Independent school fees and Coronavirus

[Creamegg11]

Our prep school closed on Tuesday due to the Coronavirus situation and the school has given the children some work and also some online learning via an App to do at home.

A parent on WhatsApp mentioned whether parents will get some refund on school fees especially as we don’t know when the children will return. I suppose no one predicted this was going to happen and it’s not the school’s fault but it had me thinking.

2. For boarding school, foreign students returned their countries and some of them will never return.

Why do you think that @pipap1 Genuine question. I don't see why the vast majority wouldn't return - other than those in final years obviously

Sorry @pippap1 didn't tag you properly

Delta1, some countries have very strict travel rules especially to abroad and my home country is one of them. They are not sure when they are allowed to travel back to UK and parents do not want to pay money to schools where their children cannot attend for unknown period. Even children are able to return to UK in the future, some measure will be remain anywhere in the world and there are possibilities that children and their family have to be self isolated for two weeks each time when children return home from UK and people do not want to do that.

Probably if children go to prestigious schools like Eton, parents think differently but if not, parents might prefer to keep their children beside them and send to local good private or international schools in this uncertain situation.

My son is at a Cognita school and despite the some of the concerns raised I've had a positive experience with them recently and prior to the CoVid situation.

First and foremost we have to understand that Cognita is not a not for profit organisation, its a business.
We also know they provide some of the best education otherwise we wouldn't be sending our children to their schools.

Benchmarking the fee reduction we have received against some of the other private independent schools in the are we have been offered a very good discount

Key thing for me at present is that the school doesn't fold in the current economy, My son loves the school, teachers and his friends and this is something money can't buy and am not sure what we would do without.
Fortunately my wife and I are working so we can still afford to pay fees, I understand not everybody this luxury but the school in question has mentioned it will provide assistance where required financially.

As mentioned the school has offered a discount and I suspect they like most others will be running at a loss for a few months but can probably absorb this within reason. The schools and children I do worry about are the other schools not backed by a large organisation who may not be so lucky in this environment

I hope Cognita don’t make a further loss as if they’ve made a significant loss in good years (last accounts 2018) then future years seem surely challenging. beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/company/09669246/filing-history