Widening Access – Bursaries Annual Report 2019

Bursaries are very much part of our DNA, indeed original College admissions documents state that ‘One Founder’s pupil’ will be sponsored by the College for every ten fee paying pupils. And the College continues to provide access to its education through the availability of means-tested bursaries for pupils who would not otherwise be able to attend Bradfield.  

In 2019 the College awarded scholarships and bursaries of £2,309,000 to a total of 122 pupils, or 15% of pupils receive some form of fee remission, which in total represents 8.6% of gross fees (26,727,000) (2018: £2,068,000 and 7.4%). Of these, fifteen pupils received 100% assistance – including five nominated by The Royal National Children’s Springboard Foundation –, five pupils received 90% assistance and a further seven pupils received 80% or more assistance in the year.  The College also provides additional help for the cost of uniforms and co-curricular activities, making some bursaries effectively 110%. 

At present the College has only a small endowment and this makes a limited contribution to offsetting the cost of the Bursary programme, therefore the College looks to the Foundation to reduce its reliance on annual income to fund this area and this year the Foundation transferred (£187k) funds to cover the provision of 5 bursaries. 

Additionally, in December 2018 the Development Office launched ‘the 1850 Club Appeal in support of Bright Futures’ with the aim of extending the College’s ability to provide bursaries for more pupils from genuinely disadvantaged, low-income families. As a result of this appeal, existing regular donations and legacies received we managed to raise £144,000 in the year ended 31 August 2019, equating to three 110% bursaries. 

We would very much like to thank our donors for making this possible and those who have donated are listed in the ‘Thank you’ section at the end of this publications. If you would like to join them, please do contact Katie Green-Armytage at the Development Office on 0118 964 4840, development@bradfieldcollege.org.uk  

For more information about the 1850 Club Appeal, please visit our website https://www.bradfieldcollege.org.uk/bradfield-for-life/