Destination 140 Strategic Announcement

DESTINATION 140 STRATEGIC PLAN

In the lead-up to the school’s 140th anniversary in 2025, we are delighted to be able to share our strategic plan with you. From September 2025, we will extend our offering for boys to 16 by opening a senior section at Alleyn Park encompassing Years 9, 10 and 11, thereby giving families the additional choice of staying with the school to GCSE.

Most boys will continue to leave at 11+ and 13+. However, opening a senior section will extend choice for our families and the wider community. The school will continue to support, as strongly as ever, the most comprehensive set of options and choice of senior school, and we pride ourselves on being experts in guiding families towards the right school for each child.

Over the last few years, several changes have occurred across the Independent Schools landscape, particularly in London senior schools. Some have transitioned to only taking pupils at 11 years or to test (Pre-Test) boys at 10 years old for places taken up in Year 9, and some schools have moved or intend to move to become co-educational. Others have an all-through school model but exit children at 7, 11 and 16, where the pupil’s academic standards are not strong enough to remain.

Dulwich Prep London has embraced these changes and is successful in securing schools of choice and meeting parental expectations. The school supports and manages transition to senior schools in Years 6 and 8. Significant numbers of boys sit senior school admission exams in Year 6. The majority stay with us until the end of Year 8, and around 95% of our boys achieve their first choice after Year 8.

We have successfully placed boys in 50 different senior schools over the last five years, including local day schools such as Dulwich College, City of London, Trinity, Westminster, and Whitgift, and further afield, such as Eton College, Harrow, King’s Canterbury, Tonbridge, and Winchester College. In addition, since 2020, our boys have been awarded over 250 scholarships.

While these outcomes remain as strong as ever, some parents and boys find the exam process highly pressured and distracting from their continued education. On average, each boy will apply to at least four schools in Year 6, which may, if successful, be accompanied by several subsequent interview processes before making a choice about whether to enter senior school in Year 7 or Year 9 and further exams in Years 7 and 8.

We recognise that boys mature at different times. For some families, as expressed in the December 2020 parent survey, there is a desire to reduce or remove the pressure of exams and the feeling of dislocation at the crucial ages of 11 and 13 and to have the security and continuity of a familiar environment where their sons are known.

Our vision will see us continue to support families to find the right senior school or sixth form at the right time for their son. We will continue to provide an outstanding, Values-led, and academically excellent all-round education in the child’s best interests whilst maintaining the widest choice of the best senior schools in the country. We firmly believe this offers families the best of all worlds.

We hope, like us, you are excited about our future, and we very much look forward to celebrating in 2025 as we open our senior section and mark the school’s 140th anniversary.

Yours sincerely,

Miss Louise Davidson

Mrs Kate Kelleher Head Master Chair of Governors

Ethos, Aims, Vision and Values

Ethos

Aims

Dulwich Prep London inspires excellence, and the character of our boys is the measure of our success. Our Values ethos sows the seeds of possibility in each boy’s mind, heart and spirit and creates the right culture and conditions to allow these possibilities to flourish.

Vision

Our school priority is the personalised  education, well-being and happiness of the boys. Each boy’s sense of belonging is paramount to providing him with a launchpad to life. Our boys are challenged in their pursuit of excellence, and we support each boy as he discovers who he is and who he wants to be in the world today and in the future.

We want our boys to leave us having experienced the very best in pastoral care and teaching, and learning. We seek to ensure they have access to the most dynamic academic and co-curricular environments and to experience those environments surrounded by peers and teachers they know they can rely on.

In preparing our boys for life, we instil a sense of environmental awareness and empower our boys to become responsible world citizens.

Values

Our vision will see us become a school for boys aged 3 to 16 whilst continuing to support families to find the right senior school or sixth form at the right time for their son.

Everything we do sits upon our Values system. The eight recognised and explicitly taught Values weave across the school and deliver a deepened sense of empathy and the drive to be change-makers.

We will continue to provide an outstanding Values-led, and academically excellent all-round education in the child’s best interests and deliver the widest choice of the best senior schools in the country.

Families will have the choice to remain with us without boys having to undertake exams, allowing them to focus and develop towards progression to sixth form and university.

Our values teach our pupils how to be kind and offer help where it is needed; to play fair and tell the truth no matter who is listening; to join in and play their part whilst letting others be heard; to appreciate the world around them and how valuable their contribution is and to always have a go.

Strategic Framework, 3 to 16

In the lead-up to our 140th Anniversary, we will be focusing on four key areas: Educational Excellence, Identity, Community Engagement and Environment and Sustainability.

Educational Excellence Identity

Review the academic pathways to ensure that every child achieves the right school at the right time and provide further opportunities for success for those who wish to stay beyond 13 with us.

Undertake a review to ensure a spiral curriculum from 3 to 16 that stretches pupils’ understanding of the world, their reading, and mathematical and scientific attainment whilst maintaining breadth, and fostering personal learning, and future school goals.

Develop a senior curriculum to cover a broad range of GCSEs and a personalised approach that produces an intimate knowledge of pupil potential.

Ensure balance exists in the provision of the arts and sports offer to enable every type of boy to access and succeed in curriculum breadth and choose their own path.

Develop each pupil’s understanding and sense of identity through the breadth of pastoral care and range of activities, producing confident, resilient participants and leaders of change.

Produce clearly defined Pupil Leadership opportunities at key points in a boy’s journey with us, that are articulated to pupils and parents and have transparent application processes and  opportunities for all.

Develop our successful counselling and Life Skills offer to support pupils beyond 13 as they navigate their teenage years.

Undertake a visual identity and logo review, and uniform transition in a timely manner.

Maintain a strong offer for boys in Year 7 and 8 that is informed by their planned destination school. Review our current house system to make it appropriate and future proof whilst maintaining a sense of affinity and legacy for current boys and our alumni.

Community Engagement

Set up a Charitable Foundation with a multi-million pound target over the next ten years to support bursaries for boys.

Continue to develop DPLink and our Alumni connection to ensure that current pupils gain insight into future possibilities and benefit from the lived experience of every boy’s Dulwich journey.

Maintain the Charity Shillings tradition which has existed since 1923, by being a school that actively fund raises for those in need and developing the way in which pupil voice underpins the school’s generosity.

Continue to foster relationships with girls, boys and coeducational schools locally, nationally and internationally.

Environment & Sustainability

Further engage with our community on commercial lettings to support the financial offset of facilities development.

Undertake planned works to develop the site with minimal disruption to teaching and learning.

Upgrade the Alleyn Park Reception area so that families are welcomed onto the site.

Creation of a whole school sustainability plan covering energy, recycling, circular economy, travel to school and involve the boys in creating the plan.

Begin a fundraiser to develop key sports facilities.

Upgrade the Swimming Pool changing rooms and pool lining.

Create a senior section hub in the Betws Building.

The Senior Section

Most boys will continue to leave at 11+ and 13+. However, opening a senior section will extend choice for our families and the wider community.

Boys wishing to remain to 16 will not be assessed by us to do so. The only condition of their application to remain is a strong record of positive behaviour and adherence to our school values.

We do not seek to compete with local schools but serve to complement them, feeding their rolls, as now, at Years 7 and 9 and with the new additional option of Year 12.

The school will continue to support as strongly as ever the most comprehensive set of options and choices of senior schools and meet parental expectations.

We pride ourselves on being experts in guiding families towards the right school for each pupil.

The Senior Section

Provides a familiar environment where boys are known to the staff with high academic aspirations remaining the core focus.

Offers a balanced knowledge and skills-based curriculum and co-curricular provision with an increased teacher-to-pupil ratio enabling a strong start to senior education.

Provides an opportunity to minimise the pressures of extensive testing at an early age that may sometimes impact a child’s well-being and self-confidence.

Offers smaller class sizes and a more personal, educational environment in contrast to large senior schools and is unique to the local area.

Supports the development of outstanding skills in the areas of independent study, collaboration, communication, presentation and creativity.

Supports families in removing exam stress at ages 10 or 12 and offers continuity of academic education from Year 7 to GCSEs in Year 11.

Supports families who wish to maintain the various benefits of a more local education from needing to travel further afield.

Enables pupils and staff to further build on strong relationships that come with the mutual trust, respect, and insightful knowledge of each pupil.

Boys will continue to develop excellent study habits, attitudes and attributes needed for success, fulfilment, and happiness.

Pupils will continue to benefit from the school’s excellent nurturing approach to building resilience, outstanding skills, and attitudes within a forward-thinking, caring, and enabling environment.

Individualised programmes of study will support pupils to build on their strengths and prepare them to meet confidently the demands of the next stage of their education and beyond.

Every pupil will have a flight path with targets shared with them, and tutoring will be honed to ensure that pupils are conscientious learners.

Boys will further leverage the school’s unique approach, which combines Values ethos and Excellent Learning Characteristics to develop a multicultural, proactively inclusive outlook as global citizens.

Technology will be fully embedded across the curriculum to ensure boys are well prepared for independent research, sixth-form study, life at university and the world of work.

Boys will be supported to fully utilise the value of Self-Discipline and Excellent Learning characteristics to their advantage to achieve excellent results at GCSE.

Pupils will cultivate three key character traits; critical thinking, empathy, and compassion, whereby ‘recognition of others before self’ is the highest aspiration.

The Senior Section

We will continue to be a school of choice, supporting families to find the right senior school or sixth form at the right time for their sons.  Families will retain the opportunity to have the widest choice of sixth-form options for Year 12, including at schools that we already feed locally and further afield at Years 7 and 9 with the addition of standalone sixth-form colleges.

We will continue to provide an outstanding Values-led, and academically excellent, all-round education in the child’s best interests whilst maintaining the widest choice of the best senior schools in the country.

We firmly believe this offers families the best of all worlds.

Impact and Opportunities

This table provides a high-level overview of the impact and opportunities for our existing families by year group.

Future Schools  Choice

Continuity

Long term, greater choice of schools.

Longer time spent in one school, with greater continuity.

The Senior Section launches in 2025 with Year 9. Our current Years 7 and 8 will have already transitioned to their Future Schools.

Transition

Families can engage in the external senior schools’ process or register to continue into the Dulwich Prep London senior section.

Flexi-Boarding Available when boys reach Year 3

Admissions to Current Year Groups

Flexi-Boarding Proposed Launch September 2023

Year 7

Occasional Places Only

Entry Point

The Senior Section launches in 2025 with Year 9. Our current Years 7 and 8 will have already transitioned to their Future Schools. Admissions

Key Information

We will continue to operate the school in Sections as we do now, with Years 9 to 11 forming our senior section. The Sections will continue to be refered to as Early Years, Pre-Prep, Lower, Middle and Upper School; however, with the extension to 16, we will change the alignment of some of our current year groups.

• Early Years: Nursery and Reception

• Pre-Prep: Years 1, 2 and 3

• Lower School: Years 4, 5 and 6

• Middle School: Years 7 and 8

• Upper School: Years 9, 10 and 11

Over time, each year group, from Nursery to Year 8, will reduce from a maximum of 100 pupils to 80. Therefore, moving away from the current model of five forms to four per year group from Year 3 upwards, maintaining our cap of 20 boys per class so that there is space for Years 9 to 11 to grow to 60 boys in each year group.

Finally, during the next two years, we will officially change our name to ‘The Dulwich School London’ to better represent our extended offering.

We will provide you with regular progress updates over the next two years, and we are currently working on our longer-term plan, which will take us from 2025 to the school’s 150th anniversary in 2035.

Roadmap

We have partnered with several external stakeholders and are confident in the realisation of our strategic plan. However, it is important to note that this plan is subject to approval from the Department for Education and the Independent Schools Inspectorate, as well as subject to planning permission from Southwark Council and the Dulwich Estate. Therefore, all dates are provisional and subject to change.