OLA Abingdon

[Beetlemamma]

Can any parents who have children at OLA Abingdon, shed any light on the current head leaving the school? I have been told he is moving on. My daughter is registered, to hopefully, attend in September 2025. I have also heard the school is financially unstable!! Please help, seriously worried mother!!!

I doubt it as it’s over an hour away and fees are hugely more expensive than OLA- thousands more per term in top years.

Blockchain : I wonder what this cost, and it was linked to a parent. There was a lot of talk at the time about what process they went through to select this company.

Prav and Freddie ran the school, not Gibbons.

They got in Gibbons and he was truly the most appalling head teacher ever. He was useful in getting rid of all the experienced staff. Replaced with cheaper new staff who also left. Between the 3 of them they destroyed the school. We would have left sooner had we not been in “exam years”. Poor governance and cowardice in abandoning the school (El Turk and Karian). They have no shame.

Agree. The Governors allowed Gibbons to see off all the staff and Gibbons had no experience of running a bath never mind a school. But the governors who oversaw the demise of the place over the last 6 years Ayling and El Turk resigned in May. Obviously saw the 24 accounts and bailed. Disgraceful behaviour. At that stage having orchestrated this mess they should have said we will close in July and allow staff and pupils to find a new place to go. This would have made no difference to the financial position and was the right thing to do. Bad governance not VAT was the reason for the school failure.

All schools are doing the same thing trying to get more pupils in such a tough time for private schools. Some have been offering staff jobs too which should help some teachers who have been left with no notice. Disgraceful from the management, they must have known!

I've heard they happily accepted non-refundable deposits from parents and purchases for new uniform at the end of last week. Truly despicable behaviour.
El Turd and Karian regardless.

I hear Wellington College Hiba Academy in Nantong China have a new headteacher on big bucks and a fat gardening leave pay off from OLA ...mind boggles who provided him a reference after collapsing 160 years of success to immediate closure.
Hope everyone can find suitable placements in time for their r children to flourish together n their education .
Don't know how Gibbons can sleep of a night time.

FYI - posts referencing Tudor Hall have been removed after they claimed they were defamatory. Hmmmm.

According to the charity commission, their annual accounts for reporting year 31 August 2024 are overdue by 45 days. (But seem to be on companies house, so someone presumably needs to fix that).

From the filings held by the CC to 2023, total expenditure has exceeded total Income every year since 2020 - though that may have to do with loan repayments they were making. This is not mission critical though - the governors report and financial statements to August 31 2024 (on companies house) say that they have liquid reserves of £14m+.

I can’t find anything to tell me the school capacity, so don’t know if at 301 or so girls they are underutilised?

Unless the VAT resulted in a massive drop in pupil numbers, I’d say they’re ok.

@OxfordInkling - as TH are getting twitchy all I can say is that any parent considering it would be sensible to ask detailed questions about financial security, staff turnover and pupil numbers etc, for their own peace of mind. I would advise that approach for parents looking at ANY school in the current climate - especially a smaller establishment which may be more vulnerable.

Is that where he’s gone? Can’t believe he’s secured another position in education. Such an odd slimy character. Why anyone would hire him, even before all of this mess is beyond me.

This is what Get Information About Schools shows

I’ve had a look at the school capacity figures and ALL schools seem to operate under official capacity - even Eton!

TH are at 83% capacity according to the above, which is on the low side but lots in a similar boat, and I’ve definitely seen lower.

You cannot compare the % capacity with a school like Eton! All I'm saying is that if you consider a smaller school - like TH - it is wise to ask questions about viability. Including whether staff redundancies have occurred (and why), what the number of pupils is to break even and the number of girls entering the school in the younger years. Also interesting to ask why they are widening their offering to include girls in year 6 and how that works. There are so many schools closing at the moment, it helps to be fully confident in the financial aspect before you make a commitment.

If these other schools are aware of the latest A Level results, I suspect that not all staff will find it particularly straightforward to find new jobs in the area.

Why? What are the results?

For a school that is in deficit or barely managing to break even, operating at only 83% capacity is really bad. You cannot compare it to Eton (which is most likely under capacity out of choice, given the enormous competition for places).

My only point was that looking at capacity alone doesn’t tell you a great deal. There are much more important factors as you highlight (so we’re actually in agreement!).

So would it be encouraging and reassuring if a school that is in deficit or barely breaking even was at near full capacity?
Genuinely struggling to understand your argument here.

As above my only point is that capacity figures alone don’t tell you a great deal, other metrics are much more important.

It’s just more likely that they will be making money if at full capacity, but it doesn’t always work that way I suppose.
But there are so many private schools around here that there are not enough pupils to fill the spaces anymore as some simply can’t afford the fees.
So sad for OLA and there will probably be another closure in the area for all the others to survive as most are under capacity. I bet the parents are being swarmed with invitations to visit other schools around to see desperate for them.

Definitely seeing lots more adverts this week.
The other point I would make about the pupil numbers at OLA is, a high number of bursaries and scholarships seemed to be on offer. So regardless of capacity, income was not maximised.

Another point that keeps arising amongst parent groups is the £500k deficit in the last set of accounts.
He told me the £500k was depreciation, and he told another parent it was money to pay off exited teachers.

Nothing is adding up, and we will keep digging, and parents would like their deposits back!

All the bursar’s fault, 100%. Got rid of the top team, paid them off, then filled the jobs with anyone spineless enough to say yes. Headmistress and a few deputies at the end? Blamed everyone but themselves according to the Oxford Mail.
Also hearing on there they bullied staff and treated them like dirt. Total disgrace. No wonder they went on strike.
Then A-Level results day rolls around and not one of them shows up apart from the head of sixth form. Not even the Headmistress. Teachers were there, brilliant as ever, actually made us feel like our kids mattered. Leadership? Completely MIA, even the ones who taught A Level! Proper rats leaving a sinking ship.
Finances a mess? Big shocker. He even resigned at the end and ran for the hills. Where has all the money gone?

Agreed, this was not Vat.
I want to know more about his company that I’ve just discovered. I think others have started digging.

So grateful for the teachers, I had such a sense they cared about our kids.
Just the GCSE’s to go now.

I think any “new” parents who paid a deposit in last few months, when the COO knew the school was bust, have a right to complain to the Charities commission as he was making a contract he knew could not be fulfilled. The COO and the governors past and present need to be brought to book so they can’t do this again .

The leadership team were reassuring the parents about financial stability of OLA back in March. The former COO/Bursar has reassured many parents of the financial stability in the last few months. This obviously was not the case and people have been misled. How can this be right?
It is dreadful that nobody can be held to account. When I was really unhappy with the governors I found there was no way to object/question their actions or report concerns about governance. The only way to satisfy our concern was to take our child out of the school. I thought the ISI or Diocesan inspections would have highlighted problems but they were both a whitewash.