May I ask; bursary and your income?

[crispsandcoke]

The schools that we have applied for are around £18k annually.

Our income is £55k. We have no assets, we rent, car is on finance, no savings etc.

We have filled in bursary forms and it looks like we only have around £6k that we could put forward for a private senior school.

My DD is currently at a local private but we have a 40% bursary on £8500 annual fees.

Wondering if we had a chance with a decent bursary or am I just pushing our luck here?

Is it that unusual to know the financial situations of your close friends? It isn't unusual to discuss salaries, savings, size if house deposits, how we are financing private school etc amongst my close friends.

And I don't understand why people belittle parents for taking the initiative and trying to do their best for their children. 🙄 the whole point of bursaries is to support those who might not otherwise be able to afford it. How else would you like them to be spent?!

Very wrong. I update the bursary when there's a change and also it is done yearly. My child has been at the same school since year 2.

Yes @Wellwell82

Also; does anyone know when we will find out? I'm assuming it won't be the same day we find out if they have given a place?

If you think about it, private schools will want students from a range of backgrounds. Not all schools can afford a wide range of bursary provision, so some have to make more restrictive choices than others. But, children needing 100% + bursaries to attend, are less likely to "stick out" as different if there are also others getting 50% and 20% support whose families can afford some but not all the fees.

If you are genuinely willing to pay whatever you can reasonably afford, a school will be interested in helping you within the means they have available.

Some school bursars can give an indication of the likely level of support in advance of entrance tests, if you are willing to fill in all the paperwork in advance.

With regards to housing equity, schools vary enormously in how they view this. We were told that one school near us wouldn't support anyone with a house valued over X, which was becoming increasingly unreasonable considering typical house prices in the region. Other schools are able to recognise that you can't really increase your mortgage, and your house is neither overlarge or fancy for where you live and work. That's part of the reason we paid less for our children to board than we might have done for local schools.

It's reasonable for schools to make different choices in how they prioritise who they target for bursary assistance.

The school may have counted that as income.

DD1 had a bursary and the forms didn't really have a section to explain a wild variance in income. DH sometimes has the chance to do overtime, i.e. when others are on annual leave/off sick/vacancy, but then there can be months and months of flat pay. So, I'd do a cover letter with breakdowns taking off NI/Tax and bills so give an accurate reflection of the income.

You may want to speak with the Bursar as there may be other bursaries available in addition to the school bursary.

When there's a gulf between the local private school for academic results the local state school, its hardly beyond imagination is it?

Sure if you have access to outstanding senior school, not everyone has, especially a family where bursary are an option.

OP has not specified whether the school is a charity or not.

And when the CC tribunal examined this, it found that the provision of bursaries was a factor, but it was neither necessary nor sufficient.

Even when a school is a charity, there is no absolute requirement to give "free places" - either because the wider pattern of activities satisfies the CC or because the bursary pot is used for a larger number of partial awards, rather than a couple of full ones.

Most schools will expect people to have some equity in property, but to be prepared to re-mortgage if they have substantial equity. Likewise, they’d expect you to sell a 2nd property.

Why? Because lots of the parents at the school currently who are paying fees, will have had to choose to do those things in order to afford the fees. Bursaries are not there to cover lifestyle choices people might make which mean they can’t afford the fees. They are there to help people who have already made the sacrifices that could be expected and still need some help.

Its why the usual terms are those quoted upthread…that second properties, substantial home improvements, regular new or luxury cars and luxury holidays are not in tune with receiving a bursary.

Bursars won’t be expecting people to never have a holiday or not have a car or not do any work to their house….but if you’re going on £10k holidays or over-paying your mortgage substantially, or have a 2nd property that could be sold to fund the fees, the Bursar will give the money to someone else. It would be wrong to expect the current parents at school to fund themselves when they can, and not a bursary applicant who could if they made different financial choices.

What a silly response to someone who wants help on this matter. If you don’t have children currently in private school you cannot possibly have anything to add to this conversation ( and please not talk about friends and knowing people who have it’s not the same thing)
OP I would go for it, we have 2 children in a private school and although we are able to pay full fees our school is very transparent about offering support to people up to £72 depending on the circumstances. They want a range of children to access the provision they are able to offer so you may well be in with a chance. Just be transparent with them and normally schools are pretty reasonable.
Also you will have loads of people who respond to you as this person did if your children go to an independent school, the amount of people who causally tell you in conversation that they could afford it but they have an excellent ofstead and their kids are bright and and and. I have never met anyone yet I believed who said this. Either people who could afford it if they didn’t have expensive cars and holidays which they tell themselves are more important because they have a good local school or people who really don’t understand the cost of private school plus trips and uniform etc and I know for certain don’t have a spare 90k a year for a couple of kids boarding fees lying around but will flippantly mention they could 😂
An outstanding state and a bright child is very nice but the small class sizes and world class provision in some of the best boarding schools as well as all the extra clubs and once in a lifetime opportunities/trips etc and a network of contacts that will make the rest of your working life easier is ll available at a private school not a state. Private school makes their lives easier generally and that as well as all of the above is what you are paying for. Good luck to you, I promise you will for a minute regret prioritising your child’s future over a bigger house or a Range Rover!

OP I would be very wary of choosing private based on bursaries in the present climate.
If Labour get in and end charitable status + add VATthen our private have already said they may consider ending/drastically reducing bursaries + scholarships to prevent the burden being put on full fee paying parents. If they lose charitable status then there will be no need to offer these reductions in fees.

Hello I am OP.

We did get a bursary and my son started this term. Thank you.

Hi Op.
That's great news. May I ask how long it took to find out?
Hope your DD is enjoying it so far.

Many congratulations!!

It's going to totally depend on the school because some have had a fervent mission to widen access and have fundraised a significant bursary pot because their whole ethos includes that academic excellence isn't restricted to the rich. Whereas others are quite happy being mostly exclusive with a fairly token bursary offering, and at those schools you get the kind of sneery people like the ones on this thread who are trying to shame you for aspiring to something you can't afford.

Just to give you one point of anecdata, I am aware of one case where there's a family whose household income is around £65k pa and they receive a 40% bursary at a school where around a fifth of the pupils receive bursary support of over 50% and there's a sliding scale for a further fifth getting between 10% and 50% with the other three fifths paying full whack. I would imagine that a 55k joint income would probably put you at around 60% bursary mark at a school with that setup but it's going to be massively variable so worth applying to several schools if possible so you can boost yoir chances.
But yes I would say there is a chance, if the school is one of the former type.

However, do be aware that the slice you are expected to pay is going to go up as fees are increased and 10% a year over the next 7 years would be a pretty conservative guess for what that might be. If you were given an award of 66% which would make your share of £18k in y7 to be around the £6k per year that you can afford, then by y11 with the same percentage award your share would be nearly £9k. Are your jobs such that you can achieve income increases over the next 5-7 years enough to keep pace with that level of rise?

Curses I didn't realise this was a zombie thread.