Oaks Academy School of English in Bournemouth closed suddenly last Friday, November 6. Around 15 students are believed to be affected and there are reportedly thousands of pounds in outstanding payments to staff and homestay providers.
Several attempts to contact owner Mazen Damdam by staff and The PIE News have failed.
Staff were handed redundancy letters just four days before Friday’s closure, and several have yet to be paid for their last month or more of work, according to former director of studies, Graham Meadows.
“What I heard through the grapevine is students still turned up on Saturday to find out what’s going on but the door had been padlocked”
Meadows, who told The PIE News that he has not been paid for the month of October, estimated that there is “still a good £10,000, if not more, outstanding” in payments to staff and homestay providers.
A teacher at the school who asked not to be named said she has also not received payment for the same month and as a homestay provider for the school, she is owed a further £420 for four weeks’ worth of accommodation.
She said that the possibility of redundancy had been floated a few weeks ago, but the closure came without warning.
Meanwhile, students do not appear to have been contacted by the school’s management regarding the closure.
“What I heard through the grapevine is students still turned up on Saturday to find out what’s going on but the door had been padlocked,” the teacher said, adding that teachers do not have contact details for the students.
Another homestay provider, also commenting on condition of anonymity, said she is owed around £2,600 for hosting six students in August.
“I was told that I’d get paid in two weeks’ time and then it kept going on and on… the owner said another company hadn’t paid him and he’s just chasing them to get his money in order to pay us,” she said, adding that she has not unable to contact Damdam since “a few weeks ago”.
“A friend of mine who I’d introduced as a host family had to ask her student to leave as well because obviously she wasn’t going to get paid, and that’s how I found out about this,” she added.
A third homestay provider echoed that she was not informed of the closure and has been unable to contact the school’s management team or Damdam since October 26.
She was asked to take in a student for a period of “several months” with two days’ notice, beginning on October 24, and was told that he had been staying with Damdam since arriving in the country six weeks earlier.
“I’ve rung three or four times a day, I’ve left answerphone messages, I’ve gone up there”
“I’ve rung three or four times a day, I’ve left answerphone messages, I’ve gone up there [to the school],” she said.
She said that the office has been empty for two weeks despite classes being taught, and that even the emergency contact number went unanswered.
She is still hosting the student and has had no indication that the school intends to make alternative arrangements for him. “We’re supporting him as much as we can, but I can’t keep him without payment,” she said.
There is reportedly a sign on the door of the school saying that the school is closed for two weeks and will open soon, however no other announcement of reopening has been made to staff.
English UK has reached out to Oaks Academy to determine whether to deploy its Student Emergency Support Fund, despite the school not being a member, but has not been able to establish contact, according to its membership manager, Alice Marcolin.
She explained that English UK is unable to activate the fund until it has full details of the closure, including whether it has declared insolvency.
“We’ve been trying to get in touch with Oaks Academy since last week,” she said. “To date, we have not heard anything from them, and I’m afraid that until we have more details there’s nothing we can do.”
The British Council’s Accreditation UK said in a statement: “We are aware that the school has recently closed without warning and efforts are being made to contact the owner to establish the circumstances surrounding this and identify any students whose courses have been affected.”
“If the school has permanently closed, arrangements will be made to transfer the students to courses at other accredited centres.”
