Anxious Immanuel College parents await news of alternative places for their children following last week’s announcement of its closure at the end of summer term.
The Jewish schools’ network PaJeS is co-ordinating efforts to relocate Immanuel pupils in other Jewish secondary schools.
But one mother with a child at the Bushey-based college said on Thursday: “It is hardly consolation when you have devastated children.”
Not one Jewish school had contacted her, she said: “Everyone is totally alone.”
But she added that Immanuel was “doing a wonderful job as always in looking after the children”.
Another mother, who had accepted a place for her child at the college this September, said parents in her situation felt “angry that they were sold a dream and their children went through the exam/interview process, the excitement of receiving an offer, only to have it snatched away a few weeks later, leaving them without a school place at all, at the bottom of waiting lists.
“The children are distraught and anxious. Offers should not have been made when closure was so clearly on the horizon, and parents should certainly have been told not to withdraw from other offers or the state system.”
A father described the timing of the announcement as “distressing” and “deplorable. They have left everyone high and dry.”
A mother with a child in year-7 said: “I’m not bitter. It’s a sad situation, it’s a fantastic school but obviously there is not a market for it. I feel the community should be doing something for these children.
“When there are families who want a Jewish education and somewhere where the children will be safe, they are not pulling it out of the bag.”
Immanuel has offered to continue classes next year for those taking GCSEs and A-levels, provided enough families commit to this option and put down a £15,000 deposit by early May.
Jewish state schools in London have offered support but most have been heavily over-subscribed in recent years and few places for the 300 or so Immanuel children are likely to be available.
Some local private schools were reaching out to parents – Mill Hill is due to hold an open morning for Immanuel parents next Friday.
Immanuel, which charges fees of £29,700 a year, said it needed an intake of 50 full-paying students each year to be viable – but only 12 had committed for year-7 in September. A number of students are supported with scholarships and bursaries.
Last year, it racked up losses of £2 million and governors said similar shortfalls would be unsustainable.
Fundraising alone would not have been able to bridge the gap, they told parents.
“The proposed closure is much more about a shortage of pupils on the school roll as opposed to a short-term funding situation.”
The school was “not insolvent”, they said.
The college was “part of a charitable trust which hold substantial unencumbered assets, including property valued in excess of £10 million”.
Closure was being planned with “sufficient asset backing to ensure that obligations can be met in an orderly way as the college winds down”.
In response to why questions of viability were not flagged in the latest accounts – for the year ending August 2025, which were signed off in March this year – the governors said they took their their legal duties “including those involved in preparing and approving the accounts extremely seriously. There are specific legal tests which are applied in approving accounts and the governors are satisfied they have complied with these.”
The decision to close was taken in light “of the relatively small number of deposits received for September 2026 entry”. The proposal to close this August was considered “the most moral and appropriate way to behave. To continue on for further months when the trajectory became clear risked the potential for a mid-academic year closure as well as potentially new pupils and staff entering the college under false pretences.”
They added that the possibility of Immanuel becoming a state school had been “carefully considered over time”.
“As confirmed by the Department for Education, there is no legal mechanism for an independent school to convert directly into a voluntary aided (VA) school. VA status can only be achieved through the establishment of a new maintained school, which requires a formal statutory process led by the local authority.”
The process was “complex, time-consuming and contingent on local authority approval”, the governors explained.
Given the “scale and immediacy” of the financial and demographic challenges faced by the college, “the governors have focused on ensuring a responsible, orderly and timely resolution in the best interests of pupils, families and staff”.
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