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Foundation brings forward Old Palace prep closure by a year

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CROYDON IN CRISIS: Early closure of the fee-paying primary school will speed up sale of the site in South Croydon – probably to a profit-hungry housing developer. EXCLUSIVE by STEVEN DOWNES

Moving on: girls at Old Palace as young as four will need to find a new school sooner than planned

The financially troubled Whitgift Foundation is seeking to accelerate the selling off of one of its school sites by bringing forward the closure of its Old Palace girls’ prep on Melville Avenue in South Croydon by 12 months, to July this year.

Just five months ago, the Foundation, Croydon’s biggest landowners,  announced that they would be closing all of the Old Palace of John Whitgift independent school in July 2025, stating that there was “no viable alternative” to keep the £20,000 per year school running.

But yesterday parents of girls at the prep school received a letter from the Old Palace head saying that they were being “consulted” on plans to end the slow torture of closure a year early.

The Foundation had already turbo-charged the closure process by offering a fees amnesty and a £500 “relocation” allowance to the parents of girls who managed to find alternative schools before the October half-term. It is reckoned that at least half of the school’s 600 pupils took them up on the offer.

Now, some classes at the pre-school and prep in South Croydon are reduced to just eight or nine pupils, instead of the 25-or-so that routinely occupied the classrooms for Reception and Years 1 to 6.

What was once the site of Croham Hurst School, until the Foundation gobbled that up in 2008, sits in some prime real estate close to Lloyd Park, and has none of the tricky heritage listings and covenants that are attached to Old Palace’s senior school site in Old Town.

An enterprising developer would undoubtedly expect to transform the Melville Avenue site into potentially hundreds of millions of pounds worth of new homes. And that could mean that the Whitgift Foundation, which has been financially crippled by the agonising delays in Westfield redeveloping their town centre shopping mall, getting a handy cash windfall.

Retirement plan: Jane Burton will be standing down as Old Palace head in July

In her letter to parents yesterday, Old Palace head Jane “Gone For A” Burton (she’s opted to retire at the end of this school year) told parents: “Following the announcement in September of the intended closure of Old Palace School, many families at Prep have secured places in local independent and state schools and their daughters have either moved already or will be doing so between now and the end of this academic year.

“These other schools have been able to offer Old Palace families places at a quicker rate than had originally been anticipated when developing the plans for closure.

“As a result of this, we will have a very small number of pupils at the Prep School in September 2024. With so few pupils, it will be difficult to provide a high quality, independent school education where a rigorous academic curriculum is balanced with the development of social skills, teamwork, co-curricular activities, leadership opportunities, and a sense of community, preparing students for the future…” blah, de blah, de blah…

“Therefore, having considered the matter very carefully, the Foundation is proposing to close the Prep School at the end of the summer term 2024.”

Burton’s letter then outlines the varying implications for the different primary-aged year groups.

Demonstrating her mastery of understatement, Burton wrote, “We do appreciate that this will be unwelcome news to the small number of parents who had planned to leave their daughter at Old Palace Prep until summer 2025.

“However, the original plans were made based on the number of pupils remaining at Prep for the 2024/5 academic year being high enough to have class sizes and an overall pupil roll that would enable a positive, all-round educational experience for your daughter.

“It is now the case that the numbers for next year will be too small to be able to provide this. Therefore, this planned change is being proposed so that affected families have time to be able to find alternative schools by September 2024…”

Real estate: the Old Palace site on Melville Avenue could be very valuable to a property developer

In her letter, Burton added that “no final decision” has been taken, and that she will be holding meetings with families affected from next Monday.

Sources at the Foundation have stressed that the decision to bring forward the closure of the prep school has been made “entirely with the interest of the girls’ education at heart”.

Parents have already expressed their deep disappointment at the way that they and their daughters have been so badly let down by what is, after all, supposed to be a church-run charity.

“It seems pretty clear the Whitgift Foundation has been keen to close the school as quickly as possible,” one parent told Inside Croydon.

“I am not sure they will be particularly interested in parents’ feedback and imagine their decision has already been made.

“Most parents have accepted the school is closing. I would have liked Croydon’s MPs to put up more of a fight, particularly Sarah Jones as she went to Old Palace and has clearly benefited from a good education. Chris Philp does not appear to have done very much either.”

Read more: Whitgift Foundation decides to close Old Palace School in 2025
Read more: Old Palace closure brought on by shaky Foundation finances
Read more: Another Whitgift shock as second head teacher decides to quit
Read more: Old Palace head announced retirement days before new term

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