Golf Academy parents sue. Sounds like some ballet school sagas.

[Pas de Quatre]

There is a full page story in The Times today about Westwood golf academy. Some parents withdrew students from the Btec and are being taken to court for fees while the families are counter claiming for breach of contract. This sounds rather like the discussions about a hypothetical dance school we had recently.

 

An Ofsted spokesman said it "does not have the power to carry out a direct inspection..." According to the article this is because it is a private business rather than a school. Also previously Ofsted had said it was "because privately funded post-16 institutions are not regulated".

 

Edited for spelling

Edited September 17, 2016 by Pas de Quatre

[Picturesinthefirelight]

Which is exactly what OFSTED told me about another certain post 16 dance school with roots in a foreign method.

 

I've also heard this week about a post 16 MT/dance school going into administration leaving students without a college. It seems to me that we parents should be investigating financial viability along with everything else when selecting where our offspring should audition.

[balletbean]

 

I've also heard this week about a post 16 MT/dance school going into administration leaving students without a college. It seems to me that we parents should be investigating financial viability along with everything else when selecting where our offspring should audition.

Can you give us any hints of which MT school is involved? I have a few friends with children scattered across the UK studying MT. Worried for them. Thank you

[Picturesinthefirelight]

I think all involved must know & administrators have been publicly appointed. It's a lesser known college called Liberatus.

[Katymac]

It's all very well suggesting people check financial information - but realistically very few of us, as parents, would know how to or if we worked that out how to interpret the data

 

I went bust earlier in the year and few if any were aware it was going to happen before it was announced & I let down a lot of families that were depending on me - it was unavoidable, totally caused by an external agency but it was still me that made the decision.

 

It's a very confusing situation for our children - I feel, perhaps wrongly that universitys are somehow better protected than colleges?

[taxi4ballet]

Although OFSTED says that privately-funded post-16 institutions are not regulated, perhaps they should be - since now all students have to be in education until they are 17, rather than 16 as was the case previously.

 

Is this a hole in the net maybe? 

[Picturesinthefirelight]

I'm no fan of OFSTED. But there does seem to be a loophole.

[alison]

It's all very well suggesting people check financial information - but realistically very few of us, as parents, would know how to or if we worked that out how to interpret the data

 

Well, if I were checking out a potential new client's credit-worthiness, the first thing I'd do would be to check with Companies House whether they had filed their accounts on time: late- or non-filing of accounts can be an indicator that something isn't right (although there are also valid reasons for doing it, like if you're changing your accounting date e.g. to bring it in line with something else).  You can do that online for free, and also access other basic information about a company.

 

Through my institute I also have free access to the services of Creditsafe, which enables you to do a more in-depth check (and I'd guess there are other companies which offer something similar), but then, why would it occur to you that you'd need to check up on a school or other place of further education?