Performing arts school’s fees battle
Royal Borough: Redroofs managers threaten to take legal action for non-payment in the pandemic
A Maidenhead drama and dance school and a group of parents are locked in a dispute over fees.
Redroofs School for the Performing Arts, in Bath Road, has sent letters threatening to take some parents to court after they took their children out of the school during the COVID-19 crisis.
The parents believed they could trigger a force majeure clause in their contracts which stated they could be cancelled in the event of ‘an epidemic or pandemic’.
But the school, which counts Kate Winslet among its alumni, rejects that the COVID-19 outbreak constitutes a force majeure event and is demanding that parents pay up the outstanding fees, which
are £5,000 per term.
When the first lockdown began and the school was forced to shut its doors, some parents called for the fees to be reduced as they felt the children were not able to get the equivalent standard of dancing, singing and acting education at home.
But they said Redroofs insisted that parents needed to pay their full fees .
Parent Sarah Townsend claims she ‘struggled massively’ when she and her partner both lost their jobs because of the pandemic and were not able to pay the school fees for the upcoming summer term, so she took her daughter out of school.
She said: “It’s a dance school, you have to be there in person, you are paying a lot of money for school and if you aren’t getting the lessons a reduction should be made.
“At the time we had no income and we said we could not pay it, we had to pay all our bills, our car finance.
“We were struggling massively with depression, trying to get government help and getting food parcels.”
In a statement, the school said: “At the beginning of the pandemic, we sought legal advice pertaining to whether or not the COVID -19 outbreak constituted a force majeure.
“We were advised both by lawyers and our insurance
company this was not the case.”
It added: “It would have been wholly inappropriate as a private school with no charitable status to permit a handful of parents to opt out or renegotiate their remission of fees due, leaving other parents with a potentially reduced service and giving the school no time to replan its curriculum based on vastly reduced class roll.
“Our organisation must of course pay our staff and suppliers and fulfil our ongoing financial obligations in a legal and dutiful manner.
“With our small roll of fulltime pupils, we were unable to make discounts particularly in this unique situation where the online tuition was supported by a technical team at considerable cost to the management.
“As the school did not provide hot lunches, coaches, sports fixtures etc we could not offer to make discounts on tuition fees in the way some other local schools had done to justify offering a reduction.”
Plans for a new sports pavilion building which would become a ‘new home’ for Cookham Dean FC have been given the green light by councillors.
The ‘modern clubhouse’ would be built on greenbelt land in Lower Mount Farm in Long Lane and also include 87 parking spaces, two coach parking spaces and 16 cycle stands.
The site already has sport pitches after planning permission was granted back in 2012.
Officers had recommended the plans for approval ahead of the meeting, stating that the building would ‘encourage socialising, community bonding, outdoor sports uptake and general improvements in health and well-being for its users’.
The application was called in to the Royal Borough development management panel by Councillor Mandy
Brar (Cookham, Lib) who raised concerns over the development’s impact on traffic and the greenbelt.
During the virtual meeting, she said extra pedestrian movement on Long Lane – which is a ‘narrow single track road’ with no lights filled her with a‘renewed
sense of dread’.
Panel member Cllr Josh Reynolds (Furze Platt, Lib) said he was also concerned about the size of the building and said it looked like a ‘green shed’.
Dick Scarff, speaking on behalf of the Cookham Society requested the applicant build a designated foot and cycle path link from Switchback Road to the site and requested change in the conditions suggested by officers.
Duncan Gibson, speaking on behalf of the applicant said there were no ‘negative highways impacts’ from the application as the cars would have been on the road anyway accessing the existing pitches and clubhouse.
He said the new pitches were less than one kilometre from the existing pitch and the footpath access into the northern end of the site was accessible via Whyteladyes Lane – which was a ‘much more likely route’ to the site for cyclists and pedestrians.
“This is a good news application that would deliver real benefits to the football club and the wider community,” he added.
Cllr David Cannon (Con,Datchet, Horton and Wraysbury) recommended the application with an amendment to the wording of the conditions.
This was seconded by Cllr David Hilton (Con, Ascot and Sunninghill).
The application was approved by every panel member except Cllr Reynolds who objected.