Assisted places at private school

[BrieAndChilli]

DS1 is in year 4 so were are starting to think about secondary school. He currently attends the best primary school in the county (state) it is a small village school and they have been brilliant with him.
He is very acedemically able. He started reception with a reading age of 14 years as an example.
Our 2 local secondary schools unfortunately aren't more than barely average, and as we are in Wales there are no grammar schools/11+ etc so that's not an option either.
A local private school that has very good results offers assisted places and bursaries - to be honest we couldn't afford to pay more than a token amount, would it be worth trying to get a 100% assisted place or do such things not exist? Is it worth approaching the school or will they just laugh us off the premises??

[Citrasun]

Brie, my DS sounds very similar to yours. We moved him from state primary to a small independent school in year 3. We were offered a substantial bursary, which was definitely larger than they would usually offer, as DS was so academically able. He has now been offered another large bursary for his next school.

It is definitely worth speaking to the bursar. Be prepared to be very honest and open about what you can afford and you may be pleasantly surprised. I would also consider looking further afield and the possibility of boarding if need be. My DS boards sometimes (school is very flexible) and enjoys it far more than we thought he would. The smaller classes and large number of other very able students to talk to, has improved our DS's social skills beyond belief.

[Squashybanana]

Sorry that should say at 'A' level where youngsters can specialise more...

[Squashybanana]

Brie, some aspergers children excel in the early years at skill acquisition processes. It sounds as though your son was hyperlexic, for example. For some children this can begin to fall apart, usually starting around year 4 in fact, where the curriculum moves from a skill acquisition focus into a skill application focus, and this can get harder still around year 7 ish where abstract thinking and opinion giving becomes a core skill in certain subjects. This means that some aspergers children who have excelled start to become much more patchy in their success and this can be bewildering to them and to their teachers if those teachers don't understand the typical aspergers strengths and weaknesses. This should be noted to be of course a generalisation and doesn't happen to every aspie child, and can be less of an issue at a level where youngsters can specialise more. Other aspergers kids find providing volume of work or redrafting/ editing is extremely difficult.
This means, coupled with social issues, that aspergers youngsters can find secondary school very difficult. However not all of them do and it doesn't mean, despite Blue's posts, that your son isn't also very bright. However it may mean that he won't sail through secondary as far advanced in all areas as he has been at primary.

[BrieAndChilli]

I don't really understand why you think I'm confusing the 2? Yes DS1 is 'wired' differently to most people but that doesn't make him any less academically able? I don't see where I've confused the 2? Only that I have concerns for his social development and well-being at secondary school. In fact I've always made a point in general life to downplay his intelligence (party due to the fact there there has been other issues we needed to work on - physio for weak core muscles, occupational therapy to help handwriting etc as well as the fact that I advanced as a child, joined MENSA aged 12, moved up a year, got a bursary for boarding school etc which piled on the pressure to excel resulting in me self destructing) in fact it's been the school that's also made a big deal out of how amazing he is.

[Blue14]

so have I done, and most of the people I work with understand the meaning of the word pathology.

[Squashybanana]

Actually I work in the diagnosis of autism field as well as having autistic children, and am one of the leading people in autism in my local area and none of my team would ever describe aspergers as pathological. Thankfully.

[Blue14]

that is a purely political position, squashy, and not a constuctive one, and certainly not a scientific one.

[Squashybanana]

Disabled yes, diseased no.

[Squashybanana]

And I find it offensive when people claim that my wonderful quirky sometimes struggling sometimes amazing sspergers children are diseased.

[Blue14]

I find it offensive when people try and pretend that my wonderful, impaired, struggling ASD children are just "different" and in fact not disabled at all.

[Squashybanana]

Sigh. What a shame to be so ignorant.
It's pathological in the same way that homosexuality is pathological. Ie different, not inferior, not broken, not wrong, just different and conferring some advantages and some vulnerabilities.
Did you mean to be so offensive?

[Blue14]

yes it is

[Squashybanana]

Blue, aspergers isn't pathological.

[Blue14]

no harm is asking, but you are making it sound like you can't differentiate between academic ability and pathology, which isn't going to put either you or your child in a good light.

[NewLife4Me]

My dd school only look at income and fees are paid on a sliding scale.
They don't care how many assets you have, how many homes, who works and who doesn't, what or how many cars you have, or if you have savings or equity in your home.
They do make allowances for other dependant siblings though.

All schools are different and operate in different ways.
Some have offers of financial assistance from private investors or bequeths?

[bojorojo]

I have a suspicion that some schools, who offer very little (or nothing) in the way of scholarship fee reduction, will offer more generous bursaries for children who are scholars and the school really wants them. Also, schools give bursaries to children already on roll whose parents fall on hard times - if the school wants to keep the child in the school. Sometimes they are not bothered: a Dad went to prison for a significant financial crime in the school where we were. Mum got no help and child had to leave. I also know of one who got a bursary after the parents divorced and the Dad refused to keep paying. Not entirely sure this was fair but it does show schools have preferences for their money. I would agree that web site info rarely shows the full picture.

[catslife]

The OP lives in a rented house so there is no equity issue here.
Your figures only show that full fees would be nearly impossible - you need to work out what percentage would be possible. 25% bursary (and 25% scholarship) would still give residual income of £1000 pcm which looks manageable.
As others have said though you do need to check with the bursar about the following: is it gross or net income that is taken into account?
how are fees likely to rise with inflation in the next few years?
does the income threshold for bursaries get raised each year to compensate for the above?
is it possible for a child to have both an academic scholarship and a bursary?
does the bursary say the same every year or is it reviewed annually?
and finally are fees paid termly or monthly?

[Knowledgablebursaryadvise]

"Equity to be freed up"
This is not our experience, we have some equity in our property initially just under 25% when we bought it with some money we inherited two years ago but we're in the SE property prices are rising rapidly so we've now got over 40%. We have not been asked to release it.
Bursary aren't stupid they know that most lenders expect a 20-25% deposit and that many cant simple crank up their mortgages every year to pay more towards school fees because their houses are increasing in value all the time. It's IME more to do with the size and value of you property, we live in an average costing average three bedroom house. Just to add we are older than some parents and have a mortgage of only 17 years and therefore quite high repayments so we couldn't afford to increase significantly it to release equity.

[Teddingtonmum1]

We are on a 65% bursary , it was originally 55% and just out of reach , I went back and explained the situation and it was increased. Luckily it's just me & my son, so there's just me at home. My fees take about 40% of my income, there is no spare cash, as my son boards, I sold up and moved out of London, to cut my outgoing to be able to afford it. I think the bursers wants to see that all efforts are being made to contribute. My niece got 100% bursary for St. Paul's no I'm not jealous much 😳

[NoTimeLikeSnowTime]

I imagine it is definitely worth talking to them. I went to Monmouth girls many many moons ago, and there were certainly girls there on 100% scholarships. As far as I know both schools really still pride themselves on academic excellence.

Assuming things haven't changed wildly since I was there, I would also say that while many families are obviously high earners, there were a lot of fairly 'normal' kids in that catchment, including lots from families with strong farming connections etc, so it is certainly not a Range Rovers and holidays in St Barts kind of demographic.

[derektheladyhamster]

We earn a similar amount and have a 65% bursery. This is from a school with a large bursery pot. Just to give you some idea of figures you could be looking at. This is a boarding school though

[disquisitiones]

At my DC's school no bursary help is available for those earning over 60k (gross), even for those wanting to send 2+ children to the school. From 60k gross it would be hard to get much more than 42k net (and that's assuming two incomes with no pension contributions etc). Fees and expenses for 2 children would be 30k (even with sibling discount), leaving 12k for a family of four to live on. This would be pretty much impossible even if the family owned their own home, so no such family could afford to send both children to the school. Even sending one child would be a big proportional of net income in this case, particularly for a family in the SE where rent on a modest 2 bed home could easily be 1k per month.

Most families (even those on comfortable incomes such as 60k) simply cannot afford to send their children to private schools.

[BabyGanoush]

Ask the bursars of the schools

You have nothing to lose by asking

[Lurkedforever1]

I understand what you mean wombat. I just disagree, because there will be other families in that same area living on 18k, so it is possible if people want it enough. Otherwise, if a child like your friends receives 12k (or whatever amount) that's a place that can't be given to a child whose parents are already living on 18k. I understand that many may not feel it's remotely worth it, but it is fair.

I will add though that in my experience bursars were upfront, happy to give ball park figures in terms of their sliding scale and what they look at, and then post exam/ interview when they'd seen figures say accurately what any possible bursary would be, before offer day. And given the competition for bursaries, I can't see it would be at all practical to give accurate figures to every applicant prior to admission procedures.

[happygardening]

Want2be I completely agree about Eton Winchester etc and it's already been suggested above but the OP is not keen on boarding for her DS and competition for places is fierce so the OP would need a fall back who also have generous bursaries.