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Our Bursary Programme

Southampton is a wonderful city, bustling with diversity, creativity and industry. However, our city does have pockets of significant deprivation where greater educational opportunities are much needed. In the 2019 Index of Multiple Deprivation, the city was ranked 55th most deprived out of 317 local authorities. Rates of young people in care are also above average, with 95 looked after children per 10,000 compared to 65 for England.

Whilst KES cannot solve these challenges singlehandedly, we want to play our part in supporting talented and motivated young people who wish to excel. We believe that education is always the starting point for greater opportunity. KES already provides several bursaries each year and has done for many years. However, for each of the past five years, we have had more bursary applicants finishing in the top 100 of our entrance exam than bursary places available.

This means extremely bright young people are missing out and we want to be able to offer more bursary places. Even in this challenging financial environment, the School will do everything we can to maintain our current funding towards bursaries, because we believe in them. However, increased philanthropy is the only way we will be able to create a brighter future for more young people in Southampton.

57 Bursary Award holders at KES (32 receive a full bursary)

£25,724 - the average household income of full 25/26 Bursary Award holders

94% of full Bursary Award holders live in Southampton postcodes (SO14-SO19)

Awarding Criteria

Two groups are eligible to apply for a Bursary Award at KES:

1) Pupils with a lower household income

Applicants with a household income below £46,000 are eligible to receive a 100% bursary, and for families earning between £46,000 and £92,000, a sliding scale operates for partial bursaries. 

We partner with Bursary Administration Limited to undertake financial assessments on families applying for a bursary. Each award is a significant investment in a young person, so through these checks, we ensure that school funds and donations are spent in the most impactful way possible. 

Prospective bursary holders will then sit our entrance exam in January. We award bursaries to pupils scoring highly in the entrance exam, showing their potential to thrive in the learning environment here at KES.

2) Care-experienced pupils

We partner with the Royal National Children’s Springboard Foundation to identify local children who have been in care, for whom the stability of a place at KES would be transformational. We currently offer one of our 100% Bursary Awards per year to a care experienced young person.

Impact

Our hope for our Bursary Award holders is that after leaving KES, they go into the world well equipped academically, socially, and developed in their character. We hope they are better set up to fulfil their ambitions and will also consider giving back in some way in the future.

We regularly ask our current and former Bursary Award holders about their experiences at KES and the difference a bursary has made to them. You can read some of their responses below.

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