How many working class or families receiving benefit would you find

[morethanpotatoprints]

In fee paying selective schools?
Or how many do you know?

I'm really referring to those who are one or maybe two steps from the breadline.

If you are one of these families do you think you would mix well with the parents at these types of school?

No personal experience, but my Mum went to public school on a full scholarship that she got because she was very bright.

She was a boarder and absolutely hated it.

oh and she was poor and from the east end of London.

Summerends

I haven't spoken to the bursar yet but have read the general section of fees and the FAQ section.
It is purely income and no account is taken for mortgage or fees for other children.
I think it is done to make it fair for all. If you are a high earner I suppose they think you are likely to have higher outgoings, so you can earn a lot before you pay the full fees.
They do include all income not just earned, things like interest, bonus, unearned income, dividends if you are in business etc.

Summerends

Hello again.

I thought I'd check out the exact amount, and unless tour income is 190k you don't pay full fees. No wonder so many receive bursaries. . From what people have said on this thread I'm beginning to realise that this school is unique and dissimilar to many other fee paying schools.
Having never been in this position before and having no one in our family ever attend a private/or selective/ school I was totally unaware how most operated. I feel like I have learned a lot.
I am looking forward to some freedom if she attends and wasn't trying to appease you with my answer. I am looking forward to some voluntary work or very low paid job

morethan that's interesting, it is a well supported school!
Workwise, I was thinking that if she was your last child you might welcome keeping busy whilst she was away boarding. The difference an extra salary makes to income thresholds would however obviously have to be taken into account for this school.

summer of course bursars take into account major outgoing e.g. mortgage rent etc. providing the cost is reasonable, so for example they are happy for you to rent/pay the mortgage on an average house, ours has three bedrooms but not a 15 bedroomed pile, drive a reliable safe car but obviously not a brand new Aston and also pay into a pension scheme life insurance etc providing its a reasonable and yes some take other children's fees into consideration.
In my now long and extensive experience of bursaries they don't expect parens or children to walk around in sack cloth and ashes live on Value baked beans and drive a death trap. Bursaries are just number crunching excersise, at my DS's school they do the following, you earn X and to function and survive pay out Y leaving Z, we ask you to contribute a % of Z, for assets you contribute 10% of their value towards the fees, even if its not realisable, so if you have 50k you will have to contribute 5k to the annual school fee bill.
The problem arises when the school having done the maths simply doesn't have enough money in the pot to offer you the reduction the sums indicate would be enough to enable you to send your DC to the school. We're just lucky my DS's boarding school which is super selective offers substantial bursaries to scholars and non scholars and the bursary pot is generous and therefore bursary generous.

middleclass

I know you are familiar with bursaries and I could be wrong, but it does clearly state that property is not taken into consideration or mortgage, fees paid for other children. They don't seem to be interested in your out goings but as I said up thread they are interested in every penny the household earns, any profit made etc. They don't take into account assets I believe, but could be wrong here, I must check.
I am only just becoming familiar with it myself and don't know much as we didn't see the bursar. I thought we'd wait until nearer the time we were considering applying.
If the thread diminishes soon I will pm you and let you know as you have been kind enough to offer support and your knowledge

I think that very badly off parents can have a real advantage in applying for bursaries. A private school near us says in its publicity that it offers up to 100% bursaries. But if you apply for a bursary they ask what equity you have in your house (if you own one), and a vast number of other detailed financial questions. You then get offered a bursary that doesn't enable you to send your child to the school unless you completely change your way of life - eg move to as small a house as possible, next to the school so you don't have to pay for DC's bus fare, never go on holidays, etc etc. Unless you are prepared to sacrifice everything you have to enable your DC to go to the school, it is not an option. However, if you don't own your house, are on income support and housing benefit, etc, then you may actually get a 100% bursary and you can accept it without putting yourself into abject poverty, as you are in abject poverty already.
I gather that there are many very poor children at Christ's Hospital, for this kind of reason.

Dromedary my Mum went to Christs hospital, the one in Hertfordshire.

House value taken into account here

Plus other parents dobbing in bursary parents who suddenly turn up with new car and skis

morethan every school is different as you are applying to a specialist school where funding is likely to come from an external body like the Art Council then different rules are perhaps being used but most independent schools look at assets, mortgage/rent, etc. otherwise you could have 1000 000 in assets and why should you receive financial help? A friend applied to CH they had a 2 nd home (in London) with a very small mortgage on it their application was turned down and they were told to sell the house end use this to pay the fees. I know of someone else who applied for a bursary having recently purchased a 13 bedroomed house and the size of the mortgage meant they couldn't afford the fees, the school (a very famous boarding school) told then to downsize to an average house reduce their mortgage repayments and then come back to them if it was still a struggle, one bursar told me he looks at the cars people drive, turn up in a brand new Range Rover and he's going to be asking lots of questions, home visits are also done by many schools to check that your are living in an average house (although with google maps I'm not sure why), and we have a whole page on our annual application forms about costs of other children including a specific question about school fees. This is IMO fair. Dromedary we don't live in the smallest possible house! Next to the school, we have one holiday a year, and have what most would say is a good income. We do complete an extensive form every year but as we get a substantial reduction I think this is fair too.

When I was 4 my very poor parents looked at applying for scholarships for me in the closest private schools 12 miles away. They didn't as they wouldn't have been able to afford the daily bus fares. Private schools tend to be a fair distance from poor areas and without a car, public transport is very expensive.

My DS boards so transport to school is not an issue but on our bursary application form there is space for "other expenses" and I know that some schools who are very committed to widening access will pay for transport, trips, uniform etc.
Grennie it's all about the size of the bursary pot, if you sit most bursary down I'm sure they would say they would like to be more generous, and cover the costs transport uniform etc but the reality is that they just don't have enough money in their bursary pots and many I suspect take the view that they'd rather give smaller reductions to three than a 100% reduction to 1.

How much is a certain private school worth to a parent? Eg parent 1 earns £100K net pa. Feels it is clearly worth spending £15K on school fees as there is loads left over for other things.
Parent 2 earns £50K pa. Can afford the fees quite easily, but is starting to question whether the private school education is worth that much.
Parent 3 earns £30K pa. Could get by while paying the school fees, but it would be a constant struggle and nothing could be put by for university fees. Probably decides not worth it.
Parent 4 earns £20K pa. Is offered a 50% bursary. This would leave the family constantly struggling. Probably decides not worth it.
Parent 4 is unemployed and on benefits. Cannot afford any fees. The child is offered a full bursary. This is a win only situation, bursary grabbed with both hands.

The parent who is so poor that their child qualifies for a full bursary is in the simplest, most attractive (as far as school choices are concerned) position. Their bright child will go to private school, whereas someone on a modest income with the offer of a part bursary is much more likely to turn it down.

Parent 3 earns £30K pa. Could get by while paying the school fees, but it would be a constant struggle and nothing could be put by for university fees. Probably decides not worth it.

I'd be surprised anyone could afford full school fees on 30k pa btw
or even 50k really

Dromedary I can see you point and you right it's about choices we would obviously -be lying in a beach in the Seychelles three times a year-- much better of if we sent our DS's to one of our many excellent state options but it is all about choice. We wish for our DS to have all the opportunities and experiences he currently gets and are prepared to pay for it we just can't stretch to 33K + a year.

maybe if you had ONE child

I'd be amazed anyone thought it would be worth the hassle at 30k

You'd have to have a tiny mortgage and eat beans every night (literally)

Dromedary - most schools do an annual review of bursaries, so parent 4 would have to remain on benefits in order to qualify for a full bursary each year. With benefit rules and back to work schemes it is likely that parent 4 will be in employment sooner or later and will therefore have to contribute towards school fees. I think your idea that parent 4 is grabby and in a better position than the others is unfair. Do you have a problem with bursaries? Do you think a child should be denied a place solely because their parents are unfortunate enough to be unemployed at the time of application to the school?

We send two
Earn considerable more than 30k pa

Still counting the pennies at the end of each month

Try again we would be lying on a beach in the Seychelles three times a year much better off....

We'd have a bigger house
better cars
nice clothes
holidays - just holidays not necessarily the Seychelles
less financial worry

constnatly asking myself why the hell we do it to be honest and then one of them comes home so pleased with school and themselves or something they've done/won/written and it all seems worth it

just

The tragedy is that more people on benefits etc. don't get help. But I can see that many bursar/school governors take the view it's better to fund three children than 1 the system will never be perfect.

Craggy we've grappled with this for over 10 years and in retrospect there have definitely been times when it definitely wasn't worth it. Currently I believe it's worth every penny after all it's not forever. We'll have done 12 years on a bursary by the end, over 200k spent!

we dont get a bursary because we own the property that our business is in

not that we could sell it anyway so we are stuffed really

If I could do it again I wouldnt bother with prep and would do state until year 7

I agree that the fees alone are 30k for boarding and 23k for day, so the 30k and 50k earners couldn't afford full fees.

I do agree though if parents are unemployed and on benefits they receive a full bursary, uniform, travel and other subsidies.

Then fees are paid on a sliding scale after this. So the next income level will only have to pay a small percentage, and on it goes.

It is a mine field and short of sending all our details to the bursar, I'm not sure how we will know whether we can afford fees or not. In our case its not straight forward as dh has a LTD company, so will need to find which figures/boxes on the tax return they need.

It will be too bad if after all this we have to tell dd we can't afford it anyway, she'd be heart broken. I'm not too confident at the moment