16+ Bursaries
Applications for 2026 entry will open in summer 2025 and close in October 2025.
If you wish to apply for a 16+ bursary, please make this clear on your application form. If your total family income is less than £45,000, we will reduce the size of the application fee from £150 to £30 (plus VAT), if you can’t afford the fee please let us know.
Once we’ve received your application, we’ll send you a financial assessment form with guidance on how to complete it. You will need to send us the completed form by the application deadline and any additional documents by mid-October to be considered for a bursary.
Your personal information will remain strictly confidential and will not affect the outcome of your child’s assessment, which will take place in November. All candidates are required to take the assessment so we can make sure they’ll be able to cope with the fast-paced learning at Highgate.
Following your application, you will be asked to attend an online meeting with a representative from Bursary Assessment Associates, an independent company who help us assess bursary candidates. They will treat your information in total confidence and will help to guide you through the process. You can read more about them here:
Information for parents | Bursary Assessment Associates
In your meeting, the BAA representative will go through your completed financial assessment form, you can ask them questions and explain anything that might be unclear from your form. They will then make a recommendation to us regarding your eligibility for a bursary award.
If your child is successful in their assessment, we will then make a final decision on the size of the bursary based on BAA’s recommendation, the number of candidates applying and the amount of funding we have available. We will write to you with an offer of a place, and with information on the size of the bursary by early December.
Please click here to read further information about 16+ Admissions.
How much might we receive?
We realise that it is helpful to estimate the size of the bursary support that may be awarded to your child. BAA judge each application carefully, looking at several factors such as:
- Sources of income
- Outgoings
- Assets
- Liabilities
- The value and council tax band of the family home
- Size of the family
As a rough guide, if your total family income is less than £40,000 and if you don’t have significant assets (e.g. savings), then your child could be entitled to 100% funding of school fees, as well as additional help with uniforms, IT or educational trips. If your total family income is more than £70,000 then it is unlikely you will be eligible for a bursary.
These are for guidance only and BAA will assess your personal situation, if you think you may be eligible then please get in touch.
Key Worker Bursary
Each year, we allocate one full-fee equivalent bursary for a child of parents/carers who are key workers living in the local area.
We define a key worker as someone who is employed by the public sector, in a frontline role, delivering an essential public service. Examples of such roles include: clinical NHS staff (other than doctors and dentists), teachers in schools and in further education and sixth form colleges, police officers and community support officers, prison officers, probation service staff, firefighters, ambulance service crew and members of the armed forces.
Our key worker bursary provides an enhanced level of support over a wider range of total family income: for this bursary, you can consider applying if your total family income is up to £125,000.
Whilst this bursary is aimed at families where both parents/carers are key workers, in a situation where only one is employed in such a role, careful consideration will be given to the circumstances/employment of the second parent/carer in deciding whether this specific bursary should apply.
Read our Bursary FAQ