Bursaries - why not get rid of them and offer wider participation to more children?

[gramercy]

I have seen quite a few threads recently where people are asking how to get bursaries.

Well, many many of us would like a nice bursary, thanks, but because we earn a modest salary are not able to qualify.

Meanwhile, some people get bursaries in spite of the fact that their official income is a very small part of the real picture. Eg I know someone whose dh is a primary school teacher. She has 6 children, is SAHM. First two dcs are attending private school with full fees paid. Now, this dh used to work in the City. They live in a 6-bedroomed house, have holiday homes in France and Cornwall - so I rather doubt their sole income is the dh's salary.

Now, wouldn't it be much better if private/public schools were urged (forced!) to offer, in order to retain their charitable obligations, things that would benefit a much larger group of children. Music, sport and, say, masterclasses in university entrance come to mind.

I see that many county music services are making cut-backs and so state-school pupils will lose out in this area - how much better for a private school to provide musical involvement to a large number of children rather than pay the fees of one child.

I feel I should know this but don't! Is there a difference between a bursary and a scholarship?

Scholarships are based on aptitude, Bursaries are based on parental income.

Of course! Music scholarships etc.

There presumably has to be a balance between doing proper due diligence and stalking innocent people. Some will always be able to find exotic ways to scam and beat the system, but you can't over-engineer the sytem to catch every cheater, but enoguth to be seen to beign as fair as is reasonable.

As I said the bursary Im involved in is at a major school,so lots of applicants and we have to be very thorough,not going into details but lets just say you get a feel for people and its not too difficult to check things like credit cards etc but we adapt the checks to individual circumstances.
The people trying to fiddle are usually not half as clever as they think they are

I have two ds at different independent schools on bursaries, I had to fill in very long forms and provide lots of evidence, for my youngest ds I also had a home visit ,I suppose had I got any I could have hidden the family silver! In any situation there will always be a few who will attempt to fiddle the system and as those few tend to be the ones people know about a lot of people assume anyone applying is doing the same.

From what I've seen the set up is very thorough but actually it?s not set up to deal with people on low incomes at all. It seemed to be very much aimed at understanding the middle income, middle class.

Most of the form wasn't applicable to us, and we don?t have the sort of proof expected because we?re not at the credit card passport level, but had to show proof of every regular expenditure we make, and account for every last £1 of our income, which isn?t hard as we do know exactly where what goes.

They included proof of all the obvious things about sources of income, rent, C/T, utilities etc.

But several hours of questions and exlaining documentation from all angles, and I think anyone spinning anything would trip.

Amongst things required: age, model, make of vehicle, (23yr old banger) tax, insurance, fuel receipts, repairs, holidays (dreaded Sun 9.50pp specials) receipts for medical supplies-wheelchair tyres, food receipts for three months, household repairs, phone, internet dongle, book costs, education supplies. (If we?d had a tv, license cost required) All activities kids did, and even asked for receipts for Gaz refills of ?the man in the van? (who I'd like to see them ask for a receipt! :o) All our car parts come from the scrapyard who aren?t big on receipts and launderette costs aren?t provable either, but it all has to go in with or without proof and be balanced up to see if things hold water, and I got the feeling they knew what they where doing.

It felt like intensive scrutiny and tbh rather intrusive, but it?s their party we?d like to go to, so fair play they call the shots.

I assume they then go off and do credit checks and have a good old nose about everything they can, and probably have 'old boys' in every corner of everything who can access stuff but I doubt they'd be announcing that. :)

Re the O/P bursary places don?t mean an independent school laying out thousands a term on a child, they mean everyone squeezing up and allowing an extra child into the classroom, actual cost in additional materials etc is probably minimal, and translated into cash for whole schools is soon diluted, but benefit to that child and potentially its whole family are enormous.

Taking that away and saying instead they should have to pay out hard cash to improve state funded schools which most of their parents already fund, because some parents may have successfully cheated to get their kids in, seems like fining them for their existence to me.

O/P would you take away bursaries from forces children? The majority of them require some form of bursary for their parents to afford to send them to a boarding school, which for their education is vital and offers stability to a very unstable lifestyle. Our school offers very good bursaries to forces children and they in turn provide an insight into the pressures put on our armed forces and their families by our government for the rest of us. Some children in my DDs yr 5 class have attended 4 or 5 schools before joining our school and having the peace of mind that now they won't move school again.

Obviously there are special cases.

And I quite see how it is cost effective for a school to include one more child, and also see how the parents might be miffed if oiks were getting to use facilities they had paid money for, but, nevertheless, I still find bursaries .

Aside from the clear-cut cases (parents died; illness of breadwinner etc) how can you possibly judge who is poorer and more deserving than someone else? Why is someone who has been prudent and paid down their mortgage behind in line the person who has lived high on the hog? Is the one-bedroomed flat-dweller with no mortgage less deserving than the person who took on a massive mortgage on a 5-bedroomed house?

And although Propatria may be very stringent in applying bursary considerations, I do think a fair few are able to slip through the net.

I have experience of applying for a bursary and have to say it was pretty comprehensive. We had to provide reams of paperwork. TBH - it would have been very hard to have coverd anything up had we been so inclined. As we are pretty damn skint - we didnt need to cover anything up at all.

It was also reviewed annually - backed up with paperwork galore.

We also signed something along the lines to say if we got found lying we would be bound to pay back all we had gained through the fraud.

Forces children already benefit from the continuity of education allowance,they certainly wouldnt rank highly in the list of deserving cases for a bursary on top,I realise small private schools rely on the cea but that is enough in my opinion.

DDragon gosh - that sounds impossible to provide - who keeps food receipts? Also, raises interesting questions - if someone has mortgages to the hilt for a big place, and got car loans etc and so minimal disposable income, how does that compare with someone on the same salary who has got a tiny house and no car in order to spend their cash on school fees...
Propatria - reassuring to know that schools are on the ball tho re scammers - at our school there is a lot of fundraising for bursaries, both by parents AND children, we would all probabaly be much less enthusiastic to do that if we thought people were able to get away easily with trying it on.

Psst - MrsGofG - OT (any more letters here?) - he got in! Bursary unlikely though!

(SG ('tis me Mrs GofG thinly disguised in my seasonal name) - fantastic!!!!!!!! Champagne is on ice - we need to celebrate wildly with our mutual friend who had same news!!!!!! Delighted (but not surprised - knew your DC would do it) to know we have several more years of being the last to leave the parenrs's social evenings....)

Ican only speak for the bursary Im involved with but lifestyle is important so if you have mortgaged to the hilt,large car etc-that is your choice,you have decided to spend your money in that way,we wont be subsidising any private education for your children,

Propatria, I know our school gives the forces children a bursary ontop of their CEA allowance to take them upto paying only 10% of the fees, those with 2 or more children say this is invaluable as otherwise they wouldn't be able to pay the fees at our school, they are a lot more than the CEA allowance. I also know that a lot of the schools my forces friends looked at also gave bursaries ontop of the CEA allowance, not huge ones but just guarantees that they would only be paying the minimum 10% of published fees that the mod says they must, think it is the same as the rest of us negotiating discounts for 2nd,3rd kids etc!!! So maybe calling them bursaries is a little ott maybe they are more like incentives to join the school. BTW I wouldn't want your job of deciding who gets a bursary, must be very tough especially when telling people no :)

Us state school parents can probably pay for our children's music lessons if county music service are cut. After all, if you're not shelling out on private school fees then you've got 12k per child to spend on music lessons, sports stuff and trips.

Having said all that, many state school parents would not be able to find the money for music lessons and I am also rather proud that I got to Grade 8 viola entirely with free school lessons.

I think it's really sad about music in schools. It isn't just the lessons, the music services run all the groups like orchestras, bands etc. so even if the kids get private lessons they won't be able to play as much and it won't be as much fun for them.

And is the same with drama.

Some of the best parts of my (state) education were the arts, my career has had nothing to do with the arts but reckon it added massively to my enjoyment of education.

builder - that's really good to get so far with school lessons! I got to G8 violin but switched to private lessons part way through. Still regret chucking it in.

Dozer, you are right about the music services running such great groups.

My happiest sixth form memories are of the County Youth Orchestra residential training weeks. Although my career has been in science, it was the orchestral stuff that sticks in the memories.

We practised hard all day and ran riot round our county towns in the evening. It was good to meet people from other schools.