applying for bursary

[Frontpaw]

I am getting to the point where I think we may need to (buggery bollocks to that).

What info do they need to make a judgement?
We don't count every penny, but we aren't living it up! My worst 'crimne' is buying too many books from amazon! I guess we could spend less shopping... And cut after school clubs.

Would we need to prove that we are on queer street amd have no savings? We have tied up savings - so ISAs which are still worth diddly due to the recession. Mortgage isn't huge but we couldn't afford to sell and buy elsewhere. Car is an old banger and we don't pop off on holidays willy nilly!

Not sure you'd get a bursery on the information you have been given, sorry .

'bursary'

Is there a rough sum - you have X left over after bills, etc? Our income has about halved from three years ago!

They usually require details of ALL income, salary, interest on investments, bank accounts, benefits, etc etc, plus value of home & any other property owned, details of mortgage. This has to be supported by P60, wage slips, mortgage statements, bank statements, any other savings statements, basically everything except your inside leg measurement.

The actual amount awarded varies considerably from school to school, what I have seen is a sliding scale from 100% bursary at approx income of £15k per year to 10% at approx £50K.

this is what was on our form (2005)

Income
NIC
Tax
Pension
Separation or maintenance allowance
court orders
benefits in kind provided free by reason of employment
net worth/value of any business you own or have a share
Mortgage/rent
loans
credit cards
life assurance
private health insurance
house insurance
gas
electricity
water
sewage
telephone
mobile
council tax
sky tv
food
clothing
tv licence
motor expenses inc insurance and road tax
travel costs
personal entertainment
holidays
school fees
savings in buildings societies
Equity investments/government stocks
PEPs/ ISAs/ TESSAs
Market value of property home and abroad
Market value of any other insurance policies maturing in the last 5 years

Basically you account for every penny!

Bloody hell. Do they pay me for the ACCA qualificatiopn I will need?

If you are watching your spending you would know all of the expenses and investments so the only thing you will need to add is market value info.

Ours had a page on Second homes, art portfolio's, shares and equities, which quite shocked me!!

waaahahahahahah! Must pass on my tiara and bentley to the parlor maid for safekeeping then!

I suppose Athena print of the tennis girl scratching her butt will count? Or the monkey on the loo reading the ft?

I think we secured ours as soon as the bursar came for the home visit and had to sit in the kitchen as it's the only table in the house!!!!!

A home visit! Eek! My inner Hyacinth Bucket will be wrestling with the Ma Clampett.

Working out how much I spend on haircuts will be a fast calculation! And as for holidays! One nice trip every solar eclipse just about does it!

We also had to provide a detailed explanation of our contents insurance. As a guide, you would be expected to cash in any investments, both be working, and max out your mortgage FIRST before they look at you (where we are - may be different elsewhere).

Oh, our mortgage is beyond maxed! Gawd if they want the contents, that could take a while (think those shows where people pull all the crap out of their homes and declutter - we are the 'berfore')

Contents insurance? We don't have anything worth insuring and cant get it anyway as we live in a very high flood risk area or if we do get it the insurance is more expensive than the assets! When once completing a form we were asked to value of our assets not including cars; my DH wrote £1500 if you include the washing machine!
The interesting thing is that if we suddenly had more money (and left face it one day we might as the DC's cant stay at school for ever) we would not go on a spending spree; you discover that you don't actually need that much. One nice holiday a year maybe, a new sofa definitely but not much else. Before we embarked on paying the fees we had so much more junk stuff we're no worse off now for not having it.

I may have a gold tooth at the back there, if they are realy inteerested!

OP in your original post again you say you would "cut after school clubs." is this because you hoping your DC's will participate in the ones at school or just cut them out completely? The school ones you frequently have to pay for especially in a day school and I really don't think that schools want or expect you to do this. Ok maybe dump rounding up cattle in Arizona but not the riding lessons, hiking in the Himalaya is expensive but waking in the Lake District significantly less so. Education is not just about exams results this is why so many send their children to independent schools when they've got good, in terms of league tables and results, state schools on their door steps.

Just the usual - swimming, footie... Nothing very exciting or exotic I'm afraid (no pot holing in China or camel racing in Saudi).

No school will expect you to give these up and hopefully will provide them as part of the curriculum.

Having recently completed the forms for next years bursary I am surprised what is left out of our forms. We were asked salary, debts savings trusts funds investments shares private income (ha!) and realisable assets eg equity in a house I think including cars, other school fees. We are also asked about the size of our family the number of dependents etc. We were not asked about council tax, utilities, food, petrol, (a really big one for us as we live in a very rural location and both our jobs are at least a 70 mile round trip everyday, clothes, basic day to day expensive. This is how I believe it works at our school which is exceedingly committed to the concept of bursaries for all. Income/savings saleable assets etc X, outgoings mortgage, debts, school fees for other children Y, take Y from X then whatever is left over you get banded so if after all this you have between £10 000 and £20 000 left over you get a bursary of 50% (I'm making these figures up to try and illustrate my explanation). I recently looked at new job the salary increase would have been about £5000 pa on speaking to the bursar worried that it would effect our bursary he implied that we would remain in the same "band" thus the bursary would not be effected.

There is space on the form to add in other expenses and other things to be taken into consideration so I suppose we could add in our high petrol bill if we wanted to. Currently we are so grateful about the size of our bursary we haven't but if the cost of petrol keeps on rising we might have too because for us it is a very significant out going.
I'm under no illusions not all schools are as generous as or or as committed to widening access as our is this is why is why there is so much variation on bursaries and so many contradictory comments on MN.

You have to be prepared to spend time and effort filling in the forms provided and have all the information/ paperwork you need to provide the supporting evidence. I am an accountant and it took me days to fill in ours!! Also, you have to expect to have your financial life laid bare as if they find anything later that you haven't declared then your bursary will be void. Most bursars will arrange home visits just to check that you don't have a Rembrant on the wall or a Range Rover in the driveway. Also, expect that an updating report will be required annually e.g. P60/ tax return etc to ensure that you still "deserve" it.
However, although it is a lot of work up front- it can be the best investment of time you make if it means that you can get a bursary and give your child an opportunity they would otherwise be unable to access.

This is the interesting thing about bursaries in seven years of receiving very substantial bursaries we've never had a home visit or submitted a single bank statement! We completed a form about three months ago it took about 1 hour to do it as we don't have trust funds, second third fourth or fifth homes or even one home, savings, private income or 10 000 acres in the Highlands. The hardest bit was working out the value of our assets (not including cars); is it £1200 or if by assets we have to include the washing machine it's £1500.The school obviously think we deserve it as we just been given a 65% on £32000+.
Anyone who thinks its too much agro needs there head tested IMO. I do wonder if people who come out with comments like "its too intrusive" "too time consuming" deep down inside know that they don't meet the criteria and come out with this type of things as an excuse.

Yes, I agree middleclass . Although we did have a home visit for one of our dc schools. It does take a while to assess assets, especially the first time, but the bursar that did come round to see us explained that they are not too fussed with exact figures, just an idea of what you have. He did not want to see actual bank statements, but did see p60's and self employed accounts. Although we do own (with mortgage ) our house, it is nothing big or fancy.
He said they are looking for families with a positive and pro-active attitude towards educating their dc, and those who have made sacrifices to fund what they can towards school fees. Ie, not moving to a bigger house, not having fancy holidays etc.
ALso, we are a family that is full of pro musicians and artists, and we found that our local private schools offered much more in these subjects than our state schools. I think that helped to swing the decision too. We have a 50% and 25% discount.

I wish schools would do more forensic accounting. It irks me that people I know have bursaries but have a comfortable lifestyle financed by parents. Perhaps bursary hopefuls should have to wear a monitor for a year to check where they go on holiday/shop etc to see if there is money which is not earned income flowing into their home.

If you have a house worth say 400k, they will wonder why you don't sell to a cheaper one to fund the fees.

I think there are some people who want the bursaries AND the nice lifestyle.

I have one friend who is annoyed that we got a bursary and she wouldn't be eligible. This was said from her £500k house, on her return from skiing in Canada. Oh, and she has her shopping delivered from Waitrose!!!!!
She can't seem to see the difference between hers and ours lifestyles.