Private school bursary people please help!

[reallyconfusedmostofthetime]

My daughter has been unhappy at her private prep. She's due to move to the senior school this sept. She was promised she could move to her preferred house. Instead she's been put in a house with girls she finds intimidating.
At the 11th hr we've found her a new school.
Her current head is asking for us to pay her notice period at full fees. We have a bursary so this is double what we would normally pay.
We don't have to pay full fees if she stays at the school for her notice period.
She's pretty upset that she can't move with everyone else at the start of the year.
I'm considering selling a kidney 😬
Her current school is a super shiney successful popular growing school.
I know it's not the end of the world and we'll get through it but is he being a dick or is it actually reasonable?

House matters hugely for day pupils if it is a physical space with lockers and a common room. Less so if it is just for sports and other competitions.

"After all, bullying and its impact on mental health is the most common reason for a child’s sudden departure from a school and doesn’t change your ability to pay full fees. The bursary should therefore still apply."

OP has stated that her DD hasn't been bullied. She just doesn't share interests with the girls in her house.

@Genevieva

The house absolutely matters in my DD's school - whether boarding or day its a home base, anytime they aren't in lessons/lunch/clubs/sport (although they change in house into PE kit) or music practice they are in the house, so changing, break times, 'house time' also for roll call, in fact they have a lot of compulsory house events both in the school day, also evenings and weekends even for day pupils.

I'd be concerned that 3 classes of 15 students is too small at senior school, even if academically selective. How much real choice do they get for GCSE options, will the range offered suit your daughter? What are A level choices like?
Have you been able to really get a sense of what the girls are generally like at the new school, how they shake down socially?

Good luck either way reaching the right resolution.

GCSE choices are much the same as anywhere. I personally think it's a great size. Definitely previously when her current school was more this size she was much happier. There's a lot of v confident kids at her current school and they take up a lot of band width. Think Hermoine Granger but not necessarily with the right answers...

Shes known these girls since she was 3 and never been friends with them in two classes of 12 so 6 girls in each. There are two leader-y type girls. One nice but just wouldn't have my daughter as her friend, I've seen them walk past each other at home time and not say Hi, the other a bit rebellious and cutting, recently been suspended. They are both those absolutely perfect to look at girls that have a group of identical girls around them. My daughters friends are the bookish, academic ones, the ones that don't wear the latest clothes, my dd is quite scruffy.
I could be wrong but I think they might tolerate each other but they are never going to be best friends.

Don't put girls into boxes,.and also that's not enough girls, or pupils, for a happy school. Are there more joining??

If there are 12 in a year and at least one of them has a bursary (have I understood that right?) then the chances of them surviving the VAT hit are slim.

Yes, I'm sorry to say your attitude isn't going to encourage your dd.to branch out and find new friends. Your school is too small,.even if there's 24 in a year, that's ridiculous.

And yet several people have been able to provide advice. It seems pretty clear to me.

Very good of the ex-heads to reply so thoughtfully.

I think if you can negotiate over the house that's the best option.

12 is when she started at the school. The whole year is around 100 boys and girls now.
I'm not sure how describing my past experiences of the girls I've known for a long time is putting them into boxes.
It's a massively successful school. It offers a lot of bursary's. They have a recently newly built dining hall, it's pristinely landscaped, they are building a new international school, and new hockey facilities. It has two swimming pools. Its some sort of top sporting school. I think it'll survive fine.

I'm not sure how describing my past experiences of the girls I've known for a long time is putting them into boxes

Because the way you've described them is by using two stereotypes.

Perhaps be more open minded about the other girls in the year. Girls change a lot from 11!

If it is a really good school they will have picked up your dds reluctance to be friendly with a particular group of girls and may have made the house move deliberately. A good thing IMO.

She's not 11. She's 13. She's friends with everyone and it wouldn't show that she's not friends with these girls particularly. Which is poss why the school weren't aware they weren't people she felt comfortable with.
Were you friends with everyone when you were at school? You just could be best friends with anyone you chose? And they would be friends with you? Im either impressed or worried about that! Can't decide.
How can I describe people generally? Maybe they are actually stereotypes?

Can you explain why it's nonsense? If you have girls that have the same hair styles, wear the same fake tan, the same trainers, the same clothes and don't seem to have friends that don't fit that look, and do indeed imho look amazing
Im a bit at a loss in how to describe them otherwise?

If she's friends with everyone, I'm struggling to understand what the issue is here.
I think that you want her to be with her closest friends that she has more in common with, but they are not in her current house and they are not in the house that you've been offered a move to either? But then it sounds like she isn't really close friends with anyone (in which case I don't know why you wanted her to be in a particular house in the first place). And I don't know how you think the school can do anything to resolve this.

So, basically you are making the move so she has the chance to find more like minded people, which is not a bad idea per se, but as you are moving to such a small school you should be aware that she may not find them there, and if there is no such girls there, then no amount of school social engineering will fix this. But hopefully you've chosen a school where the ethos is such that she's more likely to find similarly minded people?

13 is prime time for girls to all fall out with each other as well, so you need to make sure this isn't a transient issue.

With regards paying full fees, which I know was your actual question, I think it depends what your contract/terms of the bursary are. I don't think you can claim any sort of mitigation because the school wasn't right, which seems to be nothing that the school has done.

OP isn’t asking for advice about the school move, that has been decided. Stop haranguing her.

She’s just looking for practical advice about the fees payable during the notice period.

That’s exactly how I took it too. This is not about what strangers on the internet think is best for her daughter. It’s about the shock of being told that, despite being on a means-tested bursary, they now expect her to pay double in lieu of notice.

Paying fees in lieu of notice is to be expected. It’s no different, in monetary terms, from serving notice by attending the school for a term. The school doesn’t incur costs associated with her absence during that notice period and it set the fees based on its own assessment of their financial means. There is no logical reason for expecting the family to pay more. If anything, it puts bursary families as a disadvantage, such that they can’t afford to prioritise their child’s well-being in the way they non-bursary families can. Bursaries are a way in which private schools demonstrate charitable status, so discriminating against bursary children in this way seems doubly unfair. In their shoes, unless their contract explicitly says that bursaries are withdrawn when fees are paid in lieu of notice then I’d push back. I’d reject the validity of the invoice and pay the usual amount.

Any private school in the country is going to have the issues you describe. Moving house isn't going to change it. If she does move into a different house at the current school, other new starters from other preps will arrive and establish a similar group dynamic too. If she moves school the same will happen. Your DD needs to be supported to develop the resilience to hold her own and be true to herself whatever the group dynamics of her peers. Switching to a different house or school won't change that and will be detrimental to her long term wellbeing by teaching her to default to running from problems rather than facing them.

The school is entirely correct to charge you a term of full fees with no bursary if you leave without notice. Occasionally when a child is moved without notice the new school will give an additional fee reduction for the first year only in order to help you with the pain of paying two terms fees at once but that's only if they are really keen to facilitate the move.

This.

And the circumstances ARE relevant, because if you move schools just because you aren't happy that your dd isn't with her friend, then the school has no obligation to honour anything - its not a failing of the school.

Well, buy your dd the same trainers then!

Being a bursary kid at a posh private school is always a bit daunting. Teach your dd to hold your head up high and be herself.

I can almost guarantee she'll be great mates with all the 'plastics' - as you seem to want to call them - by half term. Are you concerned that your dd might change?

The circumstances may be relevant to the assessment if the liability. Indeed, I am sure that is why OP included the context. However, telling her not to go ahead with the move is not an option.