Private school: is it an option?

[Bookridden]

Would really welcome some advice from Miners. DD is aged 10 and in year 5. I've just had parents evening. DD is very hard working and keen to learn. She is average at maths, but her teacher considers her to be outstanding at reading and writing. The teacher asked us if we had considered applying to a private secondary school as she thinks that DD 's work in English is so exceptional that she might qualify for a bursary. She has shown DD 's writing to a teacher from a nearby public school and wanted to know if we would be happy to receive info from this private school teacher. She also recommended we check out a charity called Springboard.

Great to get such good feedback about DD, but my questions are this :

Are such bursaries available and who for?
Our household income is about £50k. Not enough to pay fees, but not life on benefits either. Surely we are too rich to be eligible?
Thirdly, DD is just average at maths; to qualify for these things, don't you have to be super-amazing across the board?

DD is a lovely, bookish, anxious to please kid from a pretty ordinary background. What are our options?

Thank you

[NWgirls]

OP, please ignore my last paragraph, I was "remembering" (muddling with) something mentioned on a different thread; apologies.

[iseenodust]

"The secondary schools in my town are not great (50% of kids get 5 GCSEs at our local school..."

You haven't said where you are so in case you re not in the leafy SE... DS goes to a decent academic independent school in Yorkshire. 10% of the pupils receive a bursary. Bursaries (up to 100%) are available where parental income is < £65k. There are no scholarships. It has a significantly more ethnically diverse student population than our catchment comp. The next nearest independent offers a range of scholarships for sport, art & drama as as well as academic excellence and in its centenary year offered seven 100% scholarships.

If your mind wavers in the coming months I would say go and visit some schools so you have accurate & up to date information relating to those that would be in travelling distance. Nothing to lose !

[MissWimpyDimple]

At the school we are applying for, scholarships are worth up to 20% of fees and are open to all entrants regardless of income etc.

Bursaries are available on a sliding scale (but also linked to academic performance) so if your child does well in the entrance exam AND your income is below £35k you could get up to 80% and the cut off for getting anything at all is £80k. So effectively, if you are low income and your child does very well, you could achieve 100% with a combination of bursary and scholarship.

It's a GDST school. See if there is one of those near you?