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15 August 2019
Means-tested bursaries and state-independent school partnerships are making a real difference for students.
Leicester High School student, Rida-Fatima Mazumder, has secured a place to study chemistry at the University of Birmingham with AAB A level grades. She joined the school on a 100% means-tested sixth form bursary funded by the Sir Thomas White Trust.
In Kent, Ellen O’Keefe has triumphed with grades AAB in her A levels and is now preparing to study history and politics at Reading University. Ellen is head girl at The John Wallis Academy which works in partnership with GSA’s Benenden School. Among other things, department heads from both schools work together to share best practice, student mentoring takes place, and Benenden’s Careers and HE Bulletin is distributed to students at both schools.
Further north, Jessica Hindley is looking forward to studying politics at Lancaster University after receiving a 100% means-tested bursary for all seven years of her senior school education. Jessica, a student at Bolton School Girls’ Division, is celebrating an A* and two A grades in her A levels. Bursary places are on the rise in GSA schools, where 56% of means-tested bursaries are for between half and full fee. At Bolton School, 1 in 5 students receives bursary support.
Jessica says:
“I have undoubtedly benefitted from my time at Bolton School, it has made me more disciplined in my work but I have also become more confident in who I am and in my abilities. I have been lucky enough to have been in receipt of a full bursary for seven years and it is hard to express everything that this has done for me. Perhaps the simplest way to express it is that I am simultaneously reluctant to leave and excited for what the future may hold.”
