G&T private school bursary

[Lonnie]

My son is in a very small primary school (101 students) He is doing extremly well and is currently in year 4 doing year 6 maths. (in the class that has year 6 and 5 together for math) I spoke with the senco teacher about ways to support him the other day and she more or less sugested that we look into private schooling for him for the next few years before the 11+ test (grammar school area)

Has anyone got any experinece of this I am concerned the school will not be able to meet his needs esp as in his current class (that he will be with again in Y6 as they split the years) there are several children in the other end of the spectrum and teacher admits she is spread thinly to cope with both ends of the spectrum.

I have also 2 daughters at the school one due to go to secondary this september and 1 whom is in year 8 and was at the school We have been satisfied with what the school has done for our daughers (you know the occational issue but happy overall) I am not sure how to go with this.

have anyone done this is it possible? between us my dh and I earn a fair wage and we are definetly in the middle class bracket where many bursaries/scholar ships are not that forthcoming so if we were to do this our son would need to get it on his own merrit type thing.

I would love to hear of peoples experiences. we took our son to the local G&T group but he really didnt care for it said they were doing stuff he already had explored on his own (and I will admit he is more of a loner when he works - he is happy to do sports in teams though)

really not sure here would love to hear other peoples experiences.

PS I will just quickly say the SENCO is more than willing to try to support it was just one of many suggestions she came up with. (made her sound like she was trying to get rid of him and she is not at all)

Just to be sure we're using the same terminology, a bursary is a means-tested reduction to school fees, and a scholarship is a non-means tested award for outstanding ability/talent, and may be academic, sports, art, music etc. scholarships are often not worth much, and may be purely titular. Bursaries can be higher; it depends on how much is in the bursary pot and how many many children are currently being assisted.

You need to find out what is on offer by contacting individual schools. It is rare to find scholarships available other than in the main entry point years, but you do sometimes strike lucky.

Do you have any specific schools in mind?

I think if your DS has a 'talent' and could get a scholarship/ bursery to Private Ed school theres no reason he shouldn't try if you can afford the top up.

I would let him do the ebtrance exam or whatever it is and explain to him the outcome doesn't matter but he can have the chance if he wants it.

Best of luck.

Each school will have its own pot of money and way of allocating so there is no way round ringing each school individually.
We also tried the local G+T groups and never really found them useful. Would really really recommend the annual NAGC weekend events - they are very different to what the local groups do.. and allow children to choose between different activities for different slots whilst the parents go off to learn about different issues in parenting gifted or talented children.
We also went to the PGL weekend away last year which was a very good event for sporty kids (and the parents got to network with eachother)..
Good luck in any case!

Thank you everyone.. I have phoned two of the local private schools and neither of them do anything like this before year 7