Parents to launch new school after shock closure

THE PARENTS of pupils at a cathedral school which closed suddenly last month are setting up their own preparatory school to replace it with teachers working free of charge for the first term to get it off the ground.

Ripon Cathedral Choir School shut with immediate effect last month after a planned merger with Cundall Manor School, near Harrogate and York, fell through.

The Ripon school had about 70 pupils and was projected to run at a loss of more than £40,000-a-month from September.

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Now parents have joined forces to create the Phoenix School, which will open its doors in the Old Lecture Building on College Road in the city next month.

Teachers, including some who lost their jobs when Ripon Cathedral Choir School closed, will work as volunteers until Christmas to help the Phoenix School establish itself.

The people leading the project are now urging parents to choose the school and are looking for any businesses who are willing to support it.

School committee member Catherine Clowe said: “What we need now are the children, it is not viable for the school to be able to open unless we have enough children to attend. We are also looking for a local business or person for some financial support, someone who has a love of Ripon, a passion for education and the arts, someone who has the foresight to see that if we lose our only independent school then it is another great defeat for this wonderful mini city”.

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Volunteers have secured premises with large classrooms and equipment including, music, art and ICT facilities. to ensure a new school can open for the start of the new term.

In a joint statement, committee members Catherine Clowe and Emma Warner-Reed said: “We are a small determined group of people who have been devastated by the sudden closure of our fabulous school, Ripon Cathedral Choir School...Parents, teachers and most importantly our children, were left with nowhere to turn, the independent and state schools had closed for the summer, it truly was the worst timing.”

The new school is open to children from the age of three to 11 years. Parents will be holding open day events tomorrow from 5.30pm until 7.30pm and on Saturday from 10am until noon.