MAT closes school sixth form to new entrants on day term due to start – despite accounts stating its reserves were above government recommendations

East Anglian Schools Trust closes Bungay High's year 12 provision with immediate effect - raising questions about both its finances and England's now-less-public schools system.

A multi-academy trust faces questions on why it announced that it was closing a school’s sixth form to new entrants on the day that they were due to arrive for the start of the academic year.

Bungay High School, in rural Suffolk, wrote to parents on Wednesday stating that it would not be opening year 12 for 2025-26, “due to significantly lower than expected numbers”. The school was re-opening after the summer holidays on that day.

The decision appears to have left those pupils who had opted for the sixth form with few local alternatives: a check on the government’s “Find and Compare Schools” service shows only one state post-16 provider – Sir John Leman High in Beccles – less than five miles away, with three other institutions some 13 to 14 miles away.

The decision to close year 12 at the school came despite East Anglian Schools Trust (EAST), which controls the school, having £3.8m in unrestricted reserves as of last August, its latest published accounts show, with Bungay High itself having savings of £849,000. The organisation, alongside many multi-academy trusts, appears to have a relatively large team of managers compared to the local authority in which it operates, as my analysis in this piece shows.