This week, I’ll return to school, catch up with colleagues and see my pupils’ familiar, friendly faces. It’s a routine I enjoy and perhaps take slightly for granted. But, nearly 600 children (and their teachers) at Leweston School in Dorset won’t be doing any of that. They’ve been told, without warning, that their 135-year-old school will never reopen. Their classrooms, teachers, friendships and routines have suddenly disappeared. And, predictably, the political arguments have begun: private education, privilege, Labour’s VAT policy, whether independent schools should exist at all. Let’s put all that aside for five minutes. Because these pupils aren’t political footballs. They are precious children.
As a teacher, I know how unsettling changing schools can be, even when planned. The natural transition points – year 7 and year 12 – can be traumatic enough, with new teachers, unfamiliar expectations and the overwhelming challenge of making friends. Imagine having to do it mid-term, with no warning. Think of those nervous 11-year-old year 7s, who have spent seven weeks learning names, finding classrooms, negotiating friendships and gradually acquiring that reassuring sense of belonging. Now, they’re being asked to begin all over again. For older pupils, it may be worse. They must join established friendship groups, where everyone else knows complicated social histories, jokes and rules. Trust me, year 9 friendship issues are difficult enough at the best of times. When the decision has been forced upon you, it can be truly miserable.
What about academic damage? So much of teaching depends on continuity. I’ve spent part of half-term marking A-level essays on A Streetcar Named Desire. I know which pupils are struggling with Blanche DuBois, and which are beginning to understand Tennessee Williams’s message. Those relationships and that accumulated knowledge cannot simply be transferred. Imagine arriving in a new GCSE or A-level class to discover they’ve studied different texts, covered topics in another order or are following a different examination syllabus. What about year 13? I’ve also been writing Ucas references. There are university applications, predicted grades, references, personal statements and deadlines all in process.
And the parents? Some families may have paid £42,000 in advance for education their children will never receive. What can be recovered? Crucially, what did the owners, Concept Education, know about its financial position when they accepted those payments? These are reasonable questions.
We should not assume that every fee-paying parent is wealthy enough to shrug off the loss – some will have made enormous sacrifices. Leweston is hardly an isolated case. Some 71 private schools closed in England during 2025, the first year of VAT on fees. Independent-school pupil numbers have since fallen by more than 30,000, although nobody can say precisely how many of those children transferred into state education. Of course, there are legitimate debates about private education and taxation. But you can oppose a system, whilst caring about its casualties.
Schools are not ordinary businesses. We need some form of independent financial oversight, early-warning systems and enforceable contingency plans that protect children before institutions collapse, not just scramble to accommodate them afterwards. This week, I’ll be back in my classrooms, with familiar faces. Hundreds of Leweston pupils won’t have that reassurance. Whatever their parents paid and whatever your politics, they deserved better.