Leweston School Closed

[ArtHistory]

Devastating for the pupils and staff. The letter says that the operator (Concept Education) was trying to close a cash shortfall through discussions with people willing to support the school but they don't have the cash to pay the staff this week. They blame falling pupil numbers - DfE website said they had 577 pupils with a capacity of 725.

It really feels like the private education model is broken. Looking at the website, it does look like they invested an awful lot in big capital projects in the last ten years (the new riding school, new music centre, expanded prep) - so it's hard to tell if that's mismanagement or was investment that was needed to keep up with the private school arms' race.

I don't understand how private education has got so expensive - I was at school with the sons and daughters of teachers, doctors (GPs), small business owners, high street solicitors etc, many of whom were putting 3 or 4 kids through boarding all the way through. We didn't have the most luxurious of facilities, but we had the music rooms, the sport (albeit playing hockey on grass not astro) and the small class sizes so why do they need such luxury now?

I’ve just heard this news too as I have relatives who live pretty much next door to the school. Devastating for all the teachers, support staff etc. And what about the kids half way through GCSEs and A Levels? Awful.

It’s not just about the facilities and capital expenditure. The cost of running a school is enormously high now and employment costs just keep going up and up. Schools have soaked up a proportion of the VAT charge too - very few passed on the full 20%. Business rates relief was removed, adding a huge bill that no one talks about alongside the VAT.

That said, to open a school for a new school
year in September and then close in October is shockingly bad financial management. Schools should be doing their forecasts in the late spring/early summer for the next academic year, and shouldn’t be opening their doors if they can’t be sure they’ll last the full year. I really feel for the parents, the children and the staff. This is what comes from schools being forced by current economic conditions into these for profit groups - they don’t give a monkeys if they have to close a school with no notice. Now they have a multi-million pound asset to sell. Win-win for them.

I almost went to Leweston, I end up going to Sunny Hill instead. That closed a while ago.

The kids and the school deserved better than that. Concept Education promised so much but are ‘all mouth and no trousers’. The school was better off before they got involved and had a reasonable set of accounts in 2025, certainly not at severe risk. In less than one year Concept have destroyed a school that has been open for 135 years. Yes the Labour Govt has played its part but so has an organisation that undertook to support it. Disgraceful.

something about this closure didn’t seem quite right to me

Apparently, all that capital expenditure was based on a loan….. and they secured the loan against the school premises

WTF went on there?

There is an active thread in the boarding school section on this too, so sad for the pupils and staff - who aren’t being paid this month.

@ArtHistory I totally agree with this and don’t understand quite how far the business model has got from middle class parents ability to pay. I also went to school with the children of teachers, GPs, university lecturers, accountants etc, often with 3 or 4 children going through private school. When I was at independent school in the sixth form, the annual fees came to just over £5K. I’ve put that in the Bank of England inflation calculator and even before the VAT (which my old school has added at the full 20%) their current fees were quite a bit more than double what inflation alone would account for. They have certainly done a lot of building work since I was there. I get there are other costs but to have more than doubled, even before VAT??!

I am now looking at secondary schools for my own children and it isn’t that we couldn’t afford it if we wanted to, but with the amount of money it’s just hard to see the value proposition. The local state school is pretty good- I always assumed I would send my children independent for secondary but having looked around both options last month I’m increasingly thinking there are other things I would rather have that money to spend on. I was so surprised to find myself thinking that!

But then I have another friend who is far wealthier than me who is about to take her child out of private school because she just isn’t seeing the advantages vs her local state school. However wealthy you are, it still has to feel like you are getting something worth paying for and I just don’t see it.

Just a few pointers to schools fees, schools work towards 80% of income going out on salaries/pension. Independent schools with teachers in Teachers’ pension scheme have to pay an employer contribution rate 28% of salary into TPS while in the state sector this is met by the tax payer in the form of a grant for pension contributions. (The contribution rate is due to drop in April 2027 to 17%). Energy costs have also drastically impacted school finances plus having to pay business rates since 2025. It’s become very expensive to run a school and employ qualified staff.

@hockeyfun I’m not saying there haven’t been increases in running costs but to go back to what the OP said, there is a major issue in your business model when you’ve increased your prices at more than twice the rate of inflation/ earnings growth.

The thing that worries me is that I don’t hear leaders of independent schools or within the sector addressing this massive elephant in the room in a positive, strategic way. It really saddens me as someone who benefited hugely from my time in independent education, worked in an independent school for ten years and wanted to - maybe still will, who knows! - send my children to independent school.

I agree there has been a lot of investment in “facilities” but where I live in London, these aren’t just used by private school pupils. They are used by the whole community on weekends for clubs and in the holidays, for holiday clubs too. There would be hardly any sports fields and pools etc etc without independent schools so I really think if more and more go bust, someone has to make sure there are still some facilities left over for the wider community.

I was envisioning a sort of luxury after school club for working parents. I could afford that - not the price tag of independent school, but a one stop shop after school for extracurriculars etc etc for all kids who can pay and maybe some who are subsidised. If Labour have decided to destroy private education which I think they did, they really do need to nudge towards alternatives for all kids. Especially now in the age of screens when we need kids off screens and doing actual real life stuff. It really annoys me that there is zero plan to deal with the entirely predictable fallout from all of this.

There’s zero chance a typical teacher employed in the state system has ever been able to afford to send four kids to a boarding school from their salary.

I very much doubt there is any area of London that doesn’t have sports facilities not linked to a private school.

“I very much doubt there is any area of London that doesn’t have sports facilities not linked to a private school.”

@MeshMesh - well where I live the good ones are mostly in private schools (hockey pitches, pools, rugby fields, cricket, large netball courts) and what is more, the year 4 national curriculum swimming was often done in local private schools. My DC former state primary now need to take the whole afternoon off to catch a bus to a much worse public swimming pool (much smaller and colder), requiring parent volunteers to take time off work and all the kids missing school time the entire afternoon. When previously they could just walk across to a private school which was much faster and simpler.

I couldn't agree more with this. Private schools need to get creative and strategic about financial planning to survive and I don't see a lot of evidence that they are doing this or even talking about it.

In my area of London, it will make zero difference of they close to state school pupils as they don't share their facilities

“There’s zero chance a typical teacher employed in the state system has ever been able to afford to send four kids to a boarding school from their salary.”

@MeshMesh - that is not what happens in reality. The teacher works in a private school and gets the school places very heavily discounted and the whole family tends to live there too. Pepper vs Hart - House of Lords case said it was fine for schools to only charge marginal cost to teachers. And they were referring to Parliamentary debate on the exact point. It is an important case as it allows judges in some instances to consult Hansard on an ambiguous point of legislation.

“In my area of London, it will make zero difference of they close to state school pupils as they don't share their facilities“

@villadicance - which area of London? Because most are open in the summer holidays for clubs and music events and drama etc. Even if on lease terms for profit. No private school is closed all year round with nothing used, they can’t.

I don't really want to say because it will be identifying.

Yes some have holiday clubs but they aren't any different to the holiday clubs run at state schools, they don't use any of the particularly swanky facilities. My kids don't notice any difference between them and the holiday clubs at state.

There is tons of holiday club provision around here, we wouldn't notice if a small element of it shut.

I don't have any difficulty believing that your area of London might be different, perhaps you could offer me the same courtesy?

Courtesy?
It is a financial point. Both state and private schools rent out facilities in the holidays to make money to top up their budgets/meet overall costs.

Ok, so if the teacher supposedly sending four kids to private school isn’t paying market rates then the pp’s comment doesn’t really land.

I think that poster’s comment was referring to 20 years ago: that 20 years ago it was possible for professionals like teachers to send multiple children to private schools. They were talking about the rising cost of fees.

I was a teacher 20 years ago, and in a promoted position, and I could not have afforded to send multiple children to private schools.