Can a child receive Pupil Premium funding at a private school?

[dairymilkisevil]

DD is at private school on a hefty scholarship and bursary.

I now receive child tax credit and have an income of £4K per year. I am separated very recently hence why I am now claiming.

Next school I hope to get DD into is a grammar and its admissions rules say that kids who are receiving pupil premium (ie, it says, those who receive free school meals) get priority admission. We are out of catchment otherwise, but it's a terrific school and it would be great if she could go there through this rule.

However, with DD currently being at private school, the fees there include lunch anyway. So she doesn't get free school meals because nobody there pays extra for them, IYSWIM.

So How I can improve to the grammar school that she is eligible for free school meals / pupil premium? Do private schools have access to the Pupil Premium for the kids there who are on bursaries mama scholarships?

Being at a private school won't change the fact that you can't afford to buy you books or clothes or afford the transport to get you to interview and doesn't really understand the education system any more or less than being at a state grammar school or an oustanding comp. If the private school is crap or doesn't recognize the difficulties of students living in poverty (quite possible esp if there's a lot of pressure to hide the fact that you're poor from the rich kids) then it might be more advantageous to be in the state system.

Bert it's very rare we agree

But I reckon you've summed this up

That's ridiculous Bertrand. Depends on the child and the school. Some private school specialise in SEND in which case there might be all sorts of barriers to passing the 11+.

As I said I've worked in an independent school and many state schools. I'm currently at a state school where I'm actually teaching some of the kids who were at my previous independent school and would not only have passed the 11+ but won't pass their GCSEs either.

Not every child eligible for pupil premium is actually living in unadulterated abject poverty, nostaples?
Op’s child most certainly isn’t!

Why are you shoehorning in SN, nostaples, when it’s completely irrelevant to the subject at hand?

Ok nostaes-I'll bow out now. I am either completely incapable of expressing myself, or you are deliberately misunderstanding me. Either way, I can't be bothered.

At my previous independent school I taught kids where the parents spoke no English and the children were 3 to a bedroom on a full bursary. At my current state school some of the kids have the most phenomenal advantages, financially, academically etc. It's an outstanding school achieving better results in some areas than the selective independent school in the same town.

Iamagrey, if she has a family income of 4k I would say that absolutely IS abject poverty.

Not shoehorning in SN. It's a response to Bertrand. Not all private schools are like Eton. One of the private schools near me markets itself to children with SEND, many of whom would certainyl not stand a better chance of passing the 11+ than the neighbouring state school.

No she won't be eligible. You could move her to a state school and then she would.

Having your child at a private school does not change the difficulties of living on 4k. How completely bizarre that anybody would think it would.

Iamagrey, if she has a family income of 4k I would say that absolutely IS abject poverty.

If she has savings that can be allocated to pay the balance of her daughter's private school fees, I would say that absolutely ISN'T abject poverty.

How can the annual income be £4k? Child benefit, child tax credits, income support. Surely that comes to more than £4k p.a. otherwise why would there have been universal credit introduced, to cap benefits at (??) £26k

In order to meet the admissions criteria for PP the OPs child would need to have been attending a state maintained school in January

I don't think anyone would dispute that an income of £4K is poverty but unfortunately that doesn't change the PP criteria.

I think I would be sceptical about a single parent having an income of £4k if they have three children and the associated costs of raising a family and running a household.

I don't think anyone is disputing that an annual income of £4000 is abject poverty. What we are disputing, among other things is the definition of "annual income of £4000".......

Op is not financing three children at private school (bursaries for one of them not withstanding), long haul holidays and paying for a cleaner on £4k pa.
If she is; she should write a how to book, it’ll make her fortune.

Regardless of where your DC go to school, i don't think they would be entitled to free school meals if your Tax Credits are Working Tax Credits. I earned less than you last year, but had Working Tax Credits so my DC weren't entitled to free meals.

You couldn't feed and clothe three children on £4K per year.

I very much doubt that the OP genuinely has an income of only £4k per year. I'm not quite sure what she means by this, but if it were really true, I'm absolutely certain that her savings would have to be deployed to cover the basic essentials rather than her dd's school fees.

None of it rings true and it sounds like she is just keen to play the system.

Presumably she has an income of £4k a year though because she chooses not to work full time like many of the rest of us mothers do. i do think private schools should give no bursary at all unless both parents work full time for a start.

"If she has savings that can be allocated to pay the balance of her daughter's private school fees, I would say that absolutely ISN'T abject poverty"

OP has described on earlier threads how she paid for school fees

OP has described on earlier threads how she paid for school fees

Maybe she has, I haven't seen the other threads. However, I would still argue that, however she has chosen to finance the school fees, the fact that she has chosen to finance them at all suggests that she is not struggling to cover the basics of food, clothing, electricity, heating etc.

How do you amass savings when you’re raising three children on £4K pa?
Op is not being entirely truthful, I think?!