Surrey Schools Financial Difficulty

[GreyUser]

We have heard that two Surrey Schools owned by Bridewell Foundation (King Edwards Witley and Barrow Hills) are in financial difficulty and may not be able to cope with increases in costs expected to come from changes to teachers pensions and vat in school fees. The rumours are that they have threatened all staff with dismissal of they do not agree to new contracts by Easter that reduced the schools staffing bill. This is really worrying as we considering the senior school for our son who is in Year Five. I contacted the school but they refused to comment as I'm not a current parent.
Are there any people here with links to the school who can clarify whether the rumours are true and what is going on there at the moment?

I don't know anything about these schools but yes it's correct that the teachers pension contribution from schools to TPS is increasing from 23% to 28% on 1st April. If you read other threads on TPS you will see that it is legally acceptable to negotiate this way with teaching staff in TPS as the school may fail financially due to the increase.

This TPS increase only applies to private schools, it's being met by the Govt in the state sector.

No links to the school at all, but a large number of independent schools are looking at exiting the TPS scheme due to increased costs.

All independent schools are worried about the impact of VAT on parents ability to pay schools fees so i cant imagine many arent in the process of preparing for it.

Thank you. My concern is whether it is a good idea to send children to a school that could be in such financial difficulty as well that it has to threaten all staff with the sack so I am keen to know the truth about these schools and hoped somebody would have heard what has been reported to families about the schools difficulties. We already had a school close over Christmas (Belmont) in the area so it is worrying to see another two potentially on the brink.

The strikes at RGS in Guildford over the TPS were covered in MN threads at the time. I appreciate that you want specific info on this school but PP is right when she says that TPS and VAT will be issues for all schools during your DS’s secondary school life, not just the ones you name.

Fire and rehire is a horrid tactic but one lots of schools exiting the tps are threatening.

As i say, no knowledge of your schools. They could be about to go bust or have millions in cash accounts. Can you look them up on companies house?

I googled their charity accounts and it doesn't look good. They are charity number 311997 and according to the accounts submitted to the charities commission they over spent by-£564,000 investments gains (losses) last yeat

Hi OP, what is your source?

Thank you. That sounds like a lot bit I guess it all depends how much they have in the bank. I didn't know you could look up their accounts. I will ask my husband if he can try to find them and see what they have in the bank. Rushing to try and cut staff costs would suggest they are pretty worried about their future though and their refusal to even acknowledge the rumours was a real concern.

I didn't think state schools would be asked to pay vat. Equally, I would hope that a government would support state schools to pay increased pensions by funding these increases by increasing school budgets. Essentially, my concern is that it is really the private schools who are going to feel the squeeze financially more than state and I'm concerned we may see many close locally here in Surrey. Especially if these two are about to close too!

Perhaps I should have specified private schools, but I thought it was clear from
the context.

For what it's worth, I heard confirmation today that these negotiations and potential fire and rehire are indeed ongoing. I don't know what means for our school choices but it's good to know at last that something is indeed going on with these two schools.

Newbie here,

Looking to hear from parents of RGSG boys please:

Son has place at RGS Guildford. Alternative school has plenty of family involvement, networking groups etc. Aiming to fill gaps in my knowledge of RGSG.

1. What scope beyond PTA is there for families to connect with RGSG? and
2. What kind of relationship do you as parents have with the school please?

Many thanks BGMama

Hiya @BoyGirlMama - welcome to Mumsnet. It's best to start a new thread asking your question, rather than posting on this one. There are some FAQs here about posting if you're unsure of how to do that. Do get in touch at [email protected] if you need any further help.

Sorry for derailing your thread there briefly, OP!

Mums who have friends on the staff

Full transparency my kids are going to these schools from Sept 24 from the state sector. Have looked into these issues (and my job requires me to look at these things with a sceptics eye) however, there are very few independent schools nationally which either have not recently, are not currently, or are not about to go through a consultation process re TPS which is usually framed (wrongly or rightly) against the alternative scenario of the school closing so possibly unfair to focus on just these schools. Arguably that's the only way you are going to get staff to take it seriously is to frame in this way. Would also concur that a marginal year on year loss doesnt mean anything if you dont have the starting cash position/accounts are a once in time snapshot - the rationale for the marginal loss is sound in the text of the accounts particularly in terms of global macros/headwinds over last couple of years. Specifically on KESW, it has had a huge multi-million capex programme (new entrance/exhibition hall/6th form digs/new DT block) to uprate facilities in the last 2 years. Pretty clear that the governing body/leadership would not knowingly incur that sort of spend if there was serious doubt about ability to continue. I personally think the school is going places ("new" head at KESW is experienced yet dynamic) and if you talk to leadership they are very aware of challenges ahead for the sector and have made some moves to mitigate against those (as above plus stronger partnership between Barrow Hills/KESW re shared resources, marketing 6th form internationally etc). No school is immune from challenges but based on what I can see not seeing these as a particular outlier.

@GreyUser it's undoubtedly a very difficult time for independent schools even in affluent Surrey. I think you are well advised to a do a full due diligence on the school, it's not just about the teaching, the estate, and if your family likes it. Look at Companies House as suggested (£500K+ deficit is massive for a school), get a breakdown of pupil numbers now vs last year, gender balance is also quite telling. Both of these will give a sense if the school is thriving, hanging on or about to close. I appreciate that a school closure is a massive event for a child to go through and one that would be keen to avoid inflicting.

I dont mean to be rude at all (please forgive me if it comes across this way) but whilst I 100% agree that all parents should do their diligence the focus on the £564k "loss" item is misguided. This is the loss/gain on investments - the previous year there was £4,192k (ie £4.192m) gain on investments if you read it that way. So across those two accounting years there is a notional net gain of approx £3.6m! Also the resultant difference in end year balance between the most recent reported two years is a mere £203,000 (the loss is explained against the backdrop of global geo-political instability which would affect the value of all/any of our own investments (eg in a FTSE tracker). There are still £24.6m of investments recorded. If you wanted to have the same balance as previous years (for whatever reason) that £203k is only c£500 per student in that school to fill the gap (based on 400 students at KESW). Do your diligence but please do it in an informed way/get someone who understands accounts to interpret because they are not easy and it is easy to drive a self-fulfilling prophecy off of bad information/analysis as people get scared by the headlines!

Well it would appear all is not rosey as the schools are facing an unprecedented exodus of staff at all levels Inc some very senior figures. If the parent rumour mill is correct, that is. Talk says parents desperate for answers about impact of Labour government on fees and school worryingly uncommunicative.

@GreyUser Ive come across the Head many years ago. Be very careful!

All i can say (respectfully) is what has been said before.TPS is having a major impact on independent schools (LVS Ascot staff just announced another strike for May) and fire/rehire is a mechanism being used by schools so a number of schools are showing more vacancies than not because they are also forced to re advertise roles. The impact of an incoming Labour government is a debate that is being had up and down the country in independent schools and most are taking professional advice - it is not straightforward - and no one can be 100 per cent until the legislation introduced.What i can say re KESW /Barrow Hills is that they hosted a webinar with Julie Robinson (CEO of ISCO) in November 23 on the impact of the Labour policy and there was a pretty full Q+ A from which it was clear that impacts are not fully known by anyone - that does not seem to me to be a leadership which is hiding?Similarly I met new teachers at the reception for Sept 2024 joiners and the school does not seem to have had significant issues in filing positions with candidates who have come from good schools.In terms of the departures - i think look at the vintage of those people and also look at they key leadership positions(not seniority) particularly the finance function (IE bursar) which is often the first function to show turnover as they can read the tea leaves on finances earlier than anyone. I don't believe there are major changes in that function.

What happened at Belmont was awful, but was quite specific to a set of decisions that were made badly by the school and then also impacted by covid and supply chain problems. Basically their numbers were dropping so they decided to spend a huge amount of money on new facilities, which then ended up being wildly over budget and time due to covid and supply chain and then the numbers didn’t increase.

Barrow Hills has no such Capex projects in mind and actually has taken on pupils from Belmont and the Royal School which also closed.

To be honest, all these small prep schools are doing what they can. Penthorpe also has tiny numbers in some years. It’s hard because parents want small classes, specialist teachers and good facilities but the costs of these are high. I can see BH stopping year 7 and 8 and just feeding straight into other high schools as loads in Surrey/Sussex now have a year 7 entry and the numbers for those years are really small. Lower down the school the numbers have been fine though and I haven’t heard any issues with funding at all.

As for KESW - the head has been putting in lots of academic improvements and also will happily recruit students from overseas as they have the boarding facilities. Their money for CapEx comes from a well established fund which isn’t related to fees.

I have no idea of the impact of VAT on fees. For a school like KESW they have various ways to increase fees - they can cut the number of bursary pupils, they’ve already introduced a uniform that is paid for when it used to be free and if they improve academics (which they already are, and can easily do by becoming more selective and offering more academic scholarships) they would increase the number of people going there.

I had a child at both schools so am happy to answer questions!

Shocking news today that The Royal School is closing on 31st August, thoughts are with the staff and pupils.

The Royals demise is not surprising as their numbers are reportedly below 100 for next year. Parents voting with their feet

The school has been in decline for years so writing was on the wall- United Trust couldn’t get the numbers up post their takeover and there is a high concentration of schools very nearby (St Ives/ St Edmunds / Amesbury / Edgeborough etc) so in this case at least VAT not the core issue whatever people may say.It would also be remiss not to say that the real estate for the junior school at Royal School was always highly coveted and lo and behold has been sold for residential- not saying purchase by UT was a real estate strategy but these are the facts. Feel really sorry for the kids whose education has been disrupted.

I will watch with interest what happens to the land and buildings. Being at the top of a single track road will be a huge hurdle against a large scale development and the main building is grade 2 listed