What happens if a private school becomes un-viable?

[CostcoUggs]

Just wondering. DS is Yr 2 and at a smallish private primary school (40 per year across 2 classes) that's been around 80+ years. All years before him were full and in fact oversubscribed, but his year is under numbers for some reason, and a lot of boys are moving to a larger private school in the city centre for Yr 3. That might leave just 20 in his whole year. And that's before the fallout from coronavirus!! Don't know about younger years but I suspect a similar pattern.

What happens if they just can't get enough boys to pay their bills? Can a school pare down and go to one class per year? Or could they become a free school (a local secondary did this a few years ago)? Or do they just close altogether and we'd have to scrabble for a place somewhere else?

Yes, boys only. There is a girls equivalent nearby, a sort of sister school though financially unconnected, not sure what position they are in.

Wow - live in this area and amazed as personally if I was going to pay would chose this option over HPS....so if APS is going to struggle.....

Get on state school lists. BCS is amazing...
Which is your local?

Though...an aside, I find it interesting that I went to an independent, as did many parents at our state school primary and we’ve chosen state for primary as they are so great in this area. The people I know who’ve gone for private are generally business owners who are v v wealthy. The professional middle class have predominantly opted for state primary. The other demographic that have opted for private are Asian heritage parents - but presume they are also the ones moving to MGS

Ooh small world Monkeymonstermum

I really don't know if they're struggling tbh. DH thinks I'm crazy and I've seen none of the signs mentioned in this thread. It's just... 10 boys leaving from a year cohort of 38 seems an awful lot - and with coronavirus economic damage and the inevitable loss from that... I wonder how they are going to fill the places.

We sort of fell into private. We were used to paying full time nursery fees and this seemed a bargain in comparison, and with the much smaller class sizes we just thought hell, why not. Both DSes have really thrived at APS and I can't fault the teaching and care, it's really excellent. But I have been uncomfortable about the level of overt wealth, which I didn't expect, thinking it would be professional middle class like us. I have parallel parked between a Lamborghini and a Porsche on the school run. (I have a decade-old Golf). Your post makes a lot of sense.

Yes, mainly Indian / Chinese heritage families who are particularly keen on MGS, though not exclusively.

How will it work with state school lists? I know that my local does have places currently but wouldn't want to move DS unless we had to. Won't they just say, tell us if you want it right now and if not, come back when you do and we'll see if we have a place then? (It's not BCS sadly, we'd definitely have gone there if it was!)

How do you know your local has places?

I guess if you’re v happy with APS (which it sounds like you are) then you sit tight.
What you could go is enquire with the local authority which schools have places as things stand at the mo. My guess would be that Broomwood and Broadheath would...but they wouldn’t be ones I’d presume you’d want.
I believe the Bollin has space. Clearly, there have been issues in the fairly recent past but I’ve heard some very good things since the new head took over.
Obviously things change quickly and a place that’s there today may not be tomorrow. However it just tells you how the land lies.

Reception intake isn’t likely to be hugely affected as this all happened after the reception applications went in. There may be a few who made applications to state and will now go with those but people who only applied to private won’t have a place at state...so will just find a way of paying.

Take it this is Y2 to Y3 that people are leaving? Ie as MGS starts to become an option?

Worst case...if it happened, local state isn’t your only option. However not sure where work is and how much that would limit you but Cheadle, Stockport grammar, MGS, even the Grange are options. Many have buses from Alty. They’re all through to 18 though so I don’t know how well they’d prep for 11+ and I see your other son is at AGSB. Ladybarn is prep and supposed to be amazing.

Oh, and crazy money isn’t just at the privates - BCS is crawling with those bloody 4x4 Bentleys 😂

Also...intrigued which your husbands school is who take anyone 🤔

And yes, there’s another boarding, Terra Nova (as well as C’s in city centre).

@mrsavocet are you in the south east? I feel like I recognise your scenario, but maybe it's very common?

@CostcoUggs our experience of moving from independent to state was that we had to take the offered place right away or it would have been offered to the next child on the list. In an ideal world I would have liked another term at the independent and to start the new school at the beginning of the year but places didn't come up that often so I wasn't go to take that risk. It worked out well for us actually as it meant that our younger child then went to the top of their waiting list and we subsequently had a sibling in for all future admissions.
Maybe call the LEA and make some enquiries about waiting lists and try to find out roughly where you might be on them. You dont want to end up having your hand forced when things are unclear but at the same time if you are likely to be waiting a while it might be better to get on the list. You can always withdraw if things stabilise at the current school in the meantime.

It may be that it has already given staff notice. We had one near us who gave staff notice at Christmas that it is closing in July.

Oh my I’ve just come across this thread as I’m doing some research on prep schools in the area (well gathering opinions mainly) and we have just registered our interest and put our DS name down on APS for next year!
Are your DC still at APS? If so, how have you found the handling of everything during this pandemic?

School I was working at went under - basically the big seniors in the area expanded down the age range so people jumped to get their kids in earlier and the recession as well hit the intake.

Staff didn't get much notice - parents got less but what did happen was the other local schools rallied around and all the kids got placed somewhere that was probably slightly better run than our school was.

My old school closed this year - it had been around for over 100+ years, but as a single sex, Catholic boarding school, fewer and fewer families were sending their girls.....

I’m coming at this as a state school parent. Something that you might be missing - or could just be a local phenomena to me-

We live in an area that has very good state schools, an area that people move to for the schools, first/middle/high, all very good or outstanding from 4 to 18. In last 6 months I know/know of 7 families who have moved their dc from state to private school (1 of 2 schools) because of 1- smaller class size for bubble infection control; 2- sports facilities to enable their children to carry on with sports where other extra curricular sports are not currently running; 3 - wrap around care, not currently provided by all the local state schools. No one has moved for academic reasons. So you may find that there will be an influx of new pupils to boost your school.

There was a local school which closed suddenly but they had under 10 per year and were quite badly managed. I'd be curious as to why numbers are so low suddenly. Most private schools have been over subscribed since covid. Plenty of local preps have around 20 a year or less so unless the trend of reducing numbers continues I don't see why it would necessarily become unviable