Long term effect of coronavirus crisis on private school sector

But if your school is failing and you wish to move within the private sector then I am sure there will be quite a few other independent schools willing to welcome you with open arms.

There does seem to be a lack of understanding about state school admissions on here. I'm a bit tired and no expert, but living in catchment does not mean a school has to take a child.

Each school will have a PAN, the total number they accept per year. They can go above this if the total in school is below a certain level. Early years are also capped. It is notoriously difficult to get a school place above PAN.

An in year admission is difficult. Possible if the school has a place.

If my dc were private, and I had concerns about income or school viability, I would be getting on every waiting list I could. Last on the list does not mean last for a place. Depends on the schools over subscription criteria.

My understanding is yes a school place has to be found for your child (there are rare cases when this doesn't happen). You can express a preference, but the place offered will depend on what is available.

Sprouts - presumably the school was making a loss anyway but the Minster were funding it from their tourist income because of the choral side of things, and maybe just because that's how it had traditionally been. And then the bottom falls out of their tourism income, and faced with a massive black hole in their finances they decide to pull the plug on the school.

As the phrase has it, when the tide goes out, you see who's been swimming naked.

Effzeh Really interesting is that it's the fall in tourist income at York Minster that has been the final straw at Minster School.
www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/education/yorks-minster-school-set-close-after-minster-suffers-catastrophic-loss-income-during-lockdown-2873687

One would assume the new heads were aware of the financial position. Often their remit will be to increase numbers!

Never assume former pupils are minted and will throw collective millions £ at a failing school. Harrow and Eton have ultra deep pockets, smaller, not so ancient and less prestigious schools do not. They have a more hand to mouth existence where fees are the main income and rich alumni are not the norm. Even if you have rich alumni, you have to persuade them to give to a failing institution and that’s not easy!

The prep school ds is at has had some boarders in all the way through this, I think they were weekly boarders. The year 6s are now obviously back including year 6 boarders. But of course that's manageable when its not all the boarders. Quite how they are going to manage in September I have no idea! They also usually have quite a few international boarders so I suppose they might not be back. But I know they often have 4 or 5 to a bedroom.

Mine wanted to act 'independently' and allow other years to go back in but had their hands tied by governmental advice which affected their insurance cover.

First find out the legal name of the entity and also any trust or company it is part of. You may need to check both the school and the wider organisation. You many need to do some detective work to work this out but it is usually on the website somewhere.

Charity Commission. - where if a charity it will file accounts and a report
, problem is these are old news

Companies House - look on the filings tab to get the info for the annual report - again this is often old news, a regular negative figure and few reserves should ring alarm bells. Look at the going concern statement. Look for any old strike off notices, they may just be an innocent late filing of the accounts

The Gazette - insolvency notices end up here

CE File of the High Court - you need to register and credit 15 mins of search time at a small cost but you can search for winding up orders- after a few days these usually appear in The Gazette

Can anyone point me in the right direction to find out about the financial situation of our independent school.

It's been absolutely amazing during all of this - full timetable with some practical adjustments. Offering all manner of additional things to the kids. As well as fully 'live' classes there's been a lot of pastoral care & spirts/challenges encourages & things like yoga & 'stay fit'

They've updated us at every stage. Discount for next term 15% non boarder (us)& 25% boarding. Quite detailed about how they're making savings & lots of community Support/donations/assistance.

Dc14 loves her school (Y9) and has loved the additional socialising that It being predominantly boarding provides (but lives being non boarding) but she has really enjoyed the 'New way'.

She's fabulous at just getting on with it & doing prep etc, but she would hate to be alone in the house all day, every day so we'd need to make WFH arrangements to be home most of the time.

They said ages ago that they wouldn't be physically back until Sept. & we were happy with that (totally expected it as a large percentage are overseas boarders) but now I'm beginning to wonder what's going to happen.

As we never intended to board we didn't look at many of the boarding 'houses' but the ones we looked at were all 2 to a room (not sure if they have any larger ones) so I presume they'll only be able to have 50% if the boarders back? & whether that many will want to come back? Who knows?!

Then we have friends at her previous independent (non boarding) but almost all busses in.

Sorry, lots of thinking out loud as I just assumed she'd go back at some stage (even maybe only part time) and hadn't considered it might have to close. Stupid really, but it's an institution & seems So 'well healed' - I guess I just assumed it would be ok?! If not some of the past pupils would be willing to throw cash at it, but 🤷🏻‍♀️

Private schools can act independently. That’s why they are called independent schools. They have legal obligations but opening post Covid probably isn’t one of them. Like a business, they can be advised but not told. Unless the law changes of course.

If preps school can’t or won’t open up fully in sep (reading other thread about disruption into nov) not sure I can keep my two children under 7 at our prep and will have to pay a nanny to care for them instead. There must be tonnes of people in similar shoes that require both parents to work to pay fees. Unless private schools can act independently to state schools (insurance cover being one concern) the future is worrying.

Now York Minster school.

They say they have 2/3 of their children not starting. That would not represent just overseas children one would think. But it’s very shaky and I suspect there are many more like it.

Any school that normally has overseas boarders is going to be in trouble unless they have big reserves.

Also, turning a £1.7mil surplus into a £1.5 mil deficit is going it some. The para about financial reserves is also interesting - basically there aren't any, and they are borrowing to fund loans.

I have now looked at the accounts for the Cothill Trust. The attached para is ominous. I would worry about their other schools.

Surprised at that. Although I haven’t looked at their accounts.

And now Ashdown House, which is really not in the category of schools you would have predicted as being particularly vulnerable.

schoolsweek.co.uk/boris-johnsons-former-prep-school-closes-due-to-coronavirus-impact/

The state schools only got one year of cover for the TPS changes. There will be another TPS review in 2022(?)

Some independents are already out of TPS and if more follow suit that will create further issues in the next review.

State schools are getting a grant to help them cover the cost of TPS, I believe, though doubtless it won't cover the whole cost. DS's school has decided to continue with TPS - whether that decision will still be viable now, who knows?

If I thought a senior school might go bankrupt I would certainly get as much financial info right now on the school. Schools close and they don’t keep them open so all pupils finish y11 or y13. They close. You find somewhere else. Repeat a year if necessary. I wouldn’t be reticent about getting info and making an early decision.

Just to mention that state schools will also have to pay the increased pension costs (in a year I think) but won't have the option of withdrawing from TPS - as far as I know. In some ways it may be good that independents had to make that adjustment pre-Covid.