CORPORATION SCHOLARSHIPS AND BURSARIES POLICY - KEY PRINCIPLES
Introduction
1. The Corporation aims to provide an education through its two Schools, on as inclusive a basis as possible, consistent with its aim of advancing a high quality education for boys for the benefit of the public.
2. The Corporation has a single overall policy for scholarships and bursaries. Within the overall policy, in recognition of the two Schools’ educational differences and independence, each School will maintain supplementary, bespoke policies of their own but monitor them regularly to ensure consistency with the Corporation’s policy.
Overall policy for Scholarships
1. Scholarships will be awarded each year, both to entrants and to current pupils, which recognise a variety of exceptional talents.
2. As awards for merit, the intrinsic financial value of scholarships should be suppressed as much as possible, the ultimate aim being to have awards which are honorary with no ‘automatic’ entitlement to financial compensation.
3. The value of the awards made will be financially limited by the budget approved by Governors of both Schools in the autumn preceding the academic year in which the awards will be offered/taken up.
4. In order to recruit top quality boys in competitive circumstances, who might otherwise go elsewhere, and for the benefit of the Schools as a whole, the Head will retain discretion to offer non-means tested scholarships of a greater value than the norm.
5. Scholarship criteria will, except in the case of scholarships resulting from restricted gifts, involve no restriction nor give preference to any class of candidate, save in respect of talent.
Overall policy for Bursaries
1. A principal aim of the bursaries policy is to widen access to both Schools, enabling the sons of those who could not otherwise afford the fees, and who demonstrate significant potential to benefit from the education provided, to do so at a fully or partly subsidised charge.
2. The Schools’ bursaries will either be means-tested supplements to scholarships or awards to the parents of current pupils who unexpectedly find themselves in financial difficulty.
3. Harrow School will develop opportunities for more ‘continuation’ awards to enable boys from the maintained sector confidently to commit to independent education from age 11.
4. Bursary candidates will be means-tested save in certain circumstances where an award might be made in pursuance of a restricted gift.
5. Both Schools should aim to fund as many of these awards as possible from endowment or extraneous sources of income (such as HIS).
6. The long term objective is incrementally to increase the number and value of bursaries funded out of endowment income which will require the relevant endowed funds to be built up over time through fund-raising and augmentation from surpluses.
7. Means-testing assessments should continue to take into account both the income and the assets of the signatories to the parental contract; a premium will be charged for opportunities to release capital which are not taken by a parent when applying for a means-tested bursary.
8. Every bursary should be approved by each School’s Bursaries Committee which should comprise at least one Governor and the Head and Bursar.
9. Both Schools should maintain contingency funds for in-year hardship and for educationally essential extras for those who have bursaries.
10. Both Schools should advertise the availability of bursaries. In addition to the media and their own websites and prospectuses, both Schools should also advertise their bursaries to local maintained schools and organisations known or linked to both John Lyon’s Charity and the Harrow Club.
NAS/June 2009