The company behind Ruckleigh School, which closed in July after 117 years, went into creditors' liquidation on 22 September. Who to call if you are owed money.

The company that ran Ruckleigh School on Lode Lane has been placed into liquidation, eleven weeks after the prep school closed its doors.

Ruckleigh Schools Limited went into a creditors’ voluntary liquidation on 22 September 2026. Two notices recording it appeared in The Gazette on 25 September (resolutions notice, liquidator appointment).

What the records say

The company’s members voted to wind it up at a general meeting at the school, 17 Lode Lane, on 22 September. Creditors ratified the decision the same day.

The Gazette notices record:

  • Company: Ruckleigh Schools Limited, company number 03552343
  • Nature of business: primary education
  • Type of liquidation: creditors’ voluntary
  • Liquidator: Sandra Fender of Sanderlings LLP, Becketts Farm, Alcester Road, Birmingham B47 6AJ
  • Contact: the liquidator, 01564 700052

The resolutions notice gives the company’s principal trading address as “N/A”. That fits a business that has stopped trading.

A creditors’ voluntary liquidation is the route taken when a company’s directors cannot declare that it will pay its debts in full. A solvent company closing down would use a members’ voluntary liquidation instead.

The school closed in July

Ruckleigh announced on its website in June that it would close at the end of the school year. The homepage now reads: “Ruckleigh School, Solihull 1909-2026 is now permanently closed” (school website).

The Department for Education’s schools register records the closure date as 8 July 2026 (Get Information About Schools). It was an independent school for children aged 3 to 11, with a nursery. It had 146 pupils on roll and room for 241, on the register’s last figures.

Meriden and Solihull East MP Saqib Bhatti marked the announcement on 1 June. He called the school “a cornerstone of our community” for 117 years and blamed the government’s policy of charging VAT on private school fees (statement). The school’s own public notice gave no reasons.

Timeline of the official records on Ruckleigh School: founded 1909; closure announced 1 June 2026; school closed 8 July 2026; two directors and the company secretary stood down 31 July 2026; the company was placed into creditors' voluntary liquidation on 22 September 2026; the notices were published in The Gazette on 25 September 2026.
Ruckleigh School from closure to liquidation. Graphic by The Solihull Post
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The company in the months before

Companies House filings fill in the gap between the closure and the liquidation (filing history):

  • Two directors and the company secretary stood down on 31 July 2026. The filings were made on 8 September.
  • A confirmation statement was filed the same day, with no changes.
  • The last accounts cover the year to 31 July 2025.

Those unaudited accounts showed net assets of £753,851. Most of that was on paper. The company was owed £734,680 by its parent, Ruckleigh Holdings Limited, as an unsecured, interest-free loan. It had £196,389 in the bank and an average of 39 staff, including directors.

The accounts were signed off on 27 April 2026, five weeks before the closure was announced. Nothing in them, or in any public filing, explains why the company now cannot pay its debts in full. We have not seen the liquidator’s figures, and the creditors’ list is not public at this stage.

What it means for you

  • If you paid fees or a deposit in advance and did not get the money back, you may be a creditor. Contact the liquidator on 01564 700052, quoting Ruckleigh Schools Limited. Parents with unpaid refunds rank as unsecured creditors, so any return depends on what the liquidator recovers.
  • If you worked at the school and are still owed pay, holiday pay, notice pay or redundancy pay, you can claim from the government’s Redundancy Payments Service once the liquidator has confirmed your details (how to claim).
  • If your child moved school, nothing changes. The liquidation deals with the company’s money, not pupils’ records or places.
  • The building’s future is not yet known. The liquidation does not itself say what happens to 17 Lode Lane. We will report any planning application for the site. The latest decisions are on our Solihull planning news page.

Sources