Hi All,

My daughter has passed her entrance exams and we have applied for a bursary. We have a call in the next few days with the bursary department and we just don’t want to say the wrong thing. Basically it’s the next 5 years of our lives and we do want to put some sort of savings aside as we have none. We still have another child to raise but is us saving anything frowned upon and if we managed to save £3-4K and the end of the year would the school want the entire amount? We also have no pensions so we would like to put some away too. I know the private schools are for the rich but we feel the school she is in is far to easy for her abs a private school is the perfect environment. She passed all free grammar schools but we are very far outside each catchment area so our chances are slim. I hate asking as I know bursary’s are for the incredibly poor and we are fortunate to not be in that bracket but at the same time our boiler is leaking, our car needs replacing and so many other things. We simply don’t know how to ask without coming across like we are going to save and it’s going to be all ours while we take the bursary.

What usually happens with bursaries is not that you ask for an amount of money but that the schools assesses your financial situation against set criteria and then makes an offer - it is up to you to then decide if you can afford the difference between what they offer and the full fees.

The sort of things that look at are:
income
sometimes assets eg second properties
savings

They then make allowances for eg:
Other children
pension contributions (but not if excessive)
mortgage costs

Here is some info re bursaries from a school in BIrmingham - they all vary but this is an example of how they view the process

https://www.kehs.org.uk/uploads/Assiste ... mation.pdf

https://www.kehs.org.uk/images/Admissio ... -19-20.pdf (PS I think this is a very generous scheme)