Boris Johnson’s former preparatory school is to close permanently due to the Covid-19 outbreak.

Ashdown House Preparatory School in East Sussex will shut at the end of the summer term because of the financial challenges of the coronavirus pandemic, it has been announced.

As Tes revealed last month, there are fears within the independent sector that as many as 30 per cent of UK private schools could eventually go bust because of the coronavirus crisis.

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Ashdown House - a 177-year-old school - was forecast to be less than a third full in September due to a decline in the number of international boarders and fewer parents taking up their places for the next academic year.

The trustees of the boarding and day school, which caters for boys and girls aged 5 to 13, have concluded that closing the school “is the only remaining option”.

The decision comes after the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA) heard that the school had a “Spartan and unforgiving” culture, where sexual abuse of pupils during the prime minister’s time there was not reported to authorities.

‘The impact of the coronavirus has changed everything’

Tom Beardmore-Gray, chief executive of Cothill Educational Trust, which runs the school, said: “When the trust first welcomed Ashdown into our family of schools over a decade ago, trustees did so knowing that there were some very significant challenges that needed to be addressed.

“They were united, however, in the belief that everything that could be done to keep the school open should be done.

“The harsh reality is that the impact of the coronavirus has changed everything.

“In recent years the trust has invested heavily in the school, and there has been a relentless drive to keep the school moving forward.

“Given the challenges the sector as a whole is now facing, it is not possible to maintain this support.”

Staff and the families of current pupils have been informed and the school is putting in place a programme of support, guidance and consultation to help its community.

In September, a hearing of the IICSA was told that Ashdown House had an environment where “sexual touching was seen as acceptable”, during almost 25 years of abuse from 1969.

Mr Johnson attended the school in 1975, six years after the first allegations of sexual abuse of it pupils were made.