Local private school announces closure

Grace Dieu Manor Main School and Pre-Prep in Thringstone will close in July 2020.

The Charity which runs the School said it is not financially able to continue.

Grace Dieu Manor School educates children up to 11 years old and costs £1000 per month per child. 

In a statement released to parents on 3rd March, the school management said: 

"We are very sad to announce that Grace Dieu Manor Main School and Pre-Prep will close at the end of the Summer Term in July 2020. The Nursery, up to and including Cygnets, will continue and is not affected by this closure.

The School is owned by The Institute of Charity, and its Trustees had to make a difficult decision at a specially convened meeting on 27 February 2020 about the future viability of the School.

The School has been grappling with a number of structural challenges, including rising staff and operational costs, for some years.

We have done everything we can to redress the financial balance – cutting costs without compromising the quality of education, repositioning the School in the market by opening the Day Nursery, investigating and developing new revenue streams.

More recently, the Trustees approached 246 organisations in the UK and around the world in the hope the School could be sold as a going concern, but sadly this has come to nothing.

Despite all of these efforts, we have simply been unable to get back on to a sufficiently firm financial footing to guarantee the School’s future.

The welfare of the children here is paramount – the decision has been taken now to enable a degree of stability and continuity of education since pupils can complete the year’s curriculum, with plenty of time to find alternative schools for enrolment in September.

The School remains open and funded for the rest of the academic year, and will operate entirely as normal right up until the closure date, continuing to provide the best possible education for its children."