Local Authority Grants

Some education authorities and social service departments give grants to enable children who need to board to go to boarding schools. You should apply to the Director of Education for the area in which you live. Funds are very limited but, if you can show that boarding education is essential and if there is no room for your child at one of the few schools which admit boarders in the state system, you might succeed. The local authority may agree to pay part of the costs, such as tuition fees only.

Reasons commonly accepted for boarding need include:

• both parents are abroad
• parents have to move home frequently because of their jobs
• home circumstances are unhelpful to the child's development
• the child is highly talented - e.g. in music, dancing or singing - and can only be properly catered for at a boarding school
• the child suffers from a disability which makes boarding desirable
• the child lives in a remote part of the country and cannot easily travel each day to school