than others. Some have sporting talents, are taller, run faster, some are good at music, some at drawing, some need support with maths, others find maths easy but need SEN support with behaviour or social skills, and so on. Ideally state education would provide good teaching and the right opportunities and support for all, from the kids requiring SEN support or literacy support to sports or music or drama opportunities and the right teaching from the least to the most able children.

Currently, that either doesn’t happen in the state sector, or only happens patchily. A lot of that is due to the differences in history, political affiliation, ideology and funding across different LEAs.

Would you prefer a grammar/comp system where the more able get hived off to academic state options? (Parents paying for private are often not in those areas.)

Or a catchment system where you get a better state school if you can afford a very expensive house nearby? (My area is like this. You are sniffy about the idea that my kid might be at private, but if we could afford an £800/900k house in the catchment of the best state school nearby would that be fine?) We can’t even remotely afford that, and have a lot less material advantage than many people around here, who have bought very expensive houses so they get into the best state option. Overall, much more expensive than paying school fees! I know many parents who earn a lot more than us, and are very disapproving of my DD going to a private school, but they talk endlessly about their £250k extensions to their £800k houses, and their three weeks of luxury holidays skiing and in Italy and Greece each year, that are easily more than the fees at DD’s school. Is that unfair? They’re also stopping poorer kids getting into that good catchment state school - is that better or worse than paying for private? More or less unfair? They could pay for private but choose not to. Either way, “unfair” to someone.

It’s all a lot more complicated than just “private bad/state good”. Ideally all state education would be great. But how does it serve the ideal of fairness and equity for my kid, or a child with different needs or reasons for going private, to be miserable and frustrated in a state school that won’t cater for them in any case? The VAT policy won’t address this: it will only further polarise the gap and put additional pressures on state schools and children in the state sector.

As happened in Greece when they tried to do the same. It’s crazy that we have a very recent example from a nearby European country of what happened when this policy was tried, and it’s still ignored by Labour and by uninformed commentators on the VAT issue.

"So I do think it’s extremely unlikely a bright kid without a reasonable household income behind could get into a place, or if they do it’s probably under a 100 children a year across the whole system."

Your figure of 100 isn't even close. Lots more than that receive full bursaries across the whole system. Christ's Hospital, for example, fully fund around 100 pupils, and that's just 1 school.

"Lots more than that receive full bursaries across the whole system. Christ's Hospital, for example, fully fund around 100 pupils, and that's just 1 school."

Only 1% of all bursaries awarded are full bursaries.

And almost all go to children who are high achievers from educated middle class families.

You know - the ones who already have their bums in the butter.

The fact that so much education charity is directed towards the winners in life's lottery is pretty grim, but then the whole point of the private school system is to entrench privilege.

It's why private schools are accurately perceived as 'the engines of inequality' in this country.

@Juliagreeneyes

The yearly 'spend' per head at the very best state schools in the country is half that of the average private schools.

The best state schools in the country still have around half the number of teachers than your average private school.

You want to point to the differences in investment in children's schooling and try to suggest there's some sort of parity between high performing state schools and private schools?

Don't be silly.