Thank you Lapin..that is the exact scenario I had been pondering. Do we let them know in advance, that any potential acceptance, would depend on this, and if so, how? Without coming across as some smug optimistic of course! Is it something regularly encountered in terms of indie applications, particularly in an area where GS places are coveted by most?
Bursary is not an option, but just because a child is coming from a prep and the family's gross income exceeds the income threshold, certainly doesn't account for the many other variables that can make affording another 7 years full fee impossible.
As for considering GS for our daughter, we are just not sure that the ones we have looked at, are somewhere she would thrive and be happy. That is what's ultimately important for us. With GS there is an element of taking the child that suits the school, the child that can deliver and dole out good grades with minimum input and support, but we have seen a couple of schools, that we feel can deliver something beyond this, albeit both very differently. It's definitely not based on some misguided premise that, if we pay for it, it must be better. There are other issues we need to consider, not SEN as such, at least not in significant measurable cognitive terms, but there are other issues that might make a large GS unsuitable. It would be an easy decision if this wasn't the case!

We've now looked at over 10 indies, and there are two that we particularly like, and are within reasonable distance. One is selective and scholarship is a longer shot..but would be our number one choice. The other is much less selective, fees more manageable, and scholarship perhaps more easily attainable. However, HT does not think there would be sufficient academic stretch, which does worry us somewhat, but there are plenty of other positives for us to consider it as an alternative choice.
So that's where we are at for now. Of course a few short months from now, our presumed array of choice might well be very different!

Your description of grammar school as a place where a student is expected to deliver and dole out grades with minimum input and support shows that you mistakenly believe that an indie is the only place where a student is valued and supported.

This is a fairly classic misguided opinion of state education by a parent in private education.

I have been absolutely staggered by the incredible support that my dds got from their teachers at not one but two secondary state schools, one non selective. I got so much more than I would have thought possible and did not ask for any of it.

I suggest you perhaps talk to parents from the GS that you have dismissed as only offering minimum input and support.

When I show my dds email from parents listing out the private options and the gs options available to them, they always choose the state options because they feel the experience is so much rounder and realistic.

Please do not choose a less academic private school because you are so keen to stay private.

The very worst thing for a strongly academic student is to be in an environment where they are not challenged.

I always wanted my dds to be with the smartest students we could possibly find.

That should be a top priority for you too.

If she is academic then she needs to be with other academic students.

Please also remember that private schools are businesses and will make the decisions that are right for the business rather than for the individual student. DG

Thank you DG, It's good to hear that there are positive experiences with some GS out there, unfortunately the negative experiences I have had fed back to me, have far outweighed the positives, so naturally it is hard to ignore. Yes I do have some friends and family, whose children have flourished, and some GS are better than others on the pastoral side. Unfortunately, two of our catchment GS have had particularly negative feedback, and while the third GS we like seems better in terms of pastoral fit and size, we are a little too far on distance to ever guarantee a place. So naturally we need to consider other options. A parent of an incredibly bright girl we know, pulled her daughter out after one term, having turned down a good scholarship in favor of this highly regarded GS, and we know quite a few girls who have had an array of mental health issues, ranging from eating disorders to self harm. We just feel she has enough to contend with in terms of other health related issues, to take a gamble on this without considering all our options.

Irrespective of GS or Indie I think this is absolutely not the caseThere are far far worse things that can happen. Anecdote does not make data but just for balance, I most certainly did not.
OP give whatever you want a go, do not be to swayed by others' views, here or elsewhere. For example, the prep HT may be more focused on his leaver destinations list than the future welfare of your DD, others might have an axe to grind for or against one sector, others may be terribly pro or anti tutoring/mocks etc. If you want to explore it find out what the scholarship process is for your possible target school/s and take it from there . Good luck

_________________
mad?

My two have had amazing support from the teachers.
A million miles away from the idea that GS pupils churn out good grades with minimal
input.
If a private school is going to be a stretch financially I would give the grammars very careful consideration.
People move children from schools for all sorts of reasons.
Over the years I’ve come to the conclusion that a lot of those moves are more to do with
the child than the school.
Self harm and mental health issues are not more prevalent in grammars than private schools.

Again this is anecdote rather than data but my children are at a partially selective school where the pastoral care has been absolutely awesome and both my children would say that the majority of their teachers care far more about them than their results (and they certainly feel that the SLT does too). I have friends with children at another local grammar who also feel their children have been cared for and well supported. I know other children at a single sex grammar school where there are more mental health issues (more self harm, more eating disorders, more anxiety) but where the students say that the school is not causing that but the competition between students is the driver (and that the school tries hard to help).
I'm afraid my experience of friends with girls in the independent sector is that more of them feel that their children have been unsupported and the pastoral care distinctly lacking. This has not been the case for everyone obviously and not for my particular friends with boys in academic indies.
We were never in a position to consider the independent sector but, several years on from the 11+, I'm very glad we weren't.

Anecdotally, from a police officer friend of ours, private schools often have higher incidences of drug offences occurring too - assumably because of the higher latent wealth in most of them than your average state school.

If I’ve understood your original question correctly it was whether you could approach a private school before the entrance and tell them that you really need a scholarship and that you have two independent ed psych reports and a prep school HT to back you up with academic evidence should your daughter not perform to her potential in the entrance exam.
Every thing about doing this seems wrong to me.
I assume as your daughter is at a prep you have paid for the Ed psych assessments and indirectly you are paying the HT.
How could it be fair for your daughter to be awarded a scholarship ahead of someone who scored better in the entrance exam but hasn’t got those pieces of evidence to back them up because they are at a state primary and haven’t had EP assessments ( x 2) done.
I would really hope a school wouldn’t change their scholarship awards on this basis.
As I mentioned previously a mother of a child we knew tried this sort of approach when her child got a place but not a scholarship and was given very short shrift by the head a admissions.
If your daughter got a scholarship on this basis I think it would be fundamentally wrong.
Another child who did better in the exam would be missing out on what could to be to her family much needed help with fees but they hadn’t told the school.
The awarding of scholarships should be unrelated to need.

I agree Moon unit, that would be unfair, but I’m not asking how to circumvent fairness in any way here, I’m simply asking how does the whole scholarship application process work. How linear is the decision, and are other factors considered. There is a genuine reason why our daughter might not perform well on any given day, so perhaps that simply warrants an exam deferral. As for having obtained 2 EP reports, the first was in year 3, having missed nearly half her school life up to then through illness, and had certain issues that were only addressed once the EP had picked them up. It was definitely money well spent. We had to have the 2nd report updated for exam access arrangements. I’m sorry if that is considered an unfair ‘advantage’ in any way, I think any parent of a child who has had the health disadvantages she has had this far, would have done the same. In prep or not. And it was in fact the awful experience we had in the local primary, that prompted the move to her current prep at the time.

Also think about the learning that happens out of school.

DD was in private to Y6 and we got an amazing offer from a top independent school but no scholarship or bursary. Despite a very modest income, the value of our home had too much equity to qualify for a bursary and it was our choice not to sell. We very hapilly took up the grammar option instead. We sat DD for the indie test knowing this and the school knew this and she got an offer but not the bursary- we didn’t push that though as we were really happy with the alternatives which also happened to be closer.

DD is so much happier at the grammar than she was at private.
We can afford music and sports lessons plus the school trips which would not have been an option if we were paying fees.