Wychwood School reveals name of mystery financial backer

In August, Wychwood School announced an investor would bring financial security and investment.

Now, the all-girls school has revealed that the managing director of a Hong Kong property company will be investing in the school.

Simon Tyrrell, 44, has spent the last 20 years in Hong Kong, working in property investment, and is seeking to help girls break the glass ceiling.

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Mr Tyrrell, who oversees E3 Capital, said: “I came across Wychwood by chance, I was looking for a school for my daughter, while relocating back from Hong Kong.

“There was a meeting of minds and a shared vision of how we felt education should be.

“There’s certain elements we want to invest into the school to take that one step further, providing additional facilities, expanding dining and sporting facilities.

“The changes have started, we’ve had meetings with strategic partners, we’re engaging with an architect to look at the infrastructure of the property and where we can add bits to improve the flow of the school.

“The plan is that Wychwood becomes the jewel in the crown in a small family of similar types of schools.

“I’m in discussions with a few other schools to join the family so to speak, the intention would be to have a family of two or three schools in the UK, and potentially some abroad.

“This is a long-term view, I’m in no rush to acquire lots of schools.

“From a girls’ school standpoint, I find it very strange that boys’ schools can survive whereas girls’ schools are under pressure and there’s this wrong perception of girls’ schools where girls are timid or not used to the broader world when it couldn’t be further from the truth.

“There’s no reason why can’t girls can’t do anything, that’s the intention of schools like this.”

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Meanwhile, Wychwood headmistress Andrea Johnson said parents and teachers were excited by the news.

She said: “For us, this is marvellous timing, coronavirus has been hard for every school in the country, I think children have been really damaged by it.

“Pupils and teachers are terribly excited by this though, the staff who have met Simon are absolutely bouncing, they are delighted.

“The glass ceiling is there to be broken, we put forward the idea that wherever the girls are going to go, it’s where they want to go and there’s absolutely no barriers to them getting there.”