The private school head said she “wholeheartedly” agreed with the Labour leader’s ambitions for the state sector, but urged him “not to underestimate the wider impact on small, often rural towns”.
Clayesmore School, which takes boys and girls from 13 to 18, charges annual fees of £28,311 for day pupils and £38,922 for boarders. It also has a prep school attached with 150 pupils.
Ms Thomson said, “like most independent schools in the UK, we do not educate the Jacob Rees-Moggs or the Boris Johnsons of this world”, with 95 pupils on bursaries and a further 159 on full scholarships.
It follows warnings that Labour’s plans to start charging VAT on private schools “as soon as possible” if it wins the general election could disproportionately impact smaller private schools in rural areas.
Headteachers told The Telegraph that they feared the policy could exacerbate the regional divide in education, with many schools outside London already stretched and making drastic cost cuts.
Nick Pietrek, the headteacher at £14,880-a-year Stafford Grammar School, suggested parents in more affluent areas of the country may easily be able to absorb fee hikes under a potential Labour government, while those in the North and elsewhere beyond London were more likely to struggle.