kenyancowgirl wrote:
Facilities are only worth worrying about if your child is going to make use of them. Great to have a climbing wall, for example, but if you child won't use it because he has a pathological fear of heights then it is an expensive ornament for him. Try and overcome your "what it looks like" and think instead "what goes on in here" when looking at classrooms - I have seen some very lovely looking schools but the teaching has been a bit uninspiring!
Only you can decide whether you can afford KES or not - if you are already talking about compromising without the scholarship, what if your circumstances changed midway through his time at the school but there was no bursary pot to help? KES have always seemed one of the more philanthropic schools but I do know an independent who did, in the case of a scholarship kid whose character was a little bit quirky, shall we say, supported him to finish the year he was in when his family situation changed (job loss), but effectively told him there was no bursary support ongoing.
Like Quasimodo I believe scholarships have to be capped at 50% if the school is a registered charity with the charities commission, but in certain family circumstances this can be topped up with a bursary to 100% fee remission. In the case of a 100% bursary, however, this often extends to cover all compulsory trips and unifrom etc etc etc.
The KES website definitely says that scholars awards range from x%
to 50%. So, unless it is a poorly kept secret that the school only displays this statement publicly to avoid unwelcome attention from the bodies concerned with issuing guidelines on scholarships and hides away behind that and confidentiality clauses to award higher scholarships to favoured applicants, regardless of financial circumstances, a fairly safe bet would be that anyone benefiting from having to pay no or next to no fees would also be in receipt of a bursary.
Personally, I'm always a little wary of what the HT of one school (indie or state) says about what goes on at another.