Talk to me about bursaries and scholarships?

[Mybobowler]

My daughter is only in Y1 but seems to be very academically able - not a genius, but she seems to love learning. Neither myself nor my husband were privately educated, we both went to very average state schools and did well.

We currently live in the catchment area for a really terrible secondary school. It's been in special measures on several occasions, has come in and out of different academy trusts and is currently rated as inadequate. I think it's unlikely that it'll undergo a transformation in the next few years (although, of course, it could happen!).

Our household income is c. £60K - likely to increase in the next five years but not by much. School fees are obviously out of the question. It's unlikely we could afford a home in the catchment for our better local state school, so I'm already looking at alternatives. How do bursaries and scholarships work for private schools? We have a number in our local area. Do they only take children are at the top end of talent and ability? What's a typical application/admission process? What's the income threshold for applying for financial support? It feels very early to be enquiring direct to schools but it'd be good to understand if this is something worth pursuing.

You may be surprised to learn there are parents paying day school fees on much smaller incomes than yours!

Anyway - the best way for you to find out how things work is to read about a dozen independent school websites from start to finish - paying particular attention to their application processes, bursary and scholarship provision and their general ethos. That will answer all the questions you’ve raised here, and you’ll get a feel for the general idea. But every single school has its own individual procedure - there is no ‘typical’ in this area.

Not that much of this will be relevant to you for a good few years if you’re hoping for a bursary - they don’t normally start until year 7 or 8 in prep schools, as it’s probably quite hard to assess academic potential, personality and willingness to compete before that age.

I suspect your income would be rather too high to garner much fee reduction for day schools - so you may want to include boarding schools in your research.

Do you have any preference for single sex or co-ed schools at this stage. Obviously in the long run you’ll be guided by your child’s personality and abilities - but if you give some idea of where in the country you’re considering, people may be able to help you make a list of places to research.

Scholarships are potential/performance based and shouldn’t be linked to affordability, They are often a smallish discount (10%, say) and I don’t think many go over 30%

Bursaries are means tested and the number of them and percentage covered will vary by school. Some schools might offer more 50 % bursaries and no 100% bursaries, for example. It is likely that almost all schools will reduce bursary provision after VAT and NIC rises kick in.

I think a 60k household income would put you in the running for bursaries, given school fees (in the SE at least) are £20k+ pa for secondary.

We live near several public schools and when we were looking at secondary schools for our daughter several years ago, academic scholarships were awarded to the most academically able children, irrespective of parental income, and at the time, were generally for up to 30% of the fees, although this may have changed by now. Several of the schools also offered music or sports scholarships which reduced the fees by about 10%.

Bursaries were offered on the basis of income, and one of the girls in my daughter's class in primary school was given a 100% bursary for one of the schools we were considering. At this school (and I assume others) the bursary wasn't dependent on academic ability but was based on parental income, and any child who passed the entrance exam and was offered a place could apply for a bursary. I remember that the threshold was very low at the time.

As those above have mentioned, scholarships are non means tested and tend to come with a minimal discount. Where I work it's more that they receive extra coaching/trips etc beyond the considerable amount already offered to everyone.

Bursaries are means tested and you are considered for it if you pass the exam/interview and are below a certain threshold. I think it's quite high (80k?) but you would only get a small bursary at the top end, for a full bursary it's a much lower household income. There are far more students applying for bursaries who meet the school's academic criteria than funding available. There are some funds for things like trips and uniforms for those on bursaries but it absolutely doesn't cover everything. I think at very wealthy schools they might be able to offer more of this (but tbh there are not that many extremely wealthy independent schools which take girls!). It's the Etons of the world who could basically not charge fees if they didn't want to.

If you have the choice I think I'd move into the catchment of a better state school - easier said than done! If you say where you live some people might be able to offer more specific advice on schools. Appreciate you might not want to.

Just bear in mind that VAT is severely limiting the availability of both scholarships and bursaries, especially in the smaller ones. The big prestigious ones are so far still offering them as per but around us the number are being reduced dramatically.
The only way you will know is to speak to a number of schoolsm. There is no standard way of doing anything because they are independent (unless they are part of a chain eg GDST).

NC for this post for obvious reasons.

OP, you really need some advice from parents that have been in the specific situation. Some of the replies on this thread are not completely accurate.

My daughter has just been awarded an academic scholarship and 100% bursary at a top 50 girls day school (not GDST). I am a single parent, but household income is ~£75k. You do not need to be super low income to qualify.

They will be accurate for the experience of those parents. Independent schools are independent hence they all have their own processes and policies in regards to scholarships and bursaries. There is no 1 way of assessing or awarding them.

I understand every school is different. But there are posters stating upper income thresholds of £80k and advising that salary wouldn’t attract full fee reduction. It’s not true.

Thanks so much all for your replies - really helpful, and I'm now aware of how little I know about any of this!

Pretty surprised that a family on a lower household income to ours could afford private fees. Schools here are between £8K-10K per term, there's absolutely no way we could afford this alongside a mortage/rent and normal monthly expenses.

I'll take a much closer look at the independent schools nearby, and find out what their arrangements are.

And @ABC9876 thank you - I'm sure that's excellent advice! I hope your daughter thrives at school.

Second this. SPGS offers bursaries up to 140K, Christ's Hospital gives 100% to boarders etc.

OP you need to research particular schools, and consider boarding too.

There is no universal process.

This is a school near me, household income must be under 60k to qualify for a bursary and for full fee remission under 27k.

Each school will have its own criteria, as others have said.

https://stockportgrammar.co.uk/senior-school/admissions/bursaries-and-scholarships/

Bursaries are not just about income though. Your savings and assets are also taken into consideration (including equity in your home).

Not everywhere.

@Ubertomusic I would feel pretty aggrieved if I was paying full fees and someone was receiving a bursary whilst sat in a £1m house with no mortgage, driving a Range Rover and had £500k sat in the bank.

It would be the exception rather than the norm - from someone who used to audit bursary applications.

I would also seek to move if I were you. I think that even if you check out the situation with scholarships or burseries now, there may well be a shift by the time you would want one. The VAT situation is highly likely to impact on monies available for that kind of thing.

I looked at 3 near us and the discount was pretty low - 10% and was reviewed each year. Bursaries were for very specific incomes and lower than yours. If your salary went up you’d also have to tell them. That was our experience anyway.

Indeed, hard to argue with this!

We have no significant savings and very modest lifestyle (never holiday abroad, one15 year old car etc) , but I'm also conscious that we're hardly on a low income!

I'll make some enquiries at local schools but it sounds as if moving to a different catchment should be our Plan A.

Thanks everyone for your helpful replies!

Our income is about £60k. My son has been offered a place at an independent school but we didn't get offered any kind of bursary. They said we were way outside the cut off for what they would consider. I was hoping for at least 5 or 10%. Our savings are negligible but we do have some equity in the house.

@calexico if he’d got into one of the boarding schools now charging £60k per year I suspect you might have received a more encouraging answer.

(I spent years on Education threads patiently explaining to parents on low to middling incomes that they needed to look to the grandest public schools for the most generous bursaries. Was often shouted down by people with zero knowledge of either the schools in question or the purpose of bursaries. You’re fortunate, @Mybobowler - it used to be the case that the first response on any thread enquiring about bursaries was Why are you looking at schools you can’t afford?)

Exactly this is happening on this thread too 😂

It will depend completely on the school. One school will give 40% bursary at an income level that would only qualify you for 10% at another school.

But if your DD is only in y1 now you could start putting £10k per year into savings between now and the end of y6 and you'll have £45,000 saved up which you can then draw from over the subsequent 5 years effectively giving yourself a significant discount. You can plan to have completely depleted your savings by the end of y11 because bursaries for 6th form are a lot easier to get assuming your child manages a raft of grade 9s at gcse, or failing that there is more likely to be a good quality 6th form in the state sector as all 6th forms can be reasonably academically selective.

It varies. My children's old school (day school outer London) is about £16,500 for year 1 (outer London), but could be less in say Yorkshire where we have relatives (year 1 £12k a year). If the parents can live on one parent's salary then minimum wage earned by the other spouse which is about £22k from April would cover school fees for example. Most schools will check spending, costs, your rent and savings as well as income.

Good luck.

(PS I was not trying to imply by the fees quotes for year 1 above to imply private schools have bursaries below age 11 (they don't)).

You will have to look into each school but generally burseries and scholarships are not high % and many children these days are bright and academically qualified. A lot of ordinary parents these years want better schools than state so high competition for burseies/scholarships.

Ds1 got a really quite good bursery to our local cathedral school. All the choristers received a 25% discount on tuition fees. The rest of the burseries was mean based up to 100%.
The choristers (and parents) signed up for huge commitments in the the cathedral's daily life outside school hours.
Parents were expected to ferry the choisters to extra choir rehersals, extra music classes and a lot of services during the week, holidays and Sundays.

The school expected the ordinary cathedral pupils' parents to do a second job to pay fees because of not ferrying children around extra commitments. They students not being choristers were offered 10-15% discount with a salary like yours. A few very bright children from very low income (benefits) families were offered more but never 100%.

I would move for a good school catchment if possible. I would focus on looking for a private school whose profile matches your child in a way that ensures a high subsidy but I wouldn't expect a lot considering the VAT crisis and no money around everywhere.

Name changed for privacy. OP at the school I work at, you would likely qualify for 100% bursary unless you have lots of house equity. But that's secondary - it can be harder to find generous bursaries in prep. Agree with a PP - for a big bursary, look at the big, established schools.