New Bursaries policy

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TrueBlue
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Re: New Bursaries policy

Post by TrueBlue »

sejintenej wrote:
Lets take :master Q whose parents are far from well off. School fees are £20.000 and the bursary is £ 18.000 at the start. With inflation the fees rise 5% per annum for the next 5 years so the fees become £25.515 but the bursary becomes £19800: the parents contribution has risen from £2.000 to £4715 or 136% on no increase in family income. (Looking at the current economic climate an annual rise of as little as 5% seems very unlikely). Legalised expulsion of a pupil the school decided desperately needed the school's suppport?
I think there is some misunderstanding here. Bursaries are notified as a percentage of fees, thus in the example above the award is 90%. If the fees rise as shown to £25,515 then the bursary is £22,963 and the amount to be found by the parents has risen from £2,000 to £2,552, or roughly 25%. This would, of course, be tough, but there is potential scope for the bursary to rise by up to 10%, or in this case, up to 100% if the need is great.
sejintenej
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Re: New Bursaries policy

Post by sejintenej »

TrueBlue wrote:
sejintenej wrote:
Lets take :master Q whose parents are far from well off. School fees are £20.000 and the bursary is £ 18.000 at the start. With inflation the fees rise 5% per annum for the next 5 years so the fees become £25.515 but the bursary becomes £19800: the parents contribution has risen from £2.000 to £4715 or 136% on no increase in family income. (Looking at the current economic climate an annual rise of as little as 5% seems very unlikely). Legalised expulsion of a pupil the school decided desperately needed the school's suppport?
I think there is some misunderstanding here. Bursaries are notified as a percentage of fees, thus in the example above the award is 90%. If the fees rise as shown to £25,515 then the bursary is £22,963 and the amount to be found by the parents has risen from £2,000 to £2,552, or roughly 25%. This would, of course, be tough, but there is potential scope for the bursary to rise by up to 10%, or in this case, up to 100% if the need is great.
Noel: I hope you are right but I based my reasoning on what has since been declared to be a "cut and paste" extract. This being the case, it seems that the original was either accidentally ambiguous (which raises questions about the author(s)' drafting ability) or allows for future "reinterpretation".
TrueBlue
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Re: New Bursaries policy

Post by TrueBlue »

Hi, here is a cut and paste from the Bursary Policy on the school website.

"Bursaries are expressed as a percentage reduction from the prevailing school fees. So, for example, an 80% bursary would mean that the parents would only need to meet 20% of the current level of School fees.
Bursaries are reviewed annually (see below) to take account of changes in parental circumstances.
- Where parents circumstances have improved, the level of bursary may be reduced.
- Where parents circumstances have worsened and/or where fee levels have increased relative to the parents¡¦ ability to pay, the level of bursary may be increased but, over the duration of the child¡¦s time at the school, only up to a maximum figure, usually 10% above the original award made. This maximum figure will be given to parents at the same time as the original award.

Using the example above, the parents who are offered an 80% bursary would be told that, over the course of their child’s education at the School, the maximum bursary given would rise to no more than 90% of the prevailing fees but that their bursary could fall below the 80% level if the annual review showed that their circumstances had improved."


This seems pretty clear to me.
lippizaner
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Re: New Bursaries policy

Post by lippizaner »

Um, supposing you start with a huge bursary, such as 90 or 100% and then your circumstances change FAVOURABLY and you can suddenly pay up to half your fees. Are they then also going to apply the "change by only up to 10%" rule, or does this rule only work in the direction indicated? As in your bursary can only go UP by 10% or less, but it can come down any amount they like? Not, of course, that one would want to avoid paying one's dues if one could afford to, just a theoretical question? Has this been made perfectly clear in the relevant section?
TrueBlue
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Re: New Bursaries policy

Post by TrueBlue »

The link

http://www.christs-hospital.org.uk/pdf/ ... saries.pdf

so people can see the real thing.
wurzel
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Re: New Bursaries policy

Post by wurzel »

I see the sibling discount has changed dramatically as well
ailurophile
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Re: New Bursaries policy

Post by ailurophile »

I see the sibling discount has changed dramatically as well
Has it? Where did you see this?
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Re: New Bursaries policy

Post by ailurophile »

Lippizaner wrote:
Um, supposing you start with a huge bursary, such as 90 or 100% and then your circumstances change FAVOURABLY and you can suddenly pay up to half your fees. Are they then also going to apply the "change by only up to 10%" rule, or does this rule only work in the direction indicated? As in your bursary can only go UP by 10% or less, but it can come down any amount they like? Not, of course, that one would want to avoid paying one's dues if one could afford to, just a theoretical question? Has this been made perfectly clear in the relevant section?
Not clear at all, although the implication is presumably that the 10% limit applies in one direction only. But this begs the further question of what would happen if your financial circumstances keep fluctuating - say for example if you have a very unpredictable self-employed income, or if you are unfortunate enough to be in and out of work. If you started in 2012 with an 80% bursary, but this was reassessed and adjusted to 50% in 2013... where would this leave you if your income fell again in subsequent years - would your potential bursary be capped at 90%, or 60%? :?

I can understand that the school are trying to avoid playing Russian Roulette with their own finances, but this kind of complication has the potential to be an absolute nightmare for parents.
wurzel
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Re: New Bursaries policy

Post by wurzel »

Main fees page of website

Sibling discounts are discretionary for those on bursaries, recognising the impact on family
income of fees paid for the first child. If paying full fees, sibling discounts are fixed at 8% for
the second child and 10% for the third child in the school.
ailurophile
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Re: New Bursaries policy

Post by ailurophile »

Sibling discounts are discretionary for those on bursaries, recognising the impact on family
income of fees paid for the first child. If paying full fees, sibling discounts are fixed at 8% for
the second child and 10% for the third child in the school.
Thanks Wurzel.. I don't think this actually represents a significant change from the previous policy, although the use of the word 'discretionary' makes it hard to be certain.

For some time now, posters on this Forum have been calling for more transparency in the way CH communicates with parents, particularly in matters of finance. The new bursaries policy seems more obscure than anything which has gone before!
wurzel
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Re: New Bursaries policy

Post by wurzel »

I have to say in some ways it makes more sense. Allthough I think you should get an indication before you sit the exams I dislike the idea of people being able to see all the nuances of the rules allowing the financially astute to organise their affairs in such a way they get more than their fair share of a finitie pot of bursary money thus depriving someone else.
SAS
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Re: New Bursaries policy

Post by SAS »

Sibling discounts are discretionary for those on bursaries, recognising the impact on family
income of fees paid for the first child. If paying full fees, sibling discounts are fixed at 8% for
the second child and 10% for the third child in the school.
So does this mean that your second child gets 8% off full fees only, or 8% as well as means tested bursary? If it is only 8% we cannot countenance sending DD2 to CH.
ailurophile
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Re: New Bursaries policy

Post by ailurophile »

I have to say in some ways it makes more sense. Allthough I think you should get an indication before you sit the exams I dislike the idea of people being able to see all the nuances of the rules allowing the financially astute to organise their affairs in such a way they get more than their fair share of a finitie pot of bursary money thus depriving someone else.
Yes, I can see the sense in that.

I do agree that potential applicants need to have some indication of their likely contribution before they are offered a place they can't afford - we have seen on this Forum the distress and heartbreak that situation can create.

I think what makes me really uncomfortable about the new approach is that it is focused almost entirely on the interests of the school. I can understand that CH need to safeguard their own financial security, but I worry that in order to achieve this the interests of the children at the heart of the school are in danger of being compromised.
ailurophile
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Re: New Bursaries policy

Post by ailurophile »

Sibling discounts are discretionary for those on bursaries, recognising the impact on family
income of fees paid for the first child. If paying full fees, sibling discounts are fixed at 8% for
the second child and 10% for the third child in the school.
So does this mean that your second child gets 8% off full fees only, or 8% as well as means tested bursary? If it is only 8% we cannot countenance sending DD2 to CH.
Hi SAS

What this means (if I have understood correctly) is that the 8% sibling discount applies only to direct entry pupils whose families pay full fees.

If your first child receives a bursary siblings will be assessed in the same way, but the fees you pay for your first child will be taken into account and allowed against income. In effect, you should receive a larger bursary for each successive child. No change from the current system as far as I can tell. Except that if what Dinahcat heard from staff at the open day is true, it might be harder for children from less wealthy homes to pass the initial assesment.
wurzel
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Re: New Bursaries policy

Post by wurzel »

I took the comment dinahcat reported to basically mean full fee entrants would only have to pass the slightly easier exam passmark that presentees currently have to pass, thus it would decrease the number of competitive places available given a finite total number of places and fixed number of presentations.

In terms of sibling i read it as meaning for non full fee payers the school could use discretion to work out what you could afford
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