Family Fund Apply for the family fund

Yorchestra has a family fund to enable us to offer some financial assistance to those who would not otherwise be able to take part in Yorchestra courses.  If you would like to apply for a place at Yorchestra but are concerned about affordability, please do read the information on this page to see whether we may be able to help through bursary funding.

How much does the family fund offer?

The family fund does not offer a fixed amount: instead, you can apply for a bursary equal to a percentage of the course fee, which you specify on the application form based on your own personal circumstances.  Our family fund is not unlimited, so we do need to consider each application carefully, and most are given for a maximum of 50% of the course fee.  However, this is not an absolute limit, and we are happy to consider requests for a higher amount.

If you are applying for more than one place on a particular Yorchestra course, you can apply to the family fund more than once. (The usual maximum would be three children from a single family.)

You can also apply for family funding for subsequent courses after having been granted family funding in the past.

What are your criteria for awarding family funds?

We appreciate that the cost of musical education is often already high, especially where more than one child in a family is learning an instrument, and that finding further money for course fees may be challenging for many families as a result.

For that reason, we do not apply rigid criteria when considering family fund applications.  Instead, we apply a discretionary approach, and encourage any parent to apply for the family fund if they believe their child would benefit from what Yorchestra offers, but they are concerned about the affordability of course fees given their personal circumstances.

By way of guidance, some examples of the kinds of cases when a bursary would normally be awarded are:

• the child is being looked-after by the local authority
• the child is eligible for free school meals / pupil premium
• one or both parents qualifies for benefits intended to assist those on low income, such as income support, housing benefit or universal credit
• single-parent family on modest income
• total household income is otherwise limited

However, this is not an exhaustive list, and we will always seek to assist where a need for financial help has been shown.

If in any doubt, please do contact us rather than just assuming that you would not qualify for the family fund.  We will always be happy to provide further guidance.

How do I apply for the family fund?

Use the link below to fill out our online family fund application form.  (Please note that the link opens outside the Yorchestra website.)

Privacy notice:  

Personal data provided on the online form will be used for the purposes of assessing your eligibility to receive bursary funding to assist with fees for our forthcoming Yorchestra course.  All information provided by you will be processed and stored securely in accordance with relevant legal requirements and will be treated as strictly confidential.  For more details, see our full privacy notice.

You should automatically receive a response email when your form is submitted.  The response email will be sent by Google Forms, rather than Yorchestra, since our online application form is powered by Google.  We recommend that you keep this email: it has a live link which will allow you to update the information on your application at a later date if needed.

Technical problems?

If you experience technical problems with the online application form, take a look at the relevant section of our FAQs page, which covers the most commonly encountered problems.  If this doesn’t solve the problem, please contact us giving details of the problem, and we will do our best to assist.

What do I pay when applying for a place?

If you are applying for family funding, you should send payment initially for the amount of the applicable course fee less the amount of the bursary applied for.

So, for instance, if applying for a place in Y4 at the full course fee (£50), with a 50% bursary, you would pay £25 at the time of applying.

What happens if my family fund application is unsuccessful?

We do our best to grant all applications which show a genuine need for financial support, so it would be very rare for this to occur.

However, if for any reason we are unable to award you a bursary, or if you are granted a lower bursary than the amount applied for, we will let you know the balance due.  This amount will need to be paid in order to confirm your child’s place; but if you decide that the course fees are not affordable for you without further funding, you may cancel your application and we will refund the amount already paid.

Where can I get more information on the family fund?

If you have any queries about the family fund and eligibility for financial help which aren’t answered by the information on this page or on our FAQs page, please contact us.  Any information given will be treated in the strictest confidence.