The news that the Old Palace School is to close was received in Croydon with shock, sadness and dismay. Pupils, parents, teachers and alumnae have been expressing their outrage at the John Whitgift Foundation’s announcement that the school is due to close in two year’s time. The Foundation states that the reason for this is the financial inviability of Old Palace School due to financial pressures caused by the cost of living crisis and the rising expense of maintaining and developing property.

Old Palace School was taken under the wing of the John Whitgift Foundation in 1993 who later absorbed another popular girl’s private school, Croham Hurst in South Croydon in 2008, which, like Old Palace School, was noted for its excellent academic results. Part of the reasoning for the merger of these two girls schools into the Whitgift Foundation was the protection that being part of a larger charitable organisation would give the two schools more stability and protection in the future. Yet the provision of girls’ education by the Whitgift Foundation is due to stop, only 15 years later.

It is clear therefore that the outcome of this closure will be that, other than the very small co-educational sixth form at Trinity School, the John Whitgift Foundation will no longer be offering education for girls in Croydon.

Putting the rights and wrongs of the private provision of education and the favourable treatment given by the government in allowing private schools to register as charities, thus avoiding VAT, the fact remains that some parents will opt for private education for their children either by paying the fees themselves or applying for bursaries to pay their child’s school fees.

Why does the Whitgift Foundation feel that in a modern environment it is in any way acceptable to close down their provision of schools for girls and keep their boys’ schools at Whitgift School and Trinity School open? It is true that the John Whitgift Foundation has been suffering from the financial problems that we have all been suffering with over the past few years, but disrupting the education of girls without even considering the amalgamation of one (or even both) of the boys’ schools into co-educational establishments smacks of discrimination against promising young women of a very old-fashioned kind. This disruption of education can have a lasting detrimental effect on the careers and lives of a large number of Old Palace girls.

Old Palace alumna, Croydon Central MP Sarah Jones has been in touch with the Chair of the Whitgift Foundation and has raised her concerns about the provision of education for girls at the Whitgift Foundation. 

‘Finally, on the issue of teaching girls in the future, the Foundation …will be applying every sinew to work out what comes next’.

Sarah Jones MP

John Whitgift himself owed his appointment as Archbishop of Canterbury and as a privy councillor to a highly educated woman. Closing this school at very short notice and forcing the girls to face a change in schools will cause great disruption to the girls’ education. Also, just as importantly all important friends and social groupings will be shattered. The CRO does not think that John Whitgift would approve of what seems to be an ill thought out and discriminatory closure.

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