Sixty years after opening its doors, St Christopher’s – a tiny, close-knit school where some former pupils described each other as family – should have been celebrating a milestone anniversary.
Instead, 2024 became the year its story unravelled. The planned diamond-year cheer gave way to serious debt, asset seizures including a Tortoise Takeover sculpture, court orders, and, yesterday, a final eviction notice.
Following a Petty Debts Court hearing, the managers of the private prep school which closed down at the end of the school year were ordered to move out immediately and ordered to pay £77,634.
The Court heard that the bosses of St Christopher’s School had been ordered to leave the premises in La Rue de la Chapelle in St Clement in May this year, but had still failed to do so.
The school announced its closure in a letter to parents this summer. The government told Express that all current pupils had found alternative places to study.
The court also heard that the company owed money in rent that could have been earned if they had moved out, plus and interest.
Neither the school’s headteacher Amanda Le Brocq or deputy head Cheryl Ahearn attended the hearing.
In their absence Relief Magistrate Peter Harris issued an eviction notice “with immediate effect” and ordered them to pay £74,134 in rent and £3,500 in legal costs.
But yesterday’s Petty Debts case only scratches the surface.
Items belonging to the school, including a small tortoise and gorilla designed by pupils, were recently auctioned off by the Viscount’s Department – months after Express first revealed that the school was being pursued by Government for £100,000.
Meanwhile, an Employment Tribunal found “systemic” issues meant staff couldn’t tell that they were underpaid.
And sources told Express of a series of staff exits and pervasive low morale.
But it had not always been this way – it was once described by a parent as one of Jersey’s “best kept secrets”, while a former teacher described it as “probably the best job I’ve ever had” in “a homely environment” with a “family feel”.
These comments were echoed in the school’s most recent inspection report, which read: “Pupils say it’s easy to make friends here, they describe their small school as being like a family.”
So, what led to the school reaching crisis point?
“Education in Jersey has changed quite considerably”
St Christopher’s Preparatory School was founded in 1964. Located at Stopford Road for 35 years, it moved to its St Clement premises in 2006.
The school, which charges families £7,688-per-year or £9,498 with after-school care, kept a low profile and didn’t even have a website until 2023.
But St Christopher’s School has more recently made headlines by racking up tens-of-thousands of pounds of debt, as well as getting into trouble for not paying staff wages.
Last year, the school had its minibus seized, along with its small tortoise statue from the Tortoise Takeover, and its small gorilla from the Go Wild Gorillas trail.
A Toyota Land Cruiser belonging to headteacher Amanda Le Brocq was also seized.
Student numbers have gone down in recent years, with just 20 students left at the school at the end of last year.
Express first spoke to deputy headteacher Cheryl Ahearn, who is known as Miss Cheryl to the school community, in December 2024.
“We were healthy in July but, with the way the economic climate is, a lot of our children left at that point,” she said.
Miss Ahearn said students left “for a variety of reasons”.
“Some left to leave Jersey, sadly, but we’re finding that more and more,” she explained.
“Some left to go to States schools because of the affordability.
“And quite honestly, education in Jersey has really changed quite considerably.
“Most of the private schools have spaces. Historically, they didn’t.
“Even the Education Department have got spare classes because of the birth rates.”
Some parents didn’t pay their fees, she alleged, and the private school had also struggled to recruit staff – particularly after teachers in States schools saw their wages increased by 8% this year.
Miss Ahearn said that some families found that the schools they were planning on moving children to in Year 7 to had places become available sooner, “so they left early to get settled in”.
A series of Petty Debts cases involving local contractors reflected a challenging financial picture for the school. At one point, the school was pursued over cleaning costs.
One source told Express that teaching staff were asked to help clean as a result of the ongoing issues, which was said to have impacted morale.
Other providers “lining up” to take over building
When Miss Ahearn spoke to Express, the school was still located in its St Clement, just across the road from the parish primary school.
But St Clement Constable Marcus Troy said at the time that the school hadn’t been paying rent “for a considerable amount of time”.
In December, he explained the parish had offered to reduce the school’s rent “to help them through difficult times”, but the offer wasn’t accepted.
The parish “had to do something about it”, he said.
“I have to look after the parish’s estates and property,” said Constable Troy.
“In my oath, I swore to look after them better than my own.”
The building’s deeds mean it has to be occupied by a school or nursery – and the parish already has other organisations that would fit the bill interested in the building.
The Constable said it was “fairly likely” that another occupier would move in, in light of the school’s issues.
The issue was “very emotional”, he added, as there are children and families involved.
At the time, Miss Ahearn said that she had no comments to make specific to the parish.
Express has contacted Constable Troy for an update on the school’s former building in St Clement following yesterday’s court appearance.
A tortoise and a gorilla at the auction
Throughout 2023 until June 2024, the school didn’t pay any Income Tax Instalment Scheme (ITIS) – amassing a £57,110 bill.
In November, the Royal Court ordered St Christopher’s School to pay back that full amount.
When asked about this, Miss Ahearn told Express the unpaid bills were due to “outstanding fees, money not being paid, and overheads rising”.
After no-one from the school appeared in the Royal Court, a number of items were ordered to be seized from the school – including a Ford Transit minibus, a gorilla and a tortoise.
The animal statues were part of Durrell’s Go Wild Gorillas trail and Tortoise Takeover, which saw tortoises placed across Jersey for islanders to find.
St Christopher’s School’s gorilla Chris and tortoise Flash were seized by the Viscount’s department in October after the school got into financial difficulty.
They were scheduled to go under the hammer at Simon Drieu in December, but this date was pushed back until February.
When the auction finally took place, the cash generated fell far short of the school’s debts.
The Ford Transit minibus was sold for £8,900, the mini gorilla was sold for £820, and the tortoise sculpture was sold for £2,100.
School staff members in front of the Employment Tribunal
Meanwhile, several former staff members have fought the school in front of the Employment Tribunal.
The tribunal found that a former auxiliary, who had worked at St Christopher’s School for over 30 years, had been wrongfully dismissed.
The school also hadn’t given the staff member pay slips or written terms of employment.
Susan Bizouarn had been employed on a part-time basis for decades when the school’s headteacher was taken ill, and Miss Ahearn took over its leadership.
Pay slips “were provided to full time staff in their pigeonholes but part-time staff did not have a secure place to keep them so they were not printed or given to staff except for the December one with earnings for the year”, the tribunal heard – despite the legal requirement to provide pay slips “at or before the time of payment”.
When Mrs Bizouarn’s husband died and she was signed off sick, the school stopped paying her – and the court heard how medical certificates hadn’t been sent to the Social Security department.
Tribunal chair Dr Elena Moran found that “the late payment of the June wages and the non-payment of the July and August wages is a fundamental breach of contract”.
“There is no doubt that Mrs Bizouarn resigned in response to the breaches and she was therefore constructively unfairly dismissed,” the tribunal found.
It followed that this was also a wrongful dismissal.
The school was told to pay Mrs Bizouarn a total of £13,416. This was made up of £8,112 in compensation, £3,744 in damages, and £1,560 for no pay slips or contract.
The missing pay slips, the court found, were “systemic” and meant that Mrs Bizouarn couldn’t see that there had been unlawful deductions.
Another employee was owed £300 for unpaid wages and £200 for missing payslips.
“Working tirelessly” to stabilise the business
Express first spoke to Miss Ahearn in December 2024.
In an updated statement sent at the end of March 2025, she said she had spent the months since “working tirelessly with a group of individuals to stabilise and grow the business in order to continue to provide a service to my parents and to the young children in my care”.
“I am working through my commitments, financially and otherwise,” she added.
Express has contacted Miss Ahearn and the school for an updated statement following the eviction.