anyone been given assisted place at private school?

[dinny]

would like to hear any exp, thanks

Do you mean the traditional Govt scheme which I think may have gone now or school- funded bursaries which private schools, ours included, are thinkign of setting up as aprt of the charity status criteria ? afaik they will be 7+ (Year 3) at the earliest.

I had a bursary when I went to private school. I think my parents had half off my fees. I had to sit an entrance exam to qualify for it.

I had an assisted place, and went to an independant school, but the scheme was abolished when Labour got into office unfortunately. My experiences were good on the whole although my Dad was fundamentally opposed to private education and refused to have any interest or input into my schooling the entire time I was there.

Assisted places don't exist any more do they? Thanks to the wonderful Labour government.

There are bursaries, but - certainly with our local independents - they are only available to people on really low incomes (less than £13,000 family income).

There are scholarships, but they are never for the full amount.

The well-off will be able to afford the full fees, but if you are an ordinary middle-class family who just can't quite manage them, you're stuck in the middle.

My parents are the 'ordinary middle class family' that you are talking about unquietdad, my parents both degree educated in skilled jobs/management but we couldn't have afforded fees. Having said that, I got a bursary 20yrs ago so don't know what the situation is now.

Assisted places were abolished in 1997. Independent schools do offer bursaries now and my DS got one for about 25% of fees when I was a SAHM. When I returned to work the bursary decreased. DH's salary then was well above £13k - but the salary limit will vary widely from school to school and on the numbers applying for places.

I think most independent schools are offering bursaries 'as a public benefit' now in order to validate their charitible status (as if educating half million children without recourse to government funds isn't a public benefit).

No assisted places any more. This government is convinced that state schools provide everything your child needs (well, they probably do, if the state school in question is the Oratory...)

We earn too much to qualify for bursaries at our children's school, but not enough to easily afford the fees. We struggle, even with grandparental input (increasingly seen as a way of keeping inheritance tax out of the Chancellor's pocket) and are about to remortgage the house in order to free up some capital. To qualify for a bursary at their school, we'd have to be on a very, very low income.

My (independent) school offered lots of assissted places when they were about, but when they knew the scheme was coming to an end they had a colossal charity drive to set up a fund so they could offer full-fees scholarships or at least bursaries (part fees) for the same no. of girls per year as the assisted places scheme had. Still going, working well.

They did (and do) offer full-fees schols on academic and music grounds and various bursaries on basis of academic achievment, sport, art or music regardless of income, but obv competition is tough.

IME the older schools or ones that are part of a larger foundation (city corporations, cathedrals, livery companies, the military etc) tend to have a bit of funding from 'historic' sources that they can be a little bit flexible about using.

This is very interesting. We would love to go the Independent route for our 2 dd`s in senior school, but are very unsure if it will be financially viable. We have around £2,500 coming in every month currently. (Including the pittance I make durning school hours) Dh earns around 36k net. We should be mortgage free in just over a year, so will be able to save a fair bit then, but it still may not be possible going on the fee levels in the area. Our nearest Independent is St Leonards Mayfield. Great school, but completely unattainable unless we make some serious money in the next few years. Next nearest is St Bedes in Hailsham, but weve also looked into Moira house, Battle Abbey & Lewes old grammar. Does anyone know if any of these schools offer decent bursaries to people on that sort of income?

Assisted places were aboslished - aided places (which I had when I was at private school) weren't AFAIK.

I'd heard that at Christ's Hospital school in Sussex, the fees were on a scale depending upon your ability to pay (means tested if you like), however this is a Boarding school only.

Government assisted places no longer exist. Many, if not all school run burseries/ give scolarships. But these are funded by the school and not the government

Will do no harm to write/ring and ask all of them, Sparkle, but bear in mind that boarding costs a hell of a lot more than day.

Just from looking at the websites, Lewes, St Bedes and St Leonards offer merit-based schols, and St Bedes mentions bursaries in cases of financial need.
Moira House doesn't even have an entrance exam so I guess they're not into merit-based awards so much.

Some of our local independent schools are linked to the Whitgift foundation. Around half the parents pay less than full fees either through scholarships or bursaries. At the bottom of this page is a table which indicates the fees paid according to family income, so there is some discount up to about a household income of £48k (each school has different fees though). As I understand it, across all 3 of the schools about £5m per year is given via bursaries.

It still isn't cheap by any means, but it is at least possible. And you can have a scholarship and a bursary at the same time which also helps.

I wouldnt want the girls to board, so Christs Hospital isnt an option for us. Have already sounded out Lewes old Grammar & got quite a hopeful response. They said they would be able to offer a bursary for one of my dd`s at least (dont know how much) because there are so few girls in that year group. St Bedes is my favourite so far because its not selective & fairly close to where we live. They dont start until 13, (although they have a junior school in Eastbourne that goes up to 13) so we could possibly start them off at our local comp & move them on then. Id prefer not to do that, but it would give us another 2 years to save up in. Have no idea if either of them would be able to win a scholarship. Probably not, bearing in mind that they would be mainly competing against other children who have been privately educated or tutored from the beginning.

Wish we lived in Croydon Ladymuck.

Ladymuck - my dh and his brother went to Whitgift, great school (then anyway )

My daughter currently has a scholarship and bursary to her school. We are on a VERY low income and are VERY lucky (and appreciate this).

DD is in Year 5 currently. The secondary schools in the area don't offer anything like the amount we currently have though.

SparklePrincess, at the risk of offending anyone who does live in Croydon, trust me, you don't really wish that you could live there .

hello, haven't revisited this thread yet. um, basically, really want dd and ds to go to the prep school and secondary school that me and all my Dad's side of the family have been to. have been speaking to both and they have ben encouraging me to apply for assisted places (if need's be, we may be OK). just wondered if anyone had an esp, so good to get so many responses. because we have a lot of history at the schools, am hopeful and certainly headmaster's sec was enouraging. (this is a bursary given at schools' discretion).

thanks for that post. have just had lovely letter from headmaster included with reg form etc saying he hopes will we apply and looks forward to meeting the chidren!! prob just a standar letter but the sec said she was going to speak to him re our situation.

a long shot, but worth trying!

dinny, hope it works out for you and your children