Old Palace (Croydon) closing

[sicilianpizza]

Shocked to hear Old Palace closing due to financial difficulties. What does this mean for Whitgift - same foundation. Will it be affected?

No. Whitgift will be safe. Boys, so worth more money, different location and over subscribed so they haven't been handing out overly generous bursaries for a while to recruit. The girls school will always go under before a boys school.

Why the difference between girls and boys schools?

Such a shame. It is always hard to hear of a school closing. I believe the parents are furious, quite rightly too.

Is it likely to put pressure on Trinity going coed or just transfer numbers to Croydon High?

They have another girls school and I heard rumours about trinity going Co Ed. A shame as it's a pretty good school well was but over priced itself

Another girls' school?

The difference between girls' and boys' schools is compound interest. Some boys' schools have been around for hundreds of years so the initial endowment and land have grown massively in value. Girls' schools (of the academic type) have only been around since the mid 19th century and it's only much more recently than that that it's been the norm to educate girls in a similar way to boys.

Also I don't have stats on this but I think that more boys' schools have gone co-ed than girls' schools, which helps finances as they can appeal to a wider range of parents.

They don't have another girls school. There have been rumours about Trinity going Co-Ed ever since they announced the co-ed sixth form - I don't think it will happen (I'd certainly hoped it would so DD could have gone there like her brothers did!).

A big problem with Old Palace is the location I think. They are right in the centre of Croydon, can't expand anywhere and there is no space - it's what put us off. I think the only way they could have saved it is by relocating to a new school (and I think from the reports about this they did actually consider this as an option). I think the fact that it's girls is possibly a red herring because it is the school with the most problematic location.

There are quite a few girls private schools in London, incl all the GDST schools. There are far fewer all boys schools, as many have gone co-Ed. Old Palace is not a school that ever gets mentioned and is competing with Croydon High, Sutton High etc.