Shaftesbury: Cash-strapped school boarding house faces closure

Barton Hill House is a purpose-built boarding house about 15 minutes walk from Shaftesbury School

A boarding house at a state school is under threat of closure amid plummeting pupil numbers.

Barton Hill House, the boarding complex of Shaftesbury School, which can accommodate up to 100 students, is set to close at the end of August.

Sherborne Area Schools' Trust (SAST) said it had made the "difficult decision" due to a continuing fall in the number of boarding students.

Numbers have dropped from near to full to 36 boarders expected in 2022/23.

The trust, which said the school would continue to operate for non-boarders, had seen an ongoing fall in the number of boarding students "due to global factors such as the pandemic, and the UK's withdrawal from the European Union".

'Funds exhausted'

As a state boarding school there is no cost for tuition but boarding fees are £12,300 per year.

In a statement, SAST said: "The boarding house financial reserves have been used to support the provision until now, but those funds will have been exhausted by the end of the academic year.

"We do not undertake this decision lightly and have done everything within our power to make boarding financially sustainable.

"We hold out hope that a revenue stream can be found which will enable the boarding house to remain open, and we want to support boarding students, especially those in the middle of their studies, as much as possible."