Forum topic: Palmers Green High School set to close this year due to 'sustained and significant decline in numbers'

I appreciate people have differing views about private schools but this is very sad news for the PGHS community. It is a school with a long and proud history, established by an extraordinary woman. It has been running for 120 years and it is heartbreaking that it has come to this. It is a great school with some fabulous, dedicated and inspirational teachers. I am so sad that the teaching careers of some will be ending on this note. I hope those that want to continue to work will find fulfilling roles elsewhere. I am also sad for the girls and families who will now have to find alternative schools at short notice. Some will be preparing for their GCSEs now and this will be terribly destabilising.
Falling student numbers is a problem faced by state schools too, with primary schools closing or merging. But I think the increased cost to parents has also been a factor for PGHS.
Against this demographic and economic backdrop, I have been surprised by some recent financial decisions taken by the school's leaders, which, I assume, cannot have helped the school's finances. Even without stretched finances, I am not sure whether spending money on a new facade in the summer, (after it was painted only a couple of years previously), a canteen upgrade, and the purchase of a neighbouring house on Hoppers Road, constituted an appropriate use of parents' fees, particulalry at a time when there were also well-publicised issues with the teachers' pension.