The Highbury independent school closed after the summer term and its charity was wound up on 27 August. Its trustees blame VAT on fees for the fall in numbers.

The London Scandinavian School has been wound up. The independent nursery and primary at Curran House, 3 Highbury Crescent, N5, passed a resolution to liquidate on 27 August 2026. The notice appeared in the London Gazette six days later.

This is a creditors’ voluntary liquidation, which means the company could not pay what it owed. Andrew Hook and Julie Anne Palmer of BTG Begbies Traynor (Central) LLP, at Hilltop Business Park in Salisbury, were appointed joint liquidators by members and creditors on 27 August (The Gazette, notice 5202493), (The Gazette, notice 5202460).

The school had already told Companies House it was closing. Its trustees wrote in accounts filed on 31 May 2026 that “the School will close after the summer term of 2026” (Companies House, accounts to 31 August 2025).

The trustees name VAT as the cause

The reason is set out in the school’s own annual report, in plain terms. The trustees wrote:

As a result of a significant drop in numbers due to the VAT charges on fees which caused the fees to be put up as above a significant number of pupils left the school.

Since 1 January 2025, education and vocational training charged for by private schools in the UK has been subject to VAT at 20% (HMRC). London Scandinavian School passed the cost on. By the end of the 2024/25 school year its termly fees, before any bursary, were:

  • £10,624 a term for a nursery place, five days a week, for a two-year-old
  • £8,124 a term for a preschool place, five days a week, for three and four-year-olds
  • £6,768 a term for a primary school place

The trustees then recorded what that did to the roll. Pupil numbers were 15 at the term end of August 2025, in a school the Department for Education records as having capacity for 80 (Get Information about Schools, URN 139973). There were eight teaching staff. The accounts say the collapse in numbers caused “a wholesale change on the Board of Trustees on 17 July 2025”.

The money

Fee income was the school’s principal source of income, and it fell by a third in a year.

London Scandinavian School: fee income, funds and roll Two charts. The first shows fee income falling from 620,160 pounds in the year to August 2024 to 407,118 pounds in the year to August 2025. The second shows the school roll at 15 pupils against a Department for Education capacity of 80 places. A third of the fee income gone, and 15 pupils left London Scandinavian School, Highbury Crescent N5. Financial years ended 31 August. Fee income 2024 £620,160 2025 £407,118 Total funds moved from a deficit of £38,950 to a deficit of £61,815. Pupils on roll against capacity 15 of 80 places Roll at term end, August 2025. Capacity as recorded by the Department for Education. Eight teaching staff. Age range 2 to 11. A term's fees at the end of 2024/25, before any bursary Nursery, age 2 £10,624 Preschool, 3 to 4 £8,124 Primary £6,768 Source: London Scandinavian School Ltd annual report and accounts for the year ended 31 August 2025. Graphic by Islington Today.
Fee income, funds and roll, from the school's own accounts for the year ended 31 August 2025.

Fee income fell from £620,160 in the year to August 2024 to £407,118 in the year to August 2025. The school ran a net expenditure of £22,865 on its activities, against net income of £54,437 the year before. Total funds ended the year at a deficit of £61,815, against a deficit of £38,950 a year earlier.

Donations kept it going longer than the fees would have. One private donor gave £118,196 during the 2024/25 school year, and parents raised a further £6,000. No bursary applications were received that year, and the trustees noted that pupil numbers were by then “too low to offer any further bursaries”.

The school was a registered charity, number 1153166, as well as a company limited by guarantee. It opened on 1 September 2013 and took its first pupils ten days later. It was set up to teach children aged two to 11 “in a multicultural environment with a Scandinavian focus”, and specifically to maintain a day school in Islington.

The public records have not caught up

Two official records still describe the school as trading, which is worth knowing if you are checking it yourself.

  • Get Information about Schools, the Department for Education register, still shows London Scandinavian School as Open, with no closed date. Its roll of 15 and capacity of 80 were last confirmed on 23 July 2026.
  • Companies House still shows the company status as Active. Its confirmation statement has been overdue since 7 August 2026.

The school’s own website was still live when we checked on 7 September, with an admissions page and no notice of the closure or the liquidation. Its sitemap records the site as last published on 11 January 2026.

What it means for you

If your child was at the school. Islington Council takes in-year applications for a place at any of its schools at any point in the year, and that is the route to a state primary place mid-year. The council’s apply for a school place pages cover in-year admissions and the appeal route if a place is refused.

If the school owes you money. In a creditors’ voluntary liquidation, claims go to the liquidators rather than to the school. The Gazette notice gives a contact at BTG Begbies Traynor, on 01722 435190, for anyone who requires further information. Fees paid in advance for a term that will not now be taught are a claim in the liquidation like any other.

If you are looking at another independent school in the borough. The DfE’s register carries the roll and capacity for every one of them, which is the quickest way to see whether a school is filling its places. A roll well under capacity is not proof of anything on its own, but it is the number that moved first here.

What happens to the building at Curran House has not been recorded in any public notice yet. Nothing in this report is a finding against any individual: it sets out what the official registers and the school’s own filed accounts record.

Sources