Earley Springs Is Open. Here’s What We’re Building Next.
Earley Springs Is Open. Here’s What We’re Building Next.
Earley Springs, the SEND school Willow Rivers introduced to investors in Harrietsham, Kent, is now open and taking children aged 3 to 11 with communication and interaction difficulties. What started as a stripped-out, tired site has become a purpose-built facility, and the local authority contracts that were the whole point of the model are now in place. Anyone who wants to see it can — the school’s own site is live at earleyspringsschool.com.
For the investors who backed it early, this is the outcome we were underwriting toward from the start: a de-risked development, secured against a real asset, with income from a local authority that is contractually obliged to pay it and has nowhere else to place these children. It’s also, more simply, a school that didn’t exist a year ago and now does.
We’re not going to over-egg the social impact angle — the numbers speak for themselves. Kent alone has over a thousand children with EHCPs being educated outside their home authority because there isn’t capacity for them locally, and that gap isn’t closing on its own. It’s the same gap Earley Springs was built to close, and it’s the same gap we’re looking at again for the next site.
We’re now in the early stages of identifying the next school in the group. Same model: a freehold site, local authority-backed income, a first charge structure for investors. We’re not ready to share terms yet — we want the site secured and the numbers stress-tested before we put anything in front of you — but the raise will move quickly once it opens, and Earley Springs investors will get first look.
If you want to be on that list, reply to this or drop us a line at ben@willowrivers.com and we’ll make sure you’re one of the first to see it.