Falling pupil numbers
Rolls that no longer cover the cost base, with the following September looking harder still.
For independent school leaders, owners and governors · South-East England
Some schools need steadying. Others need a strategy. Most need both.
Kubla is a senior consultancy for independent schools — from immediate stabilisation and cash flow, through new revenue streams, to a realistic plan for growth. You deal directly with the people who do the work.
South-East England
Decades in school leadership
Complete discretion
September 2026 —
we are prioritising schools with immediate concerns about the coming term.
Speak to us this week →
Where schools find themselves
Some schools come to us in trouble. Others come to us to make sure they never are.
Falling rolls, tighter margins and a harder market have put real pressure on independent schools that were comfortable a few years ago. These difficulties rarely arrive one at a time — and they are rarely solved by cost-cutting alone.
Cash flow under strain
Fee income arriving late or short, while staff, premises and debt carry on regardless.
A single income stream
Everything resting on termly fees, with a site and a calendar that could be earning far more.
Support falling away
Parents and teachers who once carried the school and its reputation quietly beginning to look elsewhere.
What we advise on
Getting through the year, and building the years after it.
Most independent schools that call us start with something urgent. Almost all of them end up talking about growth, because stability on its own is not a future.
Immediate stabilisation
When the next term is genuinely in doubt: cash, creditors, staffing and the decisions that cannot wait another month.
Cash flow and finances
Fee income, cost base, debt and funding structures examined commercially — with the numbers put in front of you plainly.
New revenue streams
Lettings, holiday and language courses, nursery and wraparound provision, international connections and recruitment, and better use of a site that sits idle for some of the year.
Pupil numbers
Admissions, pipeline and local market position — why families are choosing elsewhere, and what actually changes that.
Growth and strategy
Where the school could realistically be in three to five years, and the route to getting there.
Governance and leadership
Board effectiveness, senior structure, and the difficult conversations that tend to get postponed until they cannot be.
How we work
A fast, professional assessment — then a clear set of options.
There is no long diagnostic exercise and no six-week report. We come to you, we establish the real position, and we put practical choices in front of the people who have to make them.
01
The visit
We come to your school promptly, usually within days. We meet whoever needs to be met — principal, owner, governors, bursar — and we look at the school as it actually is, not as the paperwork describes it.
02
The analysis
A thorough and unsentimental assessment of what you are facing: rolls, finances, staffing, governance, market position, and the opportunities sitting unused in the site and the calendar.
03
The options
A range of realistic ways forward — for stability and for growth — with the consequences of each set out honestly, including the ones that are difficult to hear. You decide; we help you carry it through.
Who we are
A senior team, personally involved.
Kubla is not a large consultancy and has no intention of becoming one. There is no account manager and no team of junior associates. The work is delivered by a team of experienced professionals led by Graham Hill.
Our experience is in running schools, finance and hospitality — which between them cover most of what puts an independent school under pressure, and most of what gets it growing again.
Graham Hill
School leadership
Graham has decades of experience running highly successful independent schools in the United Kingdom, including Danes Hill in Oxshott. He then founded and led The English School of Mongolia for fourteen years, to 2025, through a period of significant growth and development.
Throughout, he has built and led teams of senior professionals — which is what makes the difference between a plan on paper and a plan that a school can actually deliver.
Jane Archer
Finance and commercial
Jane has worked in global investment banking in both New York and London, and more recently spent over ten years owning and running her own catering and hospitality business.
Her varied working background, alongside Graham's years in schools, brings a combined blend of experience to every school they advise.
14years
The English School of Mongolia
Founding and leading the school through sustained growth and development, to 2025.
How engagement works
How engagement works
The last thing schools under pressure want is substantial consultancy fees. We have structured our services to recognise this.
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An initial assessment on expenses only
You cover the direct costs of the visit and the work around it. Nothing more is required at that stage.
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A success fee, agreed afterwards
Once there is a clear plan and you have decided to proceed, we agree a success fee against it — not before.
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Delivered personally, and in confidence
Findings and recommendations go directly to principals, owners and governors, in person. They do not go anywhere else.
Discretion
Discretion is not a service we offer. It is the condition on which the work is possible at all.
A school's position becomes far harder the moment problems are a matter of public discussion. Parents move, good staff apply elsewhere, and a difficulty turns into a decline.
Every conversation with Kubla is handled on a confidential basis, including the first one. Nothing is shared with anyone, at any stage, without your express agreement.
Principals · Proprietors · Governing bodies
In association with
Let's Teach Abroad — placing teachers into IB and Cambridge schools worldwide since 2010, giving Kubla direct reach into the international staffing market when a school needs it.
Get in touch
Start a confidential conversation.
Whether the question is surviving the next term or growing over the next five years, one conversation costs nothing and commits you to nothing. We work with independent schools only.
Based in
South-East England
Visiting independent schools nationwide