'Parents were in tears' - Banbury private school announces closure as Labour budget plans blight its future

In a letter parents were told falling numbers because of Labour’s plan to impose VAT on fees - together with the added cost of employers’ National Insurance announced in the budget - meant the school could not continue.

A meeting was said to be ‘fraught and emotional’ and some parents threatened to take their children away immediately. Some believe local state primary schools will find it hard to accommodate Carrdus’s 120 pupils. Carrdus is owned by Tudor Hall, the independent girls’ school near Banbury.

One parent told the Banbury Guardian: "The meeting was very fraught and emotional with quite a few parents in tears because they have invested in the school and the rug has been pulled away. "We are disappointed because the school will not stay open until the end of the school year. Some parents have been involved with the school for a long time and it feels more like a community than a school, with only 120 students. Some parents have said they will pull their kids out right away. "My child who is in the last year, has lost their education over the last term because everything has been up in the air. We don't know whether they will be educated at Tudor Hall or somewhere else. "They have said that year fives and sixes will be taught for the remainder of the term but it might not be at Carrdus. It has all been delivered very badly." Another parent said: “We need to fight; this is a school that has been around hundreds of years collapsing due to Labour’s changes.”

Julie Lodrick, Headmistress of Tudor Hall School, said: “We are reviewing the future of Carrdus School following the government’s decisions to introduce VAT on parents’ school fees mid-way through the school year, remove charitable business rates relief and increase employers’ national insurance contributions.

"This combination has put both huge pressure on the school’s finances and our families with a number of parents giving notice to withdraw their child from the school.

“The governors have been focused on options that would allow Carrdus School to continue under new ownership. Whilst these efforts are continuing the governors have concluded, with profound regret, that if a purchaser of the school is not found, Carrdus School is likely to close at the end of the spring term 2025.

“We want to give parents as much notice as possible and are supporting them to secure places for their children at other local schools. We would like to take this opportunity to thank the parents and staff who have worked tirelessly to make Carrdus such a special school for generations of children who have flourished within its warm and nurturing community. This is a very sad day for the parents, the staff and of course the children, who will suffer most.”

Banbury MP Sean Woodcock said he was sorry to hear about the impending closure and particularly the impact on pupils, parents and staff.

“I know the important role private and independent schools play in our community. But Labour’s policy on removing tax exemptions enjoyed by private schools to fund additional teachers and resources in our state schools, attended by 93% of pupils in the UK, was made clear well in advance of the election and was clearly stated in our manifesto.

“Every week I visit state schools in my constituency. Every time, headteachers and governors tell me about the issues that 14 years of under-funding of our state schools has caused.

"Not being able to recruit key members of staff such as a deputy head; a lack of provision for children with special educational needs; teachers paying for stationery and even buying lunch for their pupils who cannot afford it – these are real sacrifices being made that affect the life chances of all of our children.

“On the other hand, private schools across the country have been increasing fees well above the level of inflation year after year, whilst benefitting from a tax loophole. If private schools choose to pass on the cost of closing that loophole, that is up to them.

"But my focus is on ensuring the state schools in this constituency get the funding they need to provide a high-quality education for all our children, regardless of background.”

Cllr Eddie Reeves, Conservatives’ leader on Oxfordshire local education authority, was privately educated on a scholarship which he said which ‘transformed my life’.

He said: "This is a damning indictment of Labour’s Education Tax which, according to the Institute for Fiscal Studies, will cost – not benefit – the public purse.

“A reduction of between 3% and 7% in independent school places would amount to 17,000 to 40,000 children entering the state system at considerable extra expense to taxpayers.

“I feel especially strongly about this. I attended a small independent prep school less than 15 minutes' drive from Carrdus on a scholarship. From there, I went to an independent secondary on a bursary. The balance of school fees was paid by Mum and her parents, who sacrificed in their retirement so I could get on.

“A good independent education has since transformed my life. It beggars belief that a Labour government should now seek to make an affordable independent education the preserve of a narrower social elite, with the attendant social dis-mobility that its supertax implies.