Private school bursaries / entry exams

silly_moo

sheramber said:

Have you a particular reason for choosing that school.

Maybe another one would be more forthcoming.

All of the other schools are too far unfortunately. This one is "only" 50 minutes away by bus.

Spendless

silly_moo said:

sheramber said:

Have you a particular reason for choosing that school.

Maybe another one would be more forthcoming.

All of the other schools are too far unfortunately. This one is "only" 50 minutes away by bus.

What's your plan B for schooling if your child isn't offered a place or if there's no/not big enough bursary? 

sheramber

silly_moo said:

Malthusian said:

silly_moo said:

They are responding to emails, but they claim there are no criteria and that each family's financial circumstances are looked at before a decision is made. That's not helpful though, I'd like to know if we've at least got a chance of bursary before paying admission fees.

Are they really saying they charge a fee just to sit the entrance exam?

Surely an "admission fee" is payable on admission, i.e. if he starts, not if you go elsewhere after deciding the fees (minus any bursary offered) are too much.

All schools that I looked at charge an admin fee to process the application form. It might not be called admission fee but it's a fee nonetheless.

That is because people could apply to several schools, be accepted by them all and then only able to accept one so the other places not required.  This causes extra work for the admin team.

My son works in a private school.

They have a pot of money available for full bursary, including fees and uniform.  Once that money is allocated there is no money left.

These bursaries are for the whole time the pupil is at the school.

Other bursaries may be available for different percentages of fees, depending on income of both parents.  These a re reviewed annually. 

This year there are no bursaries available.

Entry to the school is based on a scoring system  with points awarded for various  considerations which are then totalled.

Other schools will have their own entry systems.

honeypop

silly_moo said:

All of the other schools are too far unfortunately. This one is "only" 50 minutes away by bus.

That makes for an extremely long day. Friends of my sons are at private schools, and they have a longer school day anyway, then with the extra curricular activities (which while optional, are expected) they're often at school before 8am and until 6pm. Add an hour bus journey on to that (or longer if it doesn't run at convenient times) and you get very tired children.
Most of the private schools here are not serviced by public bus routes, or at least not without quite a walk to/from the school, and the public buses don't even run at the right times for this - have you check this out?  Even buses provided by the school often don't take into account the clubs your child might be doing, so the times may not work. 

silvercar

honeypop said:

silly_moo said:

All of the other schools are too far unfortunately. This one is "only" 50 minutes away by bus.

That makes for an extremely long day. Friends of my sons are at private schools, and they have a longer school day anyway, then with the extra curricular activities (which while optional, are expected) they're often at school before 8am and until 6pm. Add an hour bus journey on to that (or longer if it doesn't run at convenient times) and you get very tired children.
Most of the private schools here are not serviced by public bus routes, or at least not without quite a walk to/from the school, and the public buses don't even run at the right times for this - have you check this out?  Even buses provided by the school often don't take into account the clubs your child might be doing, so the times may not work. 

I wouldn't make assumptions. Some private schools, in an effort to encourage after school activities, have a better coach service after activity time than they do at school finish time. Also, an advantage of encouraging after school activities is it provides after school care for working parents.

Newly_retired

A private school I taught at offered bursaries, with little information published about them. In practice, they were offered to those who scored the highest in the entrance exam, who were then asked for details of income. They were then awarded below a certain level of income, taking the number of dependents in the family into account.

sheramber

When I was at secondary school I had a 20 minute bus ride, followed by a 5 minute walk to another bus stop for a 10 minute bus ride to the school.

After school, it was a 10 minute  bus ride up the town, 5 minute walk to the bus station for the bus home. That was a 40 minute wait for the next bus home.

School finished at 4pm and I got home at 5.20pm

That was to the local secondary school for my area.  Some pupils travelled further.