World Beyond by King's College School

King’s College School, Wimbledon World Beyond

Our foundations

King’s was founded in 1829 as the junior department of the university, King’s College London.

From the very start, we have looked to our pupils’ futures and to their lives in the world beyond school.

Intellectual aspiration and a forward-looking spirit are our heritage.

A King’s Education Mind, Spirit, Heart

Going beyond academic excellence, a King’s education is about the whole person and their future. We offer a true education in Mind, Spirit and Heart, the enduring ethos of our foundation, captured within the three elements of our crest.

World Beyond Life at 25

We offer the very best preparation for our young people to create their futures and to make a positive impact in the world.

To do this, we look to the world beyond school and to life at 25. We look to the lives we are preparing our pupils to lead and we seek to equip them for their future adventures.

Mind Spirit Heart

We want our pupils to enjoy an exhilarating adventure of learning and to pursue academic excellence with a fun, caring, welcoming environment as their launchpad.

A culture of intellectual curiosity, courage and creativity fosters habits of mind that set our pupils apart.

Mind Spirit Heart

We want our pupils to develop their own individual purpose and passions.

We want them to be equipped to forge the pathway they choose, ready to serve and to lead, with the courage, determination and heart of our lion.

Our Future Looking to 2029 and beyond

In an era of rapid, all-encompassing global change, we look outwards, to the world beyond school.

As we prepare to celebrate our 200th anniversary in 2029 and to enter our third century, we are committed to:

Extending the excellence of the education we offer and the foundation for our pupils’ lives in the world beyond school.

Extending the opportunities for our staff to develop and thrive.

Growing the contribution that we make to the communities of which we form a part.

Strengthening the King’s community, including through our bursaries programme and by becoming fully co-educational.

Transforming our site to reflect our forward-looking educational vision.

Our pupils Life at 25 and beyond

Our pupils are growing up in a global landscape characterised by rapid and all-encompassing change. As we prepare our pupils for life at 25, and the world beyond school, we want them to:

Become the person they have the potential to be

Connect with the world around them

Contribute in their wider communities

Become

We want to offer our pupils everything they need to grow into the person they have the potential to be.

Connect

We want our pupils to look to the world beyond school: to grow and develop through engaging actively with the wider communities of which they form a part.

Connect with

the wider community

Broaden your horizons

We know how important it is for young people to grow through engaging with diverse perspectives and experiences. Through our extensive partnership activities, pupils will have even greater opportunities to connect with the world beyond school to broaden their horizons.

Communication and dialogue

Connect with others

Good communication and open dialogue are fundamental to connecting with others. We know that our pupils need the capacity to tell their story and to listen with empathy and purpose, and we will further extend the opportunities for them to develop their skills of oracy, listening and engagement.

Universities, careers and futures

Prepare for the world beyond school

We are committed to helping pupils take their next steps beyond school, and to maintaining a life-long connection with our alumni. Working with our alumni and parent communities, we will do this through first-rate preparation for the transition to university, an early career mentoring network, an entrepreneurship programme and wideranging opportunities to engage with the world of work.

International mindedness

Join a global community

As we prepare our young people to join a global community, we will build on our existing international outlook to develop our pupils’ intercultural understanding and awareness, through enhanced educational connections with our overseas schools and continued innovation within our curriculum and co-curriculum.

Contribute

We are committed to empowering our pupils to understand the positive difference they can make in the world and to contribute purposefully within their wider communities in their own way.

Identity and purpose

Be your own person

We want our pupils to be happy in themselves. Understanding their own interests, strengths and aspirations will ultimately enable them to shape the lives they want to live and the contributions they want to make to the societies they join. Through enabling self-reflection, alongside offering extensive opportunities to discover and develop their passions, we will help pupils to understand themselves and to forge their own path.

Social responsibility

Make a positive contribution

Our Friday Afternoon programme has for many years placed active partnership with our wider communities at the heart of the curriculum at King’s. To ensure that this is central to every pupil’s experience, we will extend partnership opportunities to younger year groups and further develop our charities programme.

Leadership

Lead yourself and others

As we prepare our pupils to make their way in the world beyond school, there will be enhanced opportunities for them to develop as leaders and to grow their leadership skills throughout the school. Pupil voice and pupil agency will be woven even more fully throughout school life, as staff and pupils work alongside each other to enact positive change.

Technology and skills

Develop the skills to innovate

We want our pupils to be prepared to make, as well as to take, opportunities. To make a purposeful contribution within the evolving landscape of the workplace, our pupils will need skills of creativity and adaptability, selfregulation and resilience, alongside technical and digital capability. Through developments in our curriculum and co-curriculum, we will place an even greater focus on helping our pupils to navigate challenges and develop the skills to forge their futures.

World Beyond Our staff

Supporting staff wellbeing

We recognise that the wellbeing of our staff is an essential foundation for them to flourish in their work. We want to offer our staff an environment that supports them to thrive, through excellent welfare support, high quality staff facilities and access to a wide range of benefits.

Enabling continued professional development

We are committed to continued professional growth and to a culture of coaching and development. We are developing a sector-leading platform of guided training programmes to enable King’s to become a hub for ongoing professional development, supporting all aspects of staff professional learning, from classroom practice to leadership and management.

Promoting staff scholarship

Our aim is to enable our teaching staff to remain at the forefront of educational developments. We will seek opportunities for staff to remain engaged with academic developments in their field and to maintain their own intellectual enthusiasms – as well as sharing those with the pupils they teach.

Contributing to the future of teaching

We aspire to grow our capacity to offer a route into teaching for those new to the profession. We offer extended in-house training to teachers joining the profession, both in the UK and further afield, supported by tailored induction processes and excellent ongoing development for early career teachers.

World Beyond Contributing to our communities

We are committed to making a positive contribution to the communities of which we form a part and to the world beyond King’s.

Contributing to our wider communities

We are committed to working in collaboration with our wider communities and extending the impact of our community partnerships and our Friday Afternoon programme.

We intend to extend partnership activity to our younger year groups, to make this part of the experience of every pupil at the school, and to extend our charities programme.

King’s Arts

Through our new King’s Arts festival, we celebrate imagination and expression, culture and creativity, collaboration and exploration. We aim to offer a broad programme of workshops, performances, talks and exhibitions for both the King’s community and our wider communities. At the heart of the festival, our partnership projects are joyful opportunities for young people across Wimbledon to come together to enjoy the arts.

Growing our bursaries programme

We are committed to widening access to talented young people from any background. We will increase the proportion of pupils receiving means-tested financial assistance and grow an endowment so that we can preserve that commitment in perpetuity. We will also extend our academic support for talented young people from disadvantaged backgrounds, to help make King’s accessible to any child who can flourish here.

HAWI partnership

We are delighted to work in close collaboration with Harris Academy Wimbledon, which opened its doors in 2018, and now educates pupils through to sixth form. The partnership enables pupils and staff from both schools to learn and work alongside each other, with joint academic extension and shared activities on Friday afternoons to support projects that will benefit the local community.

World Beyond Stengthening the King’s community

Connecting our community

We will be looking to develop opportunities for everyone within our community – parents, alumni, partners and friends of the school –to stay connected and feel part of the King’s family, working together to enrich the support we offer young people.

We actively welcome engagement from across our community, and are committed to continuing and strengthening our school in partnership with those we serve.

Extending our international partnerships

By extending our partnerships internationally, we will continue to develop the educational opportunities we offer, enabling our pupils and staff to benefit from initiatives that encourage cultural collaboration and exchange across our global network.

Celebrating diversity

We want each member of our community to thrive at King’s and are committed to fostering an inclusive culture. We believe that there is strength in diversity and celebrate it, believing that every individual has something special to contribute. Our extension of coeducation through the school is a natural extension of this work.

Maintaining excellent governance and strong systems

We will continue to strengthen the systems and frameworks that underpin all that we do across King’s, supported by our professional services team. We will maintain our infrastructure and develop our digital capabilities to the highest standards, ensuring a foundation for excellence.

World Beyond Extending co-education at King’s

We are thrilled that, as one of the world’s leading schools, we are extending co-education throughout the school, a longstanding ambition given fresh impetus by our new site on The Downs.

Making a King’s education accessible to all

It is our aim to open our doors to any child who will flourish here. A King’s education is about the whole person and their future: as we support young people to grow in Mind, Spirit and Heart, to become thinkers and leaders who are ready to lead extraordinary lives and to make a purposeful contribution in the world, we want girls and boys to be able to take up this opportunity throughout the school.

Preparation for life at 25

We are committed to offering our young people the best possible preparation to forge their futures, to thrive in an evolving global landscape and to make a positive impact in the world. We believe that in a more diverse community, we will enrich the educational experience of all our pupils and the preparation we offer them for their lives in the world beyond school.

Building on firm foundations

Girls have long played a central role within the King’s community. We welcomed girls into our sixth form for the first time 15 years ago, and we currently educate around 150 sixth form girls each year. Their presence and impact already extends throughout the school, and they excel as scholars, leaders and mentors, on the stage and the sports field, fully involved in school life both inside and outside the classroom.

A carefully planned transition

Our timetable for welcoming girls throughout our community will dovetail with the development of our site, and take place in a carefully sequenced way. On our new site at The Downs, we intend to create a new, worldclass educational campus for our junior pupils, and when complete, it will welcome girls and boys from 2029. The relocation of our junior school will then allow us to enhance our main site for the benefit of all our pupils, and as part of this work, we will prepare to open our doors to girls and boys in all year groups within the senior school, starting with Year 7 from 2033.

World Beyond Transforming our site

King’s has recently acquired a new site on The Downs, just seven minutes’ walk from the school.

We plan to transform our campus over the coming years, dovetailing with our timeline for welcoming girls throughout our community, and enhancing our facilities for all our pupils.

kcs.org.uk