The King Alfred School in Lower Gornal in Dudley, West Midlands, is closing due to spiralling costs including the introduction of VAT on school fees, the Express & Star has reported.

Since September 2021, the school’s founders husband and wife Thomas and Hayley Bowen have run the school offering a classical Christian education which is an “affordable, high-quality education to prepare children to live virtuous lives”.

On social media the Bowens wrote: “It is with a huge amount of regret and sadness that we have to announce the immediate, but temporary, closure of The King Alfred School.

“The school leadership fought until the very end to keep the school open through fundraising and attracting new students, but unfortunately, we were not in a position to continue.

“This has been a difficult year due to the Government’s introduction of VAT to independent education, raising employment costs and the removal of charitable status business rates relief.

“Since VAT was applied to fees many existing and prospective families have informed us that they can no longer afford to meet rising costs and have as a consequence withdrawn their children from the school and applications for next year.

“This combined with a disappointing uptake in student enrolment and an increase in rent from our landlord, The Methodist Church, has led us to close.”

They added: “We are still fully committed to classical Christian education and believe this type of education has the potential to help cure the spiritual and cultural decline of our nation.

“We are determined to see the spirit of The King Alfred School lives on and we will try and fulfil our mission and vision in every way we can.

“The King Alfred School vision and mission is one that will remain alive and the trustees and leadership of the school will be looking to reopen the school in the coming years.

“The need for this type of education in our nation today is great. It is our hope that we can now build a case for a wider network of support and partner with the great minds in this field to continue what has been started.

“We will be looking to reopen in the next 12 to 36 months – once we have enough support in place to allow us to operate the school in a way that leads to long term viability.”