Please send me your advice - unable to pay private school fees

[amy676]

Hi everyone!

I hope someone can help with advice. My two children were attending private school up until before the summer term when I took them out as I can no longer afford to pay due to personal circumstances. The children don't attend the school anymore but I have been getting letters demanding payment of up to £10K but I did explain my situation to the school and my intention to take them out in March 2022 but they said I should have given them written notice and not just verbally and now keep asking for payment.

What would happen as I don't have means to pay what would the school do and what action could they take against me as I'm worried. Please do kindly advise.

Thanks, Amy

I'm afraid OP doesn't write clearly and it's very difficult to follow her case. This means dealing with her will be confusing for finance manger, bursar etc.

The only good bit is the email that she's now found which mentions her notice as being accepted. I see that as critical.
Have you reminded bursar of that particular email?

Don't just ignore demands. Phone or email or communicate with everybody or else it will very quickly turn into a CCJ (or similar).

Is it worth talking to your GP? There may be extenuating circumstances if you have long Covid and brain fog etc.

Please make an appointment with your local Citizens' Advice Bureau. Take a clear timeline and all the letters and emails.
A lot of the advice on this thread is nonsense so it will only confuse you and won't help. Get proper advice from CAB.
You can find your nearest branch on their website
Find Your Local CAB

You sent them back after you had given notice? What paper trail do you have for this

Sorry, I haven’t RTFT. We don’t have “debt collectors” here in Scotland and given Scottish law doesn’t really recognise consumer debt - it’s astounding barclaycard even operate here. 😉

anyway, you are under no obligation to provide banks statements and justify your expenditure.

if they DO take you to court, it’ll be in front of the sheriff - and unlike noisy “debt collectors”, they prefer to think.

even were you found liable, you can’t get blood out of a stone and you are absolutely within your rights to use your vulnerability and offer £5/month.

chin up - if you’ve got the energy. X

The op gave notice Nov 2021 and they said in an email that that conversation would constitute official notice. They have waived their requirement for written notice and she has it on email, I don’t think they have a leg to stand on.

But she sent the kids to the school after she should have removed them.

Which means they may have considered that she rescinded that notice by continuing to send them

i don't think they have a leg to stand in - you have an email from them
clarifying they know you have given notice. You then extend the attendance and pay for that - on what planet can the school now say because they stayed a bit longer they know think the notice was rescinded? The onus is on them to prove you rescinded your notice in order to now claim you haven't given sufficient notice

Is the school Hutchie by any chance? Similar happened to my friend , I can’t remember the outcome but could find out if you like.

@Lineala in Scotland there is. Advice and assistance legal aid. Very different to England.

What exactly was the conversation? I imagine it went along the lines of you’re having trouble securing places for state school and in the interim could you extend your DC’s stay at the school? I don’t know anything about the law and I note the Scottish lawyer post upthread but it sounds to me that you have a reasonable defence. Please do not let the school bully you.

Wow I didn't know that, sounds like something else Scotland is doing right which England is getting fundamentally wrong 😳

You are in breach of contract. You need to give notice in writing one term in advance. You can be charged up until that notice period ends. If you have still not given written notice, you are still incurring charges for the next term. If you can post on here, you can email your terms notice to school. If you can’t pay, you can only try to negotiate reduced payments with the school, or a payment plan, or be prepared for then to collect on it.

You didn’t bother reading all OP’s posts then? She said this in one of them:

amy676 · Today 07:09
Sorry I should have explained myself clearer. I had actually told the principal in November 2021 of my intention to take the kids out and then the finance manager emailed me in December saying that I only have to pay up until the Spring term which is March 2022 and the kids can remain until March 2022.

But the kids remained several months past this time, so clearly some other arrangement was made? She can't have sneaked them in the back door whilst the school thought they'd already left.

Don't know about Scotland but in England they'd probably go for Bankruptcy if you owned your own home. If you don't then they might go for a CCJ and enforcement.

Thank you you explained this better than me as with the long Covid sometimes its hard for me to express and this is exactly the timeline of what happened. The reason why the kids went back after Easter was that I was just so unwell after Easter I was very sick and trying to arrange a state school and the whole prospect of moving them is already emotional for the kids as they have made friends at this school and I was already feeling terrible for them and it was too much to deal with at that time so I had kept them on thinking that it would be easier to deal with over the summer as I had more time to apply for a place for a state school. With long Covid it takes me mroe time to do things.

Do you have a record of what you agreed with the school re sending them back?

Who said this? Have you given the name to the school and have they been asked if it’s the case

I can see it’s a difficult situation

The only record I had is my correspondence via email with the finance manager. The principal is denying that he said that was official notice but i have an email from the finance manager saying that the principal took my verbal notice as official

The finance manager told me this and she corresponds very closely with the principal.

I also forgot to mention that the principal is CC'd in all the correspondence so he can't say he never saw it but I don't know why the principal is not responding at all and doesn't want to acknowledge this fact.

Did you communicate with the finance manager about keeping them at the school for a term longer than you had originally agreed?

What I don't understand is that when the children turned up after the Easter break, why anyone didn't get in touch and say "ooh, Jane and John are here today, we weren't expecting them" or did they just find a desk for them, carry on teaching them without any interaction with you? It seems odd that they carried out teaching children who shouldn't be be on roll.

That's what I'm wondering too and why I'm asking what communication the op has from the school about this.