Advice on Declining Private School Place

[uggmum]

My local comp is terrible. Last year my dd obtained a place at a local independent school. I was relieved as it was a great alternative.
However, I also applied for a place at a good Catholic School. I thought this was a vane hope but we have managed to obtain a place there. Their results are better than the private school, its a better commute and some of her friends are going.
I would like any advice on how to phrase my letter for declining the private place.
Thanks

will you owe them money?
keep it short

"I am writing to inform you that XXXXXXXX will not be joining the XXXXX class at XXXXX in XXXXXX."

I will lose the deposit, but I am fine with that.

What EldonAve said. I'm sure they're used to it. If you really want to you could say she got a place in the state system that you will take up.

Personally, I would be honest. It is helpful for the school to know why so that they can plan for the future etc.

You could say: I'm writing to inform you that xxx will not be taking up her place in the year x class in September 2010 (or whatever). The reason for this is that she has unexpectedly been offered a place at xxx Catholic school.

Presumably the private school will know the local position - ie some parents who have been alloctaed the local comp will turn to this private schhol, whereas parents who have been offered a place at the catholic school will take that up. Either way, I think it's best to be upfront.

I recently turned a place at a private school down and I had a letter from the HM thanking me for my honesty and saying that the information I gave was helpful to him.

I think Yellowcircle's advice is good.

When we turned down dd place we were just honest.

We just turned down two as DD will be taking up a grammar place. We were very honest about the reasons and in fact I spoke to the indie that we liked best - if her chosen school doesn't work out we might be back. They thanked us for our honesty and even the one we wrote to wrote back and wished her well. I think they would rather know the truth.

We turned down 3 and I felt really bad which is ridiculous because it must happen all the time and they make offers based on the fact that lots of people won't accept. I put in what I really liked about the school and implied it was just down to the distance/journey and what was easiest for DS (which it mainly was to be honest). Worth taking the time to write a nice one so you don't burn your bridges if the Catholic school doesn't work out so well (although I'm sure it will!) - also for us, we have DS2 waiting in the wings, who's slightly less academic, so we may well be back to those same schools!

Do you mind if I ask what school you're talking about declining ....

It was Wakefield Girls High

thank you for offering xxx a place at your school from september 2010. we will in fact be taking up the offer of a place at one of the other schools to which we applied. we are aware that the deposit paid is non refundable and accept this situation.In the meantime I hope that you will now be able to offer xxx's place to another child on the waiting list and thank you for considering xxx as a suitable pupil for your school.

we wrote nice letters, assuming that was the end of the correspobdence and were surprised to receive letters back saying very nice things about ds2 and one of them offered him a scholarship that they hadn't initially offered

Yes, we had one school - which had already offered DD a 10% scholarship - come back and say something about there now being additional funding available. TBH I wasn't overly impressed by that.

Don't worry about it, ugg, it happens all the time - but it is a good idea to stay on good terms. We're pretty sure that if for some reason DDs grammar school doesn't work out, one of the independents she's been offered a place at would have her later.