Insight No.10

Dukes is a family of schools, teachers, learners, parents and partners connected by our pursuit of an extraordinary life for every member of our community.

We believe that education is a journey to be enjoyed and shared at every stage of life. Insight is testament to this ongoing commitment to learning: a termly publication of articles written by some of the extraordinary educationalists in our schools and organisations.

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The discovery of programming as an art form by Andrew Smith, Head of Computer Science and IT at Rochester Independent College.

Contents

A design for life

Alison Bissell, Director of A-list Education

The American liberal arts system provides students with a wealth of opportunities to discover who they are.

Coding with wonder

Andrew Smith, Head of Computer Science and IT at Rochester Independent College The discovery of programming as an art form.

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Articles of faith 21

Charlotte Crookes, Headteacher at The Pointer School Storytelling helps pupils discover their own spirituality and the Bible is a great place to start..

Imagine dragons 26

Joss Williams, Head of Earlscliffe As educators look into their students’ futures, we must encourage them to discover how to be the hero of their own story.

Keep the magic alive 31

Katie Krais, Managing Director of JK Educate Discovery drives learning, so educators must do all they can to keep that spark of curiosity going. Tapping into a child’s interests is a very good place to start.

Back to their roots 37

Kevin Doble, Principal of Northwood Schools Prep schools need to return to to the founding principles of the 19th century Clarendon Commmission by offering pupils a rich and varied journey of discovery.

A great discovery

Director of Performance, Richard Fletcher

The Dukes conference in January 2023 marks the high point of the company’s nascent Learning and Development programme. It’s been quite a journey getting there.

Cloud illusions

Rik McShane, Director of Operations at Little Dukes In working with children in Early Years education, I have discovered how to think again.

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The last word 62 Wit and wisdom from the the world’s great thinkers from our colleagues at Dukes Education.

Tim Fish

Editor’s letter

Tim Fish, editor-in-chief of Insight, is Managing Director for Dukes Education’s colleges, and founded Earlscliffe, a co-ed, international boarding school for students aged 15-19, in Folkestone, Kent.

The theme of Insight No. 10 is ‘Discovery’. This is indeed a ‘big’ theme and one that implies journey, invention, initiative, stamina and a shared rejoicing in that which is new; a young learner experiences all of these and in finding strengths and working on weaknesses, and through recognising how one learns best and what to do with newfound knowledge and skills, self-discovery emerges as a core driver of life’s momentum.

For fans of putting a Pratchettesque ‘Disc’ into ‘discovery’, this edition will not disappoint: you will encounter dragons and even unicorn clouds, but also Jazz Studies in the Mid-West and how coding joins the dots — or lily pads — at Giverny.

The successful, first expedition of Capt. Robert Scott (1868-1912) to the Antarctic (1901-04) was aboard the RRS Discovery, a threemasted, wooden steamship built to withstand the pressure of the polar pack ice, and

the space shuttle that flew more missions (39 between 1984 and 2011) than any of its sister craft was, inevitably, Space Shuttle Discovery. These vehicles of research and change were certainly named with vigorous optimism but also as a nod to those who had travelled before them. Henry the Navigator, Bartolomeu Dias, Vasco da Gama and Pedro Alvares Cabral are the ‘big names’ as geographers, cartographers and explorers in Portugal’s ‘Age of Discovery’. A lesser-known voyager, Diogo Cão (1452-1486), led two expeditions along the west African coast (1482-84 and 148-86), ‘discovering’ the mouth of the Congo and laying claim to territory by planting stone crosses (padrãos) in the name of God and the Portuguese King, João II. On the first voyage Cão had left four of his men behind to find and make commercial agreements with the King of the Bakongo. On his return to Lisbon, Cão was ennobled, enriched and fêted

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by the King, who then also asked Cão (one can imagine as something of a courtly aside) if he wouldn’t mind going back for the quartet he had left behind. Cão duly sailed again, planted two further padrãos for God and King before dying off the coast of present day Namibia.

Fernando Pessoa (18881935) immortalised Cão in his poem Padrão (in Mensagem, 1934) in which the poet ascribes the following belief to his subject:‘Que o mar com fim será grego ou romano; O mar sem fim é português.’

However, the sea that was Portuguese did eventually join the waves of Rome and Greece as being ‘with end’ (‘com fim’) rather than ‘without end’ (‘sem fim’), bringing about (in the 1860s) the end of the transportation of slaves to Brazil from present day Angola and Namibia. The true sea without end is, after all, the sea of discovery itself.

Tim Fish Editor-in-chief

A fordesign life

The American liberal arts system provides students with a wealth of opportunities to discover who they are, says Alison Bissell, Director of A-list Education, part of the Dukes family

American liberal arts colleges are increasingly popular with families in the UK who recognise the enormous benefits of the flexible liberal arts system which offers students breadth, exploration and personal discovery.

“A US liberal arts education is all about choices, giving students the freedom and opportunities to explore and learn,” says Loutfi Jirari, Assistant Vice President for International Enrolment at DePauw University, Indiana.

Jirari was born in Morocco. When he enrolled in university in his homeland, where all higher education is still run on the French system, he discovered rigidity and boredom. He lasted just one year before moving to the US where he eventually achieved the liberal arts education he wanted. His job is now about helping students from around the world achieve the same thing.

A liberal arts degree is a particularly American thing; it offers an expansive intellectual grounding in all kinds of humanistic enquiry. By exploring issues, ideas and methods across the humanities, the arts and the natural and social sciences, students learn to read critically, write cogently and

think broadly. It gives students endless opportunity to discover who they are and what they want to be.

DePauw is small, with just 600 students enrolled per year. These students will choose from a vast smorgasbord of subject choices within the time span of their four-year degree. The liberal arts system does not require specialisation; a student will major in one or two subjects but study a host of others. It is not uncommon to see students mixing science with humanities, or science and the arts. You could choose to major in Computer Science and also take Jazz Studies and English Literature at DePauw if you wish.

DePauw goes one step further than this, allowing students to choose their own tutor, giving them the opportunity to pick someone they have made a connection with or a tutor who has a similar field of interest to them. Students don’t just design their own degree but can choose who teaches it to them.

There is also a huge range of extracurricular opportunities for students, says Jirari. “The strength in the US system versus the UK system is all the extra experience,” he says. There are research openings and internships on offer, plus wider activities such as running a social society. “The UK appears to be more narrowly academic; grades seem to matter a lot when looking at applicants,” says Jirari. “When I look at applicants for DePauw I’m looking at the applicant in the round, the whole of their knowledge and experience.”

In addition to the wide subject choice and external opportunities, nearly all DePauw students — 94% a year — spend time studying abroad, for as little as a semester or as much as a year.

The result of this broad education means that by the time students finish their degree “they are confident and worldly”, say Jirari, noting that “companies like students who have been educated at a liberal arts university. They know the students will write well, that their soft skills will be polished.”

The liberal arts system is now followed the world over — you can now find the idea of ‘discovery’ at the heart of many other university systems. Here is a selection of universities that foreground exploration and discovery in their offering:

‘A liberal arts education is about giving students the freedom to explore and learn’

‘It is not uncommon to see a student taking Computer Science with Jazz Studies at DePauw’

DePauw University, Indiana

1. Discovery through individuality: Grinnell College, Iowa, exemplifies discovery through their Individually Advised Curriculum. Students shake a kaleidoscope of 500 course offerings and experience a truly distinctive education. The only required class is their First-Year Tutorial which can focus on myriad topics from Kendrick Lamar to Climate Change.

2. Discovery through emerging fields: Ivy League university, Brown, also promotes discovery through its Independent Concentration Program where exceptional students are encouraged to forge a new academic path for themselves. Where relevant, students are supported to pursue and develop new fields of study, such as Educational Neuroscience, for example.

3. Discovery through exploration without boundaries:

Nurturing interdisciplinary connections is central to the ethos of Olin College of Engineering in Massachusetts. Unlike most universities, Olin is not divided into distinct academic departments; correspondingly, undergraduates are encouraged to take an integrated approach to their studies and explore the relationships between the branches of science, as well as arts, humanities, and social sciences. Olin also adopts the ‘do-learn’ approach to classes — students are afforded the space to experiment with concepts before studying the formal theory behind them.

4. Discovery through free and collaborative creativity: Emerson College, also in Massachusetts, describes itself as a ‘creative force’. The selection process leans heavily on the school’s core values of leadership, communication, and collaboration, thereby fuelling a community which comes together to lead creative and social change.

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The result of this broad education means that by the time students finish their degree “they are confident and worldly”’

5. Discovery through choice:

Most university courses consist of a combination of compulsory and optional modules. However, the University of Leeds goes one step further with its offering of ‘discovery modules’. These are organised across various themes and allow students to venture outside of the borders of their degree discipline, discovering academic ideas from areas such sustainability, philosophy, or languages. University College Dublin also utilises discovery modules to expose students to new electives, which span multiple departments and cover globally significant issues such as global development, scientific revolutions, and climate change.

6. Discovery through international exposure:

The World Bachelor in Business program is run by three leading universities: Bocconi University in Milan, the University of Southern California in the US, and the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. Not only do students traverse the world to experience each campus for a year, but they are also awarded three degrees. There are many other programmes which adopt this model and leverage the power of two or more institutional brand names, facilities, and cultural settings.

7. Discovery through diverse thinking: We were delighted to have the support of The Engineering & Design Institute (TEDI) for our inaugural Sustainable Careers Week at Dukes.

TEDI is another example of a university which is committed to discovery via a project-based, interdisciplinary approach. In addition, they also incubate innovation by curating a diverse student body. TEDI achieves this through a flexible admissions process; rather than demanding candidates apply with traditional qualifications, Maths and Physics A-level are not specifically required, for example. Candidates are assessed for suitability in a more holistic and individualised way — via tests and interviews. n

Coding with wonder

The discovery of programming as an art form by Andrew Smith, Head

of Computer Science and IT at Rochester Independent College

As students learn how to program it is essential they dance in that intangible ballet beyond ones and zeroes, coding with wonder. In this world of endless choices, where social media reduces people to lifestyle consumers, we must encourage our students on their voyage of discovery, to be creative coders and thereby to become productive as algorithmic artists. Programming is an art. It is a pursuit for curious problem-solvers and creative minds. It is the creation and discovery of algorithmic patterns. We know that it helps to develop logical thinking but it also develops the ability to be creative.

Serious artists of all walks think logically, from the patterns followed by musicians, to the colours and shapes defined in architecture, figurative painting and abstract expressionism. There are endless ways to program and akin to painting a figurative landscape where one might expect clouds and trees to have their respective places, many useful patterns in programming will have a familiar look and feel regardless of the programmer. Sit three painters in Monet’s Garden in Giverny and you will get three different yet familiar representations of the bridge and lily pond surrounded by trees.

There are structures, paradigms and styles, but, to a creative coder, the development of a style stems from an innate desire to express oneself. Programmers are artists, with the impetus to make or remake in their own way something that is both useful and elegant.

Professor Robin Hill defines elegance as: minimality, accomplishment, modesty and revelation. First, what we ultimately want to achieve as programmers, is short, simple programs; effective, minimal solutions. Second, a program should accomplish what it is designed to do. Third, modesty means coding restraint, not relying on esoteric

‘Programming is a pursuit for curious problem-solvers and creative minds’

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We must encourage our students on their voyage of discovery, to be creative coders and thereby become productive as algorithmic artists.’

techniques or cryptic shortcuts. Finally, our programs should reveal something new or obvious. It might sound strange, but the program should embody its function, revealing what it does without requiring further explanation.

In the use of text-based programming languages, one is playing with patterns of thought, trying to make our artwork the medium for putting our ideas across, getting the job done, allowing people to ‘get the picture,’ as it were. Programming languages tend to follow a left to right top-down script approach, just like English. Even with graphical ‘drag and drop’ coding apps this is apparent. Are there other approaches to the use of a highly structured English? In practice, mostly not. Interestingly however, computer scientist Ramsel Nasser has developed Arabicbased language Qlb.

Programming is not a linear process, despite what you may think. There is, however, always a systematic approach to arriving at a solution, comprising many small steps. As the Chinese proverb says, ‘A journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step.’ On this voyage of discovery, the final written program means nothing until it is translated into the ‘machine

code’ that computers actually use. When the program is finally run, it causes machine code instructions to cascade through the processor hardware making it function.

Mathematicians, musicians and painters may be more readily equipped to understand aspects of how to program because their disciplines depend on algorithmic thinking and the ability to uncover patterns. When we understand that we all have an innate creative ability, we are compelled to agree with the artist Joseph Beuys that ‘Jeder mensch ein kunstler’ (everyone is an artist) with a capacity for creative expression.

Like taking up painting or piano, one can have lessons as one starts the journey into code. There is some utility in this as it gives the opportunities, with the right teacher, to learn by having the techniques modelled for us by an expert. There is no better way to start the learning process than through observation and mimicry. This is the practice of building your own programming skills based on worked examples.

At Rochester Independent College, we are proud of the space we give our students to explore new creative worlds in a safe, secure environment. We also know that guided discovery is an important part of the process. There is no better way to reinforce learning programming than by doing, so we encourage our students to push the boundaries of their own limitations.

Students new to the art of programming can start their discovery with a few key words from the language or a few snippets of code, exploring for themselves what it does. We encourage our students to play with the code. Trying to make it do something different to the exemplar is the next step, where students change the code to make it their own. For our students, being able to explain to oneself what is happening with the examples is key. It creates the inner dialogue, which helps to build a framework for understanding. This eventually leads to the ability to elaborate on the model presented, creating new pathways of thought, enabling yet further creativity to occur. This is how we help to nurture creative independent learners, ready to try new things wherever in the world their next steps take them. n

‘Mathematicians, musicians and painters may be more readily equipped to understand aspects of how to program because their disciplines depend on the ability to uncover patterns’

Curious Learners | Independent Thinkers | Happy Children

At Broomfield House we are academically ambitious for your children. We aim to unlock every child’s potential, foster their independence and encourage them to love learning, and confidently articulate their own opinions.

We are so proud to announce that we received ‘Excellent’ in all areas in our most recent inspection in November 2022. Come and visit us in the heart of Kew to find out more. www.broomfieldhouse.com

Articles of faith

Charlotte Crookes, Headteacher at The Pointer School, explains how storytelling helps pupils discover their own spirituality

Almost 200 years ago, the Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard wrote about the idea of the ‘leap of faith’, the act of believing in something outside of the boundaries of reason. Kierkegaard was writing about the Christian religion but this is something that rational adults who subscribe to any world faith must wrestle with on an almost daily basis. So as teachers within a faith school, how do we encourage our pupils to start to take that leap of faith, and discover their own spirituality? Piaget noted that young children have an exceptionally vivid imagination: for them, anything is possible. Their ideas about the world are not logical in the adult sense of logic. At this age, no ‘leap’ is needed for faith — children (particularly those in the Early Years) are open to ideas that we as adults struggle to understand, from the magical to the spiritual.

For most primary school children their initial exposure to and understanding of faith comes through stories. Children of this

age love stories — my happiest memories of teaching throughout the primary age range come from moments of shared emotion while discovering a new story together. The most treasured age-old stories for children are usually those in which good triumphs over evil against all the odds — think of the tiny David versus the giant Goliath, or indeed many popular fairy tales, from the defeat of the troll in The Three Billy Goats Gruff to the victory of Little Red Riding Hood over the big bad wolf. It’s incredible (even unbelievable) as an adult that such victories could occur, yet young children accept these incredible stories as truth without so much as a qualm. Frankly, in terms of engaging and enthusing children about faith, the more astounding and unbelievable the story from an adult perspective, the better. One only has to sit in on a Bible assembly and see the gasps of delight from the youngest children when Jesus manages to feed an entire crowd from five loaves and two fish, to see that for children, the improbability and implausibility forms a core part of the appeal of such stories.

For our primary-aged children, these stories are not only possible but plausible. Their belief is often as certain as their grasp of the alphabet, and they accept, unquestioningly, stories told to them by trusted adults as truth. This doesn’t mean that they don’t have questions though. Anyone who has spent time with a Nursery or Reception class will know that young children have an uncanny ability to get to the root of a problem and ask the most unnerving and unanswerable questions! For us at Pointers, the teaching of faith and spirituality is all about giving children a safe space to ask these difficult questions. And it all begins with a story….

Throughout the school we use stories from the Bible as the basis for our teaching of the Christian faith. It’s not about the rote learning of scripture; rather, the purpose of telling these stories is to provide a starting point for children to discover more about their religion, and their faith. With our very youngest pupils we use the Godly Play scheme, where each week teachers ‘act out’ a story from the Bible, using a range of props and visual aids (usually these are felt backgrounds, symbols and figures, which are moved around

a felt

‘A leap of faith is the act of believing in something outside the boundaries of reason’

board). This is playful learning — children are encouraged to help out, take part in the stories, and then to re-enact these in their own play. The stories are non-coercive (we don’t phrase them as ‘the truth’ but rather as ‘what Christians believe’). The focus here is on exploring and discovering together. After each story, teachers ask the pupils a range of ‘I wonder….’ questions for class discussion: “I wonder if God was pleased with the things he created? I wonder why God created the night and the day? I wonder which day of the creation was the most important?” The very phrasing of this question as ‘I wonder’ rather than a more typical pedagogical ‘how’, ‘what’ or ‘why’ is key. It is an important signifier to our pupils that the teachers don’t hold all the answers here. The teacher guides the conversation but is themselves ‘wondering’ along with their class. This creates a space for pupils to ask questions, even those that may have no easy answer (“What happens to us when we die?” “How is God everywhere?” “Why does God let bad things happen to good people?”). Pupils are encouraged to think about how people in the story feel, and to take meaning from the stories that can be used in their own lives about how to treat other people.

Older pupils obviously have a much more complex relationship with their faith. Pupils in our upper school are encouraged to continue to make use of the skills that they have encountered through Godly Play to fill out weekly reflection journals, and we encourage them to continue to ask the unanswerable questions. Faith for children at this stage is to be discovered through experience, with prayer, collective worship assemblies and formal lessons about world religions enabling children to deepen their understanding of their own and others’ faiths. For us at Pointers, each half-term begins and ends with an exuberant collective worship, where our entire school community gets together to sing songs of celebration, led by our wonderful Head of RE. On occasions like this, witnessing a church full of children on their feet, enthusiastically dancing and singing songs of worship and praise, even as a cynical adult the leap of faith doesn’t seem like such a big jump. n

‘ We use stories to provide a starting point for children to discover more about their religion and their faith’

Imagine dragons

Joss Williams, Head of Earlscliffe, argues that educators must help students discover how to be the hero of their own story

There is a wonderful scene at the start of the first of the Hobbit films, where Martin Freeman as Bilbo Baggins runs out of his home, village and shire and sets off on the great adventure which will define him and his family for generations.

He is rather a dull stick-in-the-mud, and the last person — Hobbit — you would imagine would go on such a journey, but his friend Gandalf sees something in him and believes he is just the chap for a wild adventure.

He accepts the challenge to be the hero in his own story and goes off, if not to slay a dragon, then at least to annoy one pretty seriously.

A still from the movie shows Bilbo, normally the most prepared and methodical of Hobbits, rushing off to catch up with the rest of the party, in such a mess that he even forgets his handkerchief. He has been allocated the role of thief, without any such expertise or experience in his life, and as soon as he is tested by the challenges that any such quest inevitably throws in his path, he wishes he had not gone on this journey, that he were at home beside his fire smoking a pipe, and is full of doubts that he can cope, or perhaps even survive.

The Hobbit is a wonderful archetype of a story, weaving together at least three of the seven basic plots: the quest; voyage and return; and overcoming the monster, and quests have been central to storytelling back to The Odyssey and probably before that, too. The quest and its outcome is so popular and works so well because it parallels the path of human life, and it is through telling stories that we make sense of life and ourselves. It is a significant part of the Bible’s strength that it communicates through story. Gandalf and a rag-tag mob of characters enter Bilbo’s life, tell him stories of dragons and riches far away, and he falls under their spell and launches himself into a life he never imagined.

It may be heretical to say it, but I do not most enjoy being an educator because of what my students achieve and do in their time in my class or school; the greatest pleasure for me is not in celebrating their results, or achievements on stage, or on the sports pitch, but in looking into the future of these young people. If we get this right, they will take the lessons of school — of success and failure — and use them to launch themselves into life and go on to do amazing things. I have to take the role of Gandalf, see the promise and fire in my students and encourage them to launch themselves into the quest for gold and dragons and whatever life will bring. It is such a joy to catch up with former students who are now Olympians and pilots and actors — one has just popped up, by coincidence, on Amazon in The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power — and entrepreneurs and triathlon coaches and hear how the lessons of school and their precious time there prepared them to discover their own path.

‘If we get this right, they will take the lessons of school — of success and failure — and use them to launch themselves into life and go on to do amazing things’

They had to aspire. We have to teach each generation to look over the hill or round the corner, or at best look in the place they least want to go, and see what is there and learn that they can face the challenge, even embrace it. When they do that in the safe environment that a loving home and caring school can offer, so that we can pick them up when they fall, they will later be ready to pick themselves up off the floor and push themselves on when life brings its awful challenges.

In literary terms, such a discovery, as well as being in the place we last want to look, is often the last thing a character would imagine or fear or conceive. This is called anagnorisis. It is the momentous cathartic event when King Lear finally realises the true character of each of his three daughters; when Malcolm Crowe in The Sixth Sense discovers the awesome truth about himself; and so for Oedipus and so for Electra and so for César in Manon des Sources. Such events are often so awful and destructive that the character cannot recover from this discovery. We are blessed if we never have to suffer such a reversal ourselves. The smaller reversals and failure of life can be withstood in a nurturing and compassionate environment.

Having suffered and not enjoyed it, there is a tendency for the older generation to over-protect, to stand in front of the storm and shelter the child, argue against every unfairness and perceived injustice and smooth the path. That works if we never want the child to become the hero in their own story, but not in a world of dark woods, freezing storms and avaricious dragons. Our world contains all of those things and worse, but heroes are not made by keeping them warm and safe in the nursery. What children need from us, as they discover themselves and the world, is knowledge of how to light a fire for themselves and others, the ability to stand up when they fall and a willingness to go on an adventure.

As we head into a new year, I will be looking for every chance to help a student confront life, even confront me and their school if they feel they need to, to shove them out of the door into the storm to go and defeat a dragon or two. n

‘Heroes are not made by keeping them warm and safe in the nursery. What children need from us, as they discover the world, is knowledge of how to light a fire for themselves and others’

Guided learning should be at the heart of fulfilling a child’s curiosity’

Keep the magic alive

Discovery drives learning, says Katie Krais, Managing Director of JK Educate, so educators must do all they can to keep that spark of curiosity going

Discovery is a key factor in lifelong learning and exploring the world in which we live. Curiosity and a love of learning are prerequisites for a child to be motivated to learn more, and to explore their world and succeed in it. But discovery also involves children learning about themselves, their interests and passions, and their strengths and weaknesses. It is the opposite of rote learning, and often

involves the child developing their own questions and seeking the answers to them.

Born to learn

Discovery is all about creating the love of learning. Most children are born with in-built curiosity; this is the spark that makes them want to discover. Both educators and parents need to recognise how to keep that spark alive and keep that fire burning, as lifelong learning is built on lifelong curiosity and discovery.

Children are programmed to learn and to be curious. Play — from the earliest age — is all about experimentation and discovery. This starts with baby gyms, and the discovery that things move and make different sounds when you touch them. It continues with activities such as sandpit play, where children often spend hours filling a toy dumper truck with sand and then tipping it out again. This is discovery learning — observing how the truck moves through the sand and the tracks its wheels make, exploring how the truck’s

tipping mechanism works and experiencing the way the sand itself feels, its weight and its movement. As we know, in Early Years, teachers gently guide multi-sensory play in an expert and low-key manner, to direct and maximise the discoveries young children make and keep the circle of curiosity alive so that children remain hungry to learn. The challenge is then to maintain this throughout the child’s education.

Self-discovery

Self-discovery is a crucial part of both tuition and lifelong

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Curiosity and motivation are closely linked, however, so we need to protect the drive to discover by not being too critical or negative about mistakes children make’

learning. Tutors and teachers provide a reflective support to individual students, acting both as a guide for discovery, and as a mirror to reflect and give feedback on the child’s strengths and weaknesses. One-to-one teaching time facilitates a unique pathway to learning, as teachers work to enhance curiosity by building a circle of discovery and heightening motivation to learn.

A positive, supportive learning experience can dramatically boost a child’s learning, when teachers and tutors gently help students understand their own strengths and weaknesses and identify what drives their desire to learn. This knowledge can then be harnessed further by encouraging children to identify targets for themselves and work towards them. Curiosity and motivation are closely linked, however, so we need to protect the drive to discover by not being too critical or negative about mistakes children make. Instead, I have found it best to ask some open questions, such as, ‘What did you enjoy about working on this?’ or ‘What was hard about it?’ This can prompt a helpful and supportive discussion that helps children to evaluate their efforts and discover alternative approaches, as well as motivating them to improve their output for themselves.

Tapping into the child’s interests

Working with a child’s interests gives you an insight

into what they would most like to learn more about. It is these interests that give teachers a way to spark their curiosity. Many young children love animals, and are often fascinated by one type of animal such as horses — or snails! — while other children might be football crazy. Any of these passions can be used as a route to discovery.

One of my tutors was working with a seven-yearold boy, Theo, who was disengaged at school, showing little interest in his studies. His parents thought that bringing in a tutor might provide a breakthrough; the tutor asked his mother what Theo liked, and she told her that the only thing he was passionate about was football. This gave the tutor an angle of discovery for a wide range of subjects — for example, finding out the weight, size and shape of a sphere that happens to be a football, and identifying football-playing nations as way of introducing a new geography topic.

Relating their initial lessons to football gave Theo the impression that his tutor knew him and cared about what he liked, as well as making the lessons more interesting for him. And once his curiosity to learn was ignited, he became much more engaged at school; he went on to achieve a place and thrive at a selective secondary school.

A discovery case study

Tailoring learning to things that children are already interested in is just one way of making learning

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This gave the tutor an angle of discovery identifying football-playing nations as a way of introducing a new geography topic’

bespoke — a key feature of one-to-one teaching and tutoring. Engaging children as individuals is the easy way in, to give them choices whilst encouraging learning and discovery. It benefits all students but is also a key principle of working with children with special needs. Working as a SENCO with a group of dyslexic students in Key Stage 2, I successfully used a multi-sensory way of learning letters and sounds through exploring everyday objects in the students’ homes. I gave each student a shoe box, which became their ‘alphabet box’, to cover, paint and decorate how they wished with pictures and stickers, before asking them to search at home for items they found interesting that began with the sound ‘a’, and to bring those objects into class. This checked the students’ sightsound knowledge of the letter ‘a’ and allowed them to have fun discovering this at home. They enjoyed the process of discovery and exploration, whilst steadily building their sight-sound letter recognition as they found objects for each letter of the alphabet in turn, week by week.

The children had autonomy in choosing which objects to bring to class and then in selecting one item to keep in the box for each letter, recording it against the correct letter on the box lid. The learning games continued once the alphabet boxes were filled; for example, I might ask the children to quickly find the object in their box that started with the sound ‘ssss’. Another game involved

asking the children to close their eyes and choose an item from their box by touch alone, and then open their eyes and identify the sound and letter with which the item’s name began, from plastic letters of the alphabet laid out on the table in an arch.

This case study illustrates just how well multi-sensory discovery can work. Through the discovery element of this project, the children were highly motivated to find objects beginning with a particular sound and letter; matching their chosen objects with their beginning sounds, and the repetition built into the classroom games, quickly consolidated their understanding and knowledge without the children feeling any negative pressure.

A lifetime of learning Guided learning should be at the heart of fulfilling a child’s curiosity. We can enable and harness their motivation to be both curious and productive by focusing on their interests, and by making learning bespoke and fun. Parents and educators alike have a role to play in this and can set the scene for learning through discovery to take place, especially in one-toone interactions.

We can all help children flourish by recognising the excitement and joy of discovering and fulfilling the hunger to learn and succeed. When children learn to love discovery, they are launched into a lifetime of learning.

That’s when the magic starts to happen. n

Back to their roots

Prep schools need to return to their founding principles, says Kevin Doble, Principal of Northwood Schools, by offering pupils a rich and varied journey of discovery

How do we define an excellent prep school education? One that gets its pupils into the ‘right’ senior school, with all the incumbent pressure or one that treats education as a voyage of discovery for young people? A school where children demonstrate great academic ability but are wracked with a fear of failure? Or a school that unearths the passions of its pupils and prepares them to become intellectually curious people who will go on to lead rich and interesting lives. It’s obvious where my allegiances lie, and here is why.

‘Which schools do you feed?’ is not an uncommon question asked by prospective prep-school parents, often before they have arranged a visit to a school. It’s not a surprising query as the considerable investment parents will make in a prep school education ought to have some form of proportionally valuable return. For many parents, this means enabling access to selective, oversubscribed senior schools. Indeed, a significant proportion of the organisations and websites that purport to advise on which prep schools are excellent, will focus on the calibre of schools that they feed. Connected to this, will be commentary on the breadth and depth of the prep school’s preparation for the now ubiquitous Year 6 assessments for competitive senior school entry, and the extent to which the core subjects receive priority attention. Understandably, parents will want to be assured that in these days of fierce competition, their prep school will be able to get their son or daughter into a senior school in which they will thrive. After all, is this not now the most important job of the prep school?

Well, it didn’t use to be. In 1864, the Clarendon Commission published its report on the state of the nine leading independent schools in England. It praised these schools for imbuing in their pupils a strong sense of character, a capability and desire to engage in a range of disciplines and interests, and a love of healthy sports and exercise. British public schools became revered worldwide for offering a truly broad education, where academic study was on a par with an appreciation of cultural pursuits, the development of good character, of spirit and of rigorous, healthy physical growth and teamwork.

The initial emergence of prep schools was motivated primarily by the need to prepare middle-class children for the customs, practices, games and traditions of these public schools. Prep schools modelled themselves as age-appropriate versions of the public schools, with the promise that their pupils would be able to engage in a similarly wide curriculum and, thus, be best prepared to make the most of their careers at senior school. The consequence of this was that younger children

Too many young children will feel that they have failed at an age when they ought still to be exploring their as-yet undiscovered talents’

The real value that should be offered at proper prep schools, is to inculcate children with the belief that there are multiple ways to succeed’

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in ‘proper’ prep schools were encouraged to turn their hand to multiple, varied disciplines, games and arts, as well as indulge in academic learning beyond the core subjects. The benefits of this broad engagement often were reflected in later life, not least through a ‘have-a-go’ attitude, or in appreciating how their exposure to such eclectic disciplines at a young age benefited them in the diverse and multidisciplinary world they entered.

This all changed in the middle of the 20th century, however. The rapid emergence of families with extensive disposable income saw an explosion of interest in public schools and, consequently, prep schools. Parents saw not only the advantage of a broad education for their children but also recognised the benefits of networking — for their children and themselves — offered through membership of these elite, high-status schools. With demand exceeding supply, the senior schools resorted to competitive entry to choose pupils and, ultimately, a significant number of independent secondary schools became selective.

With the pressure on ever-younger children to prove their cognitive or academic ability for these senior school tests, prep schools had to change the emphasis in their curriculum. Many positioned themselves as being preeminently capable of preparing children to pass the senior school assessments. Gradually, the wide curriculum of games, liberal arts study and wider creative indulgence effectively was supplanted in favour of a prep school’s stated ability to prepare for tests and get the results. Sport, school plays and occasional talks on wide-ranging topics were still offered, but the emphasis shifted to a relatively narrow form of cognitive and academic preparation and an ongoing, often desperate need for parents to ensure that their child was one step ahead of other pupils.

Make no mistake, the consequences of this shift have been disastrous. Many of our prep schools now produce children who might score very highly and demonstrate great competence in problem solving and show an ability to memorise and employ high-level cognitive skills. But too many of their pupils do not have the desire to learn or to try different or difficult things because to do so could be associated

not with the possibility of enjoyment and engagement, but with the possibility of failure.

Alarmingly, studies show that here in the UK we have some of the unhappiest children in the world. I believe that the state of mind of our children is directly connected to the educational culture we expect them to endure. Our model of success is focused primarily on narrow forms of attainment. But not everybody can achieve the highest scores and so too many young children will feel that they have failed at an age when they ought still to be exploring their as-yet undiscovered talents, interests and skills. It is no wonder that the wellbeing of so many children has been compromised when they believe that their worth is measured only by the scores they attain and the senior schools they get into.

I agree that education at prep school age must incorporate good preparation for the inevitable tests and assessments. But it must also be about enabling young people to recognise that not everybody is the same and that we develop our innumerable strengths and skills at different ages and in varying degrees of intensity. Whether children are four, eight, 11 or 13, prep schools ought to be obliged to provide them with a rounded set of experiences so that each child enjoys and endures both success and failure, knows the pleasure of discovering something new and recognises the value of resilience, teamwork and creativity of thought. In other words, the real value that should be offered at proper prep schools, is to inculcate children with the belief that there are multiple ways to succeed. A broad and rich multitude of experiences will ensure that we create a new legion of community-minded future citizens with knowledge that is able to develop into the wisdom that they need to succeed in the future.

The best prep schools are those which continue to have great confidence in the principles that the Clarendon Commission originally recognised as a truly excellent education. These schools provide wide and generous opportunities for their pupils to discover, to spark curiosity and an appreciation of creativity, and critically, give children the permission to be different rather than present an expectation to conform.

It is now more important than ever that we as educators articulate to parents and wouldbe-parents as to what the important things are in education. Children must be given the chance to discover and experience exposure to multiple different intelligences. Parents need to be able to see and then relate to examples of this progress and growth from those who have gone through this process. We need to create some form of connection to the parents’ own experiences, both in school as well as in their adult life, and use those recollections to explain to them why this is important for their children.

We should encourage parents to look beyond the list of schools a prep feeds, or the scores and awards that are achieved. These are commendable and not irrelevant. But it is more important now than ever that parents invest more attention and interest in appreciating the depth and substance of a full and varied curriculum, one that recognises and celebrates different intelligences, and ways and paces of learning.

Children get only one shot at childhood, let’s make certain that they can revel in the joys of discovery and learning, and not spend it worrying about getting to the next stage. n

‘It is now more important than ever that we as educators articulate to parents and would-be-parents as to what the important things are in education’

A great discovery

The Dukes Conference in January 2023 marks the high point of the company’s nascent Learning and Development programme. It’s been quite a journey, says Director of Performance, Richard Fletcher

Early in the New Year of 2023, Dukes Education staff will gather for the Dukes Education Conference. A world-class conference, bringing together some of the finest thinkers, leaders and pedagogues in the UK, it will bring us all together to connect and discover new ideas. One of our founding values is ‘We love to learn’; the conference speakers are experts in the fields of Wellbeing, Teaching and Learning, and Sustainability — the three strands of the conference — and it will give

us all ample opportunity to learn more about our professional and personal selves. It will also mark an important staging-post in my own journey of discovery in my role at Dukes.

When Aatif Hassan, Chairman and Founder of Dukes Education, approached me in 2019, asking me to put together a first-rate learning and development offering at Dukes, I have to admit I felt rather daunted. Having spent 20 years teaching maths to teenagers and trying to resolve arguments between pupils, parents, and teachers,

One of the key things

this was an entirely different challenge. Where once my role was in the classroom, supporting students with their learning and pastoral care, my new role as Director of Performance at Dukes was about informing and empowering adult staff in their own journeys of discovery.

Faced with what was, at the time, a blank canvas, the first thing I needed to discover was, ‘What is the need?’. And how can we meet this need?

For me, these questions have always spoken to the purpose and outcome of education; to connect intimately with the needs there are in the world and to meet them as fully as we can. The questions have formed something of a mantra for me over the course of my career and have helped me anchor my everyday actions to something purposeful. That mantra is ‘See the Need, Meet the Need’. These words were just as applicable to me as I put my mind to what might comprise this Learning and Development (L&D) offering.

So, when I first joined Dukes, I spent my first few months meeting staff across

the community and I was able to ask them these questions: ‘What are the needs here?’ and ‘How can Dukes help to meet them?’. What I learned was that people at Dukes had a strong desire to connect, collaborate and discover.

Collaboration and the Dukes Hub

One of the key themes raised was people’s desire to meet others from across the organisation to create a supportive community of educational professionals. So, that is where we began, with collaborative learning. This is founded on the belief that there is great knowledge held in the community itself. All that is needed for this to be released is a space to be created to share and someone to lead it.

This led to two initiatives: the Dukes Hub and the Champions initiative. The Dukes Hub — an online learning and development portal for staff — was created when the COVID pandemic hit. Its purpose was to be a place where the outcomes of connections, collaborations and conversations could be housed and stored so that future generations of educators could benefit from the accumulated knowledge and wisdom captured in its channels and folders. The Hub requires the community to build it — it is not something which can be placed into the hands of one or two people.

The Dukes Champions are leaders in their subject fields. Alongside collecting, creating and curating

I learned was that people at Dukes had a strong desire to connect, collaborate and discover’

content for the Dukes Hub, one of the roles of a Dukes Champion is to bring together the community to share best practice and consider ways in which their area of focus can be developed. In this way, we hope to bring more purposeful CPD to our community, as they are designed and organised by the people who really know the need on the ground.

Further conversations across the Dukes community, often on leadership programmes, have also revealed a core principle. It is not necessarily a lack of knowledge or skill which stops someone from bringing their A-game; it is often an issue to do with energy levels. What gets in the way of someone being at their best are more often internal factors than external ones. Because of this, it is important that we work at that level when we talk about learning and development. This is a journey of self-discovery, and it requires greater levels of connection, not just with the external world but our own internal world as well.

So, when seeking for an answer to the question ‘What is the need right now?’, I discovered that connection and the quality of that connection play a significant role. Our connections need to be fostered and developed, whether that be connection with the world and nature, connection with others, or connection with ourselves.

Learning and Development framework

With this in mind and with

the help of many people across the Dukes community, we have developed a framework which reflects this philosophy of discovery, connection and engagement and incorporates what we believe are the most important aspects of L&D. This framework informs our training offering at Dukes, an offering designed to help deepen skills, raise levels of confidence and support individuals to become more effective professionals.

Through the delivery of the L&D programme, we are not only seeking to offer an uplift in professional knowledge and understanding but also seeking to provide our people with an opportunity to learn something about themselves as well. It is this element of self-discovery which really speaks to the heart of what is meant by development at Dukes and is often a forgotten element of learning and development programmes and offerings. Development is multi-faceted and involves not only the acquisition of new and useful knowledge but also the letting go of what is unnecessary or unhelpful.

Our L&D offering

We need professional knowledge and skill to function in our jobs effectively. The acquisition of professional knowledge and skill makes us better at what we do, it is enjoyable, it can bring a sense of achievement, it can lead to career progression, and it satisfies our inquisitive nature. Over the course of the last couple of years we have

Dukes Learning and Development Framework

and development is a journey of self-discovery. It requires greater levels of connection, not just with the external world but our own internal world as well’

‘Learning

built a programme that seeks to support the development of the individuals in this area.

Like our community, it is diverse and covers the broad range of needs across the community with a focus on six main areas namely, Leadership & Management, Teaching & Learning, Mental Health & Wellbeing, Pastoral & Safeguarding, and Operations.

As an educational organisation, we also need to focus time on how we relate to others; being able to inspire others, and lead in our relationships. This is a challenging and complex area. Leadership Programmes and stand-alone modules dedicated to coaching, social understanding, and effective communication all help but we must go deeper to address the core factor governing our ability to connect with others — self-leadership.

Self-Leadership is comprised of self-awareness and selfregulation and addresses our inner world.

As we journey through life and our careers, it is necessary to address our inner world to release our energy and potential. After all, it is our inner world which governs how we show up, our energy levels, and how we relate to others. Our inner world has a greater impact on our professional lives than how much we know.

But how can we address this complex area of selfdevelopment? How do we help our staff discover more about themselves? Our leadership programmes seek to address this by committing

time to self-reflection, and in doing so shine a light on personal values, passions and motivations. We explore why we behave or feel the way we do, developing an awareness of our patterns of thinking and behaviour. This not only gives an individual a sense of what aspects of themselves are helpful but also those aspects and patterns of behaviour which may be unhelpful. This raising of our levels of awareness helps us to increase our power of choice and agency and ultimately helps us to step free from those things which are getting in the way.

When we step free of the obstacles in our way, there is a huge release of energy, and we are able to be our best selves. This is incredibly important, especially in the education sector. The quality of any interaction is often governed by the nature of connection and our ability to connect is governed by energy. So, our offering should seek to present people with an opportunity to release their energy and potential. This requires us to create the space where people can slow down and reflect. That is when the magic happens. Our ‘Foundations of Leadership’ module is focused on this area and seeks to begin this journey.

We will bring all these elements together in January 2023 as we gather for our Dukes Education Conference in Wembley. It is a fantastic opportunity to connect with each other, to discover new ideas and leave inspired and energised. n

Cloud illusions

In working with children in Early Years education, I have discovered how to think again, says Rik McShane, Director of Operations at Little Dukes

Five years ago, I made the surprising change from a longstanding career in retail (as Director of Waterstones, Piccadilly — I was a martyr to those books) and jumped into Early Years education. Retail (and bookselling in particular) can be very insular, an inward-looking industry where people tend to get stuck in their ways despite the many changes in the world around them. In my 17 years of bookselling, I worked hard to challenge embedded perspectives and really get my colleagues to think about each customer as an individual and discover new ways of really engaging with them.

So, when I finally followed a long-held dream of working in education, I was determined to take my well-honed, tried-andtested skills and help my new colleagues. Education is an equally insular world and I wanted to help them discover new ways of looking at their roles, to challenge the accepted norms and find innovative ways of approaching their problems.

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The first answer to the question “what type of cloud is that?” came back as “a unicorn cloud,” and from that moment we went on a real journey of discovery’

And to some extent, it worked.

As an outsider, an objective pair of eyes, one is in the lucky position of being able to observe without backstory or brainwashing. Being able to challenge jargon that makes no sense except to those in the know, looking at a convoluted (but much loved) process and being able to help simplify, taking a policy or curriculum at face-value and helping the team discover whether we actually do what we say or are just paying lip service to something decided on (and written down) long ago. Challenging colleagues to step back and relearn how to think, to rediscover what brought them to the role in the first place was really rewarding and re-energised the teams and settings I was working with.

What was more interesting, however, was that in working with the children, I discovered how to think again.

I vividly remember a pre-school activity that brought home to me the point of real discovery and real thinking. I had joined a group of children on a trip to the park because I was keen to understand how we could really improve on our engagement with STEM subjects in Early Years and prepare our charges for primary education. A very experienced educator intended to teach the children about the different types of clouds; a whole lesson had been planned around cumulus, cirrus and what they meant. The educator had briefed me on the activity so I could support, and everyone was clear about the learning goals and what we wanted the children to discover. Unsurprisingly, as often happens with Early Years, the activity didn’t go as planned.

The first answer to the question ‘what type of cloud is that?’ came back as “a dragon cloud”, and from that moment we went on a real journey of discovery. Scientific

‘My Early Years’ experience has taught me that if you want to keep discovering, you must truly challenge your assumptions and set patterns of behaviour’

names were forgotten as we embarked on an exploration of mythical creatures that we could see, battles lost and won in the war of the clouds and then, towards the end, a quieter and more focused discussion on emotions that we feel stemming from the angry dragon cloud and the sad unicorn (I admit I couldn’t quite see that one in the clouds!).

We certainly didn’t learn what had been intended in that activity, but we discovered a lot more than any of us expected. We regularly laugh at, and are frustrated by, young children’s constant reliance on the word ‘why’. But really, aren’t they the ones who have got it right? How often do we truly challenge our thinking and our understanding of the world? As leaders, we have a whole new generation of young people navigating the world with a completely different approach to learning, to careers, to relationships, to the future and it is up to us to learn from them, to discover how best to prepare them for a world that, if we are honest, we can’t begin to imagine. As educators, how regularly do we set out to challenge our assumptions and try to discover what will truly work for them?

Children see each new experience as a chance to discover, their minds are open, they embrace new ideas — often dismissing them of course — but if they do, they most definitely have popped them in and chewed on them first. What I really discovered in working in Early Years, where adult assumptions are thrown into stark contrast with enquiring young minds, is that somewhere along the line most grown-ups lose that skill of being curious. When challenged, we often shortcut to a default response, “oh we’ve tried that before”, or “well we’ve always done it that way and it just works”, or the particularly galling “what a lovely/nice/charming idea… but that won’t really work for us”.

Working in Early Years has taught me to genuinely try and see the world from a perspective different to my own. Whilst it is great to discover that your skills and experience can bring a new perspective and help others think differently, it is also incredibly humbling to have a four-yearold help you discover the things that you don’t know and give you a very clear list of reasons why what you want to do won’t work. Embracing questioning from an articulate and single-minded pre-schooler brings challenges that even the sternest of board meetings can’t match!

One of the best pieces of advice I was given on my very first day in a nursery was to get down to a child’s level. We as adults rarely think about our giant status in an environment intended to feel safe for much smaller people. Interestingly, when I did that (and I now do it every time I go into a class), my worldview changed.

Realising that a current design for a nursery put handles and taps out of reach of children (good if intentional and aimed at safety, less good if the aim is to allow children direct access to something) may seem simple, but sometimes our own perspective means that the truly obvious is inherently out of sight. Seeing that the displays painstakingly created by the teachers on the boards on the walls and on the strings across the ceilings of the classrooms were so far out of the children’s visual sphere as to be almost invisible really made me question who the displays were for.

‘Embracing questioning from an articulate and single-minded pre-schooler brings challenges that even the sternest of board meetings can’t match’

Watching children having to walk a torturously circuitous route to rinse paint pots or open multiple drawers to find the dinosaurs (because they couldn’t yet read the neatly lettered labels on the drawers) was fascinating in helping me understand and question the thinking of adults in setting up an environment aimed at children. And watching children revel in the enjoyment of the wooden frame of a Wendy house that effortlessly becomes an aquarium, a doctor’s surgery, a jungle, a spaceship, a Chinese takeaway, or a whale, taught me a lot about what it really means to ‘think outside the box’ (or frame!).

All of this is an attempt in some way to highlight how important it is as an adult (and a guardian of children's learning) to keep challenging yourself and discovering. At Dukes, I have found a team keen to challenge themselves (however difficult that might sometimes be), a team determined to unpick the set patterns, to investigate, research, ask questions and truly discover the best possible approach to keep inspiring our children to learn.

So, if there is one discovery to take away from my time so far in Early Years, it's that if you really want to keep discovering, you must truly challenge your assumptions and set patterns of behaviour. Don’t assume that you know what’s best, really think about your audience and what they really want or need.

And, if all else fails, get down on your knees, look up at the clouds and try to find a unicorn.

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‘If you really want to keep discovering, you must truly challenge your assumptions and set patterns of behaviour’

The last word…

Every week at Dukes, we share a ‘Quote of the Week’ offered up by one of the team. We’ve collected some of our favourites from this term.

“I’m going to talk about skills that have been vital since the beginning of time, and these are skills which, if developed properly can actually become more than that, they can become superpowers.

“Speaking skills: everyone agrees, it’s vital, so knowing this, our system has a choice… that’s just one of the superpowers. There’s lots of others, like grit, and craftmanship, and spark. And school is teaching none of these.”

Ed Fidoe, founder of School21 and The London Interdisciplinary School, and former McKinsey consultant.

Ed was a guest presenter at the Dukes Renaissance Scholars symposium, hosted by Rochester Independent College.

Chosen by Tim Fish, Managing Director at Dukes Education

“I’ve tried to teach both my girls that things are the least important. You don’t have to have a pretty house. I’ve taught them you don’t expect anyone to give you anything, that they’ll get what they earn. And I’ve taught them to think positively because that will get you a lot more than money.”

Dr Clara Stevenson, Child Psychologist and mother of Karen Stevenson, who became the first black woman Rhodes Scholar in 1979

“Only work generates wealth.”

Amador Aguiar (1904-1991), the bank’s founder.

Seen above the main entrance to Bradesco, one of Latin America’s biggest banks, and the 43rd largest corporation in the world

Chosen by Tim Fish

“Let us not take ourselves too seriously. None of us has a monopoly on wisdom.”

Queen Elizabeth II, Christmas Broadcast, 1991 Chosen by Emmy Schwieters, Head at Fine Arts College, Hampstead

“Never regret a day in your life. Good days give happiness, bad days give experiences, worst days give lessons, and best days give memories” Professor Richard Feynman

“In God we trust. Everyone else must bring data to the table.”

Rishi Sunak’s father-in-law, NR Narayana Murthy, India’s 41st-richest man, currently worth $4.3bn. Chosen by Amanda Constance, Director of Communications, Dukes Education

“When life seems hard, the courageous do not lie down and accept defeat; instead, they are all the more determined to struggle for a better future.”

HM Queen Elizabeth II, Christmas Broadcast, 2008 Chosen by Magoo Giles, Principal and Founder of Knightsbridge School

Heathside is an independent, happy, friendly and academic school for girls and boys set in historic buildings in the heart of Hampstead, a few minutes’ walk from Hampstead Heath.

We look forward to welcoming you at our school very soon.

www.heathsideschoolhampstead.com

Dukes Education is a family of nurseries, schools, and colleges based throughout the UK, in London, Cambridge, Kent, and Cardiff. Our schools cater to children from 0-19, serving them from their earliest years at nursery until they leave school to go on to university.

Surrounding our schools, we also have a collection of complementary education offerings — day camps, international summer schools, and university application support services. This way, we create a wraparound experience for every family that joins us.

Dukes Education 14-16 Waterloo Place London SW1Y 4AR

+44 (0)20 3696 5300 info@dukeseducation.com dukeseducation.com

Founder and Chairman Aatif Hassan

Dukes Board of Directors Aatif Hassan, Jon Pickles, Mark Bailey, Tim Fish, Glenn Hawkins, Libby Nicholas

Dukes Education Advisory Board David Goodhew, Christine Leslie, Pam Mundy, Neil Roskilly, William Russell

Insight Editor-in Chief Tim Fish

Insight Managing Editor Amanda Constance

Dukes Education Group Ltd is registered in England and Wales number 09345899. Registered Office 14-16 Waterloo Place, London SW1Y 4AR.