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Bursary Forms

Posted: Wed Nov 21, 2012 7:18 pm
by Annatinks
Hi, my daughter is going to the January assesment and is terribly excited at the prospect of CH. The trouble I am having is regarding the bursary side. My partner's net income is £23419 and my own is £9975. We are now not eligable for child tax credits this year following the threshold reduction. I know that rent is taken into consideration (£4800) and we pay £3600 in maintainence for my partner's (previous relationship) son. My two big problems are that once debts we have are paid we already feel so very stretched. We do not take holidays nor have savings etc. Yet based on the current table on the CH site I presume we would be able to receive only 70% bursary and I don't believe we can find the shortfall.

Secondly to top that my partner has just received notice of redundancy because the company he works for is shutting it's UK branch. We do not have a date yet as it is a major firm but the letter does confirm that positions will not be able to be offered elsewhere within the company due to the full UK closure.

This leads to much fretting that IF dd gets a place can we afford it? prob not but how do I then tell her she can't have it?

and IF she gets a place, and we find a miracle that means we can find the shortfall, then my partner is redundant how will we be affected by the 10% increase of original bursary cap? I know that there are some hardship alternatives that are short term but I do not know how long they can last for and what happens after? Had my partner just left his job I would be sure he would find suitable employment reasonably quickly but as the whole department will be after those same jobs I worry that he will struggle to get work in the current work climate.

I didn't start the dream of going to CH. My daughter's head-teacher had a meeting, without my knowledge or presence, with her to explain that we should consider CH for her because it would suit her so well. Following the open day visit I agree - it would be wonderful for dd and we both loved it there . My daughter wants this so much - it's breaking my heart fretting over this. I almost hope she does not get a place so that I don't have to be the one that meant she couldn't go because we couldn't find the money. I would consider us a "medium income" family and was under the impression that this would be more managable this year but it's feeling more and more unlikely.

Thank you in advance for any responses or advice you can offer!

Anna


(p.s. Sorry for the poor grammar; I have been sat at these forms for about 2 hours now and am tired and emotional!)

Re: Bursary Forms

Posted: Wed Nov 21, 2012 7:55 pm
by cupcakemom
Anna - welcome to the Forum. I have PM'd you!

Cupcakemom

Re: Bursary Forms

Posted: Wed Nov 21, 2012 8:06 pm
by cupcakemom
My PM skills are a bit iffy - so post if you don't receive it and I'll try again!

Re: Bursary Forms

Posted: Wed Nov 21, 2012 8:13 pm
by Fairy
I have pm'd you again Anna :D

Re: Bursary Forms

Posted: Wed Nov 21, 2012 9:36 pm
by Annatinks
Thank you all so much for your pm's!

Re: Bursary Forms

Posted: Thu Nov 22, 2012 5:36 pm
by ailurophile
Hi Anna

Welcome to the Forum, I’m sure you’ll find the support and advice you need here. For what it’s worth, there is a long thread from last year here http://www.chforum.info/php/viewtopic.php?f=40&t=4063 where Forum members speculated that exactly these sort of anxieties were likely to be created by the new bursary policy!

My suggestion would be that you contact Mrs Young, the bursary assessment manager, to discuss your particular situation in detail – and make sure that you get any answers in writing! Best of luck, I hope that you’ll be able to work things out. And good luck to your DD for the January assessment too!