EDUCATION AUTUMN/WINTER 2016

EDUCATION AUTUMN • WINTER 2016 • £5

CRESSIDA COWELL

CRUNCH TIME

“I was always in trouble at St Paul’s”

Is it safe on the rugby pitch?

AUTUMN BOOKS SPECIAL

PEACE OF MIND

Life lessons for teens

BRIGHT STARS LET YOUR GIFTED CHILD SHINE

IN ASSOCIATION WITH THE INDEPENDENT SCHOOLS SHOW

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WEEKLY BOARDING FROM SEPTEMBER 2017

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HAPPINESS FIRST ACHIEVEMENT FIRST INDIVIDUALITY FIRST FRIENDS FIRST ENRICHMENT FIRST PROGRESS FIRST ALWAYS FIRST

HEATHFIELD SCHOOL, ASCOT Boarding and Day for Girls 11-18

VISIT US FIRST

OPEN DAY SATURDAY 15 OCTOBER 2016 10am - 12 noon TO BOOK A PLACE PLEASE CONTACT:

registrar@heathfieldschool.net

heathfieldschool.net

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Welcome to Eaton Square Upper School, Mayfair, London’s newest independent senior co-educational day school.

2017 is set to be an incredibly exciting time for Eaton Square as we prepare to open the doors to our brand new senior school next September.

Based right in the heart of London at 106 Piccadilly, Eaton Square Upper School, Mayfair, is located in a stunning Grade-I listed building directly opposite Green Park. The building’s rich history, iconic design and central location make it the perfect base for many families with young children across central London.

Connected to our existing Eaton Square Pre-Prep and Preparatory schools, as well as the wider Minerva Education group (which includes Hyde Park School in South Kensington and The Lyceum School in Shoreditch) the new school will cater for up to 420 students aged 11 upwards.

Eaton Square Upper will span across four storeys and a basement, featuring a purpose built student canteen, lecture style classrooms, multiple science laboratories and a beautiful art room.

What’s more, we’ll also be taking full advantage of our local surroundings through partnerships with local sports clubs, outdoors lessons in Green Park and regular trips to London’s most well known cultural institutions.

The idea for Eaton Square Upper was born out of a clear need for a new senior

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school in the capital – and after talking to our current parents, it was apparent that many were keen to see their children progress from prep to senior school with a seamless transition and continuity in care and provision of services.

Not only will the school be available to children already attending one of our preparatory schools, but we will also be welcoming new students from other London schools and beyond.

Continuing with our long standing, family-focused ethos, our admission process will take a holistic approach that will incorporate online test results, a reference from the pupil’s current head, and interviews with pupils and parents.

Rather than hoping to select from one particular gender or strata of current academic level, we will provide an education which celebrates the diverse skills and aptitudes of pupils in London and maximises the benefits of enabling them to interact and learn from each other.

Please email for more details or to register your interest. annika@eatonsquareschool.com 106 Piccadilly, London W1J 7NL www.eatonsquareupper.school

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We l c o m e

From the

EDITOR

W

hile doing some research for this issue, I came across two words that I never thought I would see conjoined.

Eton and Harlesden.

Eton, as some of you just might have heard, is a top public school in Berkshire, a bastion of privilege and learning and the breeding ground of a prime minister or two. Harlesden is a rather rackety, hugely diverse, somewhat deprived corner of north-west London that is always promising, but generally failing, to gentrify. It is also where I live.

So imagine my surprise to read about the Eton-Harlesden Summer School. This enterprise was set up by Stephen Spurr, the headmaster of Westminster until

My initial thoughts on reading about the summer school were an amazed: ‘How brilliant is that?” and then: “How come we don’t know more about this?” I’m endlessly surprised by what public schools get up to within the state sector and by how little it is remarked upon in the public sphere. This is mainly, I think, because the schools themselves don’t trumpet it loudly enough (plus a healthy dose of lazy toff- bashing in the media, too).

Spurr obviously has a taste for educational largesse. He set up a summer school at Clifton College, when he was head there and while he was head of Westminster he was instrumental in partnering the creative energies of his school and the highly effective Harris Federation. The Harris Westminster Sixth Form was the result. The school has

“ETON IS A BASTION OF PRIVILEGE; HARLESDEN IS THE RACKETY AREA OF LONDON WHERE I LIVE” 2014. Spurr set up the summer school when he was a housemaster and head of classics at Eton. Now renamed the Eton-Brent Summer School (doesn’t have quite the same ring, I don’t think), it offers 40-50 post-GCSE girls and boys from the London Borough of Brent an intensive one-week residential course at Eton, designed to inspire students to pursue higher education at university or other establishments. The students have full use of Eton’s facilities and the highlights of the week are a dragon boat race on the river Thames beneath Windsor Castle and a prom before a grand graduation night.

no financial input from Westminster but plenty of academic know-how; it’s already seeing great results and last year 1,000 applicants competed for 250 places.

My 12-year-old son, Brent-born and bred, is unimpressed with all of this information when I divulge it with great enthusiasm; though he wouldn’t mind giving the dragon boat race a go.

I hope you enjoy this issue.

Amanda Constance EDITOR

2016

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A leading independent senior school for weekly and full boarders and day girls (11-18) A day prep school offering outstanding education for girls (3-11) & boys (3-7)

Open afternoons Senior school – Friday 16 September & Wednesday 2 November at 1.45pm Junior school – Friday 11 November at 1.30pm Please contact us to book your visit www.stswithuns.com 01962 835700

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We l c o m e

From the

SCHOOLS SHOW

O

ver 20,000 parents have visited our Independent Schools Show in London over the last decade.

Our focus remains the same – to help parents save time and money, and provide the perfect environment in which to efficiently research and find the right school for their children. With more than 200 schools under one roof and a packed Education Theatre programme, our Battersea show is a lifesaver for busy parents.

The private school sector has been through a turbulent ten years with the global financial crash, Charity Commission tribulations, not to mention the effect that Brexit will have on the perceived

prepare young adults to be the best they can be; the focus is on individual students and personal learning maps recognising that groups of children learn in different ways – no one size fits all.

Good schools, with the independence to govern themselves, remain unique. Our children are too, and that’s what makes the show a highly relevant forum for information exchange. These types of schools are now harder than ever to get into as pre-tests creep earlier and earlier and minimum grade boundaries soar, but schools increasingly want a vibrant student body, and good admissions teams look far beyond academic prowess.

I am completely amazed at the standards of things boys and girls are doing at these schools, with student-led plays, music, art and lectures. They’re seizing all the opportunities before

“FOR TEN YEARS OUR FOCUS HAS REMAINED THE SAME - TO HELP PARENTS FIND THE RIGHT SCHOOL FOR THEIR CHLIDREN” attraction of a British education. As a result, schools have had to change a great deal. It is less about an arms race for Olympic-standard facilities and more about social responsibility, fee stability and real value added. Indeed, the correlation between school life and home life is closer than ever.

Although schools need to demonstrate value by achieving top results, they equally need to provide their students with life skills for jobs that have not been invented yet. The emphasis is on lessons learnt outside the classroom to

them. The best schools don’t churn out generic public school fare; their students are passionate learners and highly engaging young adults, responsible and ready for the competitive and new world ahead.

I hope you can come this year and, like thousands of parents, leave inspired and encouraged by the school options available to us.

David Wellesley Wesley DIRECTOR, THE INDEPENDENT SCHOOLS SHOW

2016

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CONTE AUTUMN / WINTER 2016

upfront

29 WHAT NEXT? The chairman of the ISC on life after Brexit

31 IRRELEVANT RANKINGS Why are top schools walking away from league tables? By Javier Espinoza

33 PICTURE THIS 40 years of girls at Rugby

34 PARENTS BEHAVING BADLY Leave those teachers alone, says Eleanor Doughty

n u r s e ry & p r e - P r e p

38 KEEP CALM...

Tips on surviving the 11-plus

44 ROOM TO GROW The benefits of schools outside London, by Tom Burden, headmaster of The Pilgrim's School

54

ABBEY SCHOOL, READING

senior

67 HELP IS AT HAND

46 BE PREPARED

What schools are doing to support young minds

Getting ready for boarding at seven,

by Eleanor Doughty

80 HEAD TO HEAD DEBATE

54 BRIGHT STAR The challenges of a gifted child, by Charlotte Phillips

60 TEACH FIRST Eleanor Doughty’s pick of top ten tutors

Have we reached peak mindfulness?

82 AT THE TOUCH OF A BUTTON Tackling the 'epidemic' of sexting in our schools

88 SHARING THE SPOILS Private schools are getting involved in the state sector with good results, says Lisa Freedman

s c h o o l l e av e r

102 YES TO EUROPE More students are crossing the channel for university, says Janette Wallis

2198

BRAMBLETYE MOOCS PUPILS

110 APPLY YOURSELF How to navigate the Oxbridge entry system,

by Ed Richardson of Keystone Tutors

au t u m n b o o k s

130 MAKING OF ME Louis de Bernière's memories of Bradfield College

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124 YOUTH APPEAL

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A B S O L U T E LY E D U C AT I O N

YOUNG MINDS

Editor A M A N DA CO N STA N C E Education Director

ANDY MABBITT Senior Sales Executive

HAYDEN TAYLOR Art Director

R AY SEARLE Senior Designers

PAWEL KUBA PHIL COUZENS Production Manager

STEWART HYDE Finance Director

ALEX ANDR A HVID Pa to the Directors

MARIANNE MCFADDEN Directors

GREG HUGHES, ALEX ANDR A HUNTER Publishing Director

SHERIF SHALTOUT For advertising enquiries please call 020 7704 0588 or email: advertising@zest-media.com.

Subscriptions are available simply by emailing marianne@zest-media.com Part of the

ZEST MEDIA PUBLICATIONS LTD

197-199, City Road, EC1V 1JN 020 7704 0588 Z E ST- M E D I A .CO M

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Zest Media Publications Ltd Ltd. cannot accept responsibility for unsolicited submissions, manuscripts and photographs. While every care is taken, prices and details are subject to change and Zest Media Publications Ltd. take no responsibility for omissions or errors. We reserve the right to publish and edit any letters.

All rights reserved.

Getting children back to nature by Abi Elphinstone

s c h o o l’ s o u t

138 IS RUGBY SAFE? A number of schools give their point of view

@A B S OLU T E LY _ M AG S ‘A B S OLU TELY M AGAZ I N E S ’

146 NEVERLAND FOUND A wild holiday on Peter Pan’s Scottish island

EDUCATION AUTUMN • WINTER 2016 • £5

150 BACK TO LIFE A restorative family holiday in Umbria

l a s t wo r d

194 DR STEPHEN SPURR Managing Director of Reddam House, Europe

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CRESSIDA COWELL

CRUNCH TIME

“I was always in trouble at St Paul’s”

Is it safe on the rugby pitch?

AUTUMN BOOKS SPECIAL

NEWS

PEACE OF MIND

Three Blundell’s pupils and successful Oxbridge candidates wearing blazers awarded for academic excellence.

Picture: Andrew Nadolski, copyright Blundell’s School.

Life lessons for teens

BRIGHT STARS LET YOUR GIFTED CHILD SHINE

IN ASSOCIATION WITH THE INDEPENDENT SCHOOLS SHOW

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F RO NT COV E R

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Blundell’s School, Tiverton, Devon, EX16 4DN 01884 252543 Blundells.org

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BROMLEY HIGH SCHOOL

• A B S O L U T E LY E D U C AT I O N ’ S •

CON T R IBU TOR S

Learning and Achievements are ’Exceptional’ (ISI 2016)

Dr Stephen Spurr

Managing Director, Reddam House Europe

Dr. Stephen Spurr is a British teacher, academic and classicist. He was Headmaster at Westminster School, which under his direction became the leading school in the country. He is interviewed about his new role with the Inspired education group on p 194 What superpower did you want as a child?

I wanted to have the super hearing and vision powers of Superman – to be all-knowing!

W h e r e G i r l s L e a r n To L e a d

OPEN MORNING

Javier Espinoza Education Editor, The Telegraph

Javier Espinoza joined the Telegraph in 2015. Prior to that he was a multimedia reporter for the Wall Street Journal in London. He studied journalism at City University.

He writes about league tables on p.31

What superpower did you want as a child?

I wanted to be invisible.

Saturday October 1st 2016 9.30 am - 1.00 pm

SIXTH FORM OPEN EVENING Tuesday 13th October 2016 at 6.45 pm

JUNIOR & SENIOR TASTER DAYS Apply online

Fees assistance & Scholarships available in the Senior School

Tel: 020 8781 7000 Tel Te

admissions@bro.gdst.net www.bromleyhigh.gdst.net

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Natasha Devon Writer and campaigner

Natasha Devon MBE is the co-founder of Self-Esteem Team and the Body Gossip Education Programme. She advises politicians on mental health, education and young people’s rights. She writes about mental health issues and young people on p.67

What superpower did you want as a child?

It would have been shapeshifting – I wanted to know what adults and ‘the cool kids’ were saying to each other!

09/09/2016 12:16

WE ARE WESTONBIRT Open Days: Saturday 15th October 2016 9am - 12noon Saturday 18th March 2017 9am - 12noon Come and meet Headmistress Natasha Dangerfield and Prep Headmaster Sean Price along with staff and pupils.

Tea, coffee and pastries will be served.

Westonbirt Schools Tetbury Gloucestershire GL8 8QG E: enquiries@westonbirt.org T: 01666 880333 www.westonbirt.org WBS.indd WBS - Pure1Education 170x245h - 11.8.16.indd 1

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• A B S O L U T E LY E D U C AT I O N ’ S •

CON T R IBU TOR S

Abi Elphinstone

Clayesmore for your child

Children's author

Abi Elphinstone spent most of her childhood in Scotland running wild across Highland glens. She read English at Bristol University before working as a secondary school English teacher in Africa and in the UK. Abi writes about her mission to re-wild a generation of children on p.132

What superpower did you want as a child?

I always wanted to fly (which is why I celebrated my first ever book deal by hang-gliding off a mountain in Brazil)!

Chris Jeffery

Chair of the HMC Wellbeing Working Group

Chris Jeffery is the Head of Bootham School in York and formerly Head of The Grange School in Cheshire and Deputy Head of The Perse School in Cambridge.

He writes about the mental health challenges in schools today on p.69

What superpower did you want as a child?

I wanted to fly!

Just call to arrange a visit at any time and discover more about our excellent boarding and day education 01747 812122 www.clayesmore.com

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Cressida Cowell Children's author

Cressida Cowell grew up in London and on a small, uninhabited island off the west coast of Scotland. She was educated at St Paul’s Girls’ School and Marlborough College. Cressida's How to Train Your Dragon books have sold over seven million copies worldwide. She talks about her schooldays on p.122

What superpower did you want as a child?

Flying! Hence my fascination with dragons and birds.

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HURSTPIER POINT COLLEGE

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CO-EDUCATIONAL I

13+ Entry

13-18 YEARS I

BOARDING & DAY

OPEN DAYS

Saturday 15th October 2016 Saturday 11th March 2017

Sixth Form Entry

Saturday 8th October 2016 Saturday 29th April 2017

To register interest or for more information please contact: admissions@kings-school.co.uk +44 (0)1227 595772

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Up Front WHAT COMES AFTER BREXIT? p. 29 LEAGUE TABLES p. 31 PARENTS BEHAVING BADLY p. 34

SOMME SCULPTURE

A new creation by royal sculptor Philip Jackson of a teenage boy leaving school to fight in WWI was unveiled at Brighton College to mark the 100th anniversary of the Battle of the Somme

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By S E R E N A S C A L Z O & P A T R I C K D R I V E R

BOOK WIN An Abingdon School pupil won the Young Walter Scott Prize, a new UK creative writing prize for 11- to 19-year-olds with his story based on the lives of his great-great-grandparents, Arthur Bonsey and Marianne Ford (pictured). Joe Bradley’s entry, A Most Unusual Childhood, about a family of English missionaries in China during the Boxer Rebellion, was described by the judges as ‘compelling’. Joe was presented with a certificate and £500 travel grant by the Duchess of Buccleuch at the Borders Book Festival.

ROOM FOR MORE

S

t Mary’s Shaftesbury re-opened Years 5 and 6 at the school this month, welcoming girls back to the Lower III. Bespoke classrooms and a designated Head of Lower School are just some of the changes that have been made.

FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF A FATHER, A SINGLE SEX SCHOOL MAY NOT BE FOR EVERY YOUNG WOMAN – JUST FOR THOSE WHO WANT TO ONE DAY RULE OVER THE CITY, THE STATE AND THE WORLD Hollywood actor Tom Hanks

SEVEN UP

H

ampton School sixth former, Will Attfield, has been called up for the England Sevens Rugby team after completing his A-Levels this summer. Spotted by the Head Coach of the England Sevens, Simon Amor, Will is just one of the seven Academy players selected from across the country. Now a professional rugby player, he has a busy year ahead full of national and international tournaments.

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TAKE TWO

T

win sisters Alice and Clara Wade have had quite a year. The St Mary’s Calne pupils won this year’s Prize for Innovative Use of Technology in Science Learning with their video exploring how IVF babies are created. And then they scored 24 A* and A grades between them in their GCSEs this summer, with both getting A* in Biology, Chemistry and Maths.

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UPFRON T / NEWS

LEAD ON Leading delegates from the independent and state sector gathered at Bedales school earlier this summer for a leadership conference with a difference, as it included many students. The event, in partnership with the TES, sought to give school leaders the tools to be creative in how they run their school and the confidence to maintain their individuality. Sir Michael Wilshaw spoke of the need for maverick teachers, and educationalist Professor Bill Lucas explained the tenets of a liberating, expansive education.

CROSSING CULTURES

S

nowflake Books have released all 48 of their titles in paperback. The beautiful picture books are based on old Chinese legends, re-written in English for children aged five to 15. They are key learning tools for UK children studying Mandarin, as well as a good introduction to Chinese culture. Snowflake have also launched educational workshops for schools. £6.99 per paperback. snowflake.co.uk

SCHOOL WAS PROBABLY A LOT EASIER FOR SHAKESPEARE BECAUSE THEY DIDN’T HAVE TO STUDY SHAKESPEARE Philomena Cunk, AKA Diane Morgan

ROW ROW

FLYING HIGH

n response to the growing popularity of rowing amongst pupils at the school, The Leys will be opening their brand new boathouse this September. The £4m project will feature state-of-the-art storage and workshop space, new changing facilities and a 16-station rowing fitness area.

new library has been opened at Beaudesert Park School. The library has Wi-Fi and motion-sensitive lighting. The best feature, however, is the ‘flock of flying books’, which was designed by the pupils themselves in dedicated DT lessons.

I

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SOMETHING THEY SAID “The thing about education is that it’s not one person that you are educating — it’s for ever. An educated person will never allow their child to be illiterate.”

Seema Aziz, businesswoman and founder of CARE schools in Pakistan

2016

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“A wonderful place to grow a rooted sense of self, and joy in life and learning�

Good Schools Guide 2016

Weekly boarding | 1 hour from London To book a place on an open morning or to arrange an individual visit, please contact Janie Jarman, Registrar.

T 01730 711 733 E jjarman@bedales.org.uk Petersfield, Hampshire GU32 2DG

www.bedales.org.uk

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UPFRON T / NEWS

IN SHORT Root Camp, the field-to-fork cookery school for teenagers, is launching residential courses in a new location: Scotland’s beautiful Isle of Bute. The six-day courses will begin on 9 and 16 October.

Alpha Plus Group is going transatlantic. WetherbyPembridge School New York, opening on the Upper East Side in September 2017, will run from pre-school to Year 6 and teach the English National Curriculum.

ALL ABOARD

L

uckley House School will be launching their new weekly boarding package this September. Aimed at busy families living in the city, the new package will provide a viable alternative to day schools in London. Fees include meals, boarding, laundry and after-school activities, meaning that busy parents have the freedom to focus on work during the week.

TO P M A R K S

F

ollowing on from their excellent A-Level results, The Godolphin School has returned an impressive set of GCSE results, with an increase in girls awarded A* and A grades. As well as doing exceptionally well against the national averages, pupils have also managed to improve on all of last year’s results. The girls are now focusing on which of Godolphin’s 25 A-Level subjects they wish to study for sixth form.

Colet Court has been renamed St. Paul’s Juniors to reinforce its status as the senior school’s prep. This coincides with Maxine Shaw, formerly of Hazlewood, becoming Head and an increase in junior and senior school bursaries.

WHAT A RESULT Kent College is celebrating yet another year of GCSE success with the results of this summer’s examinations.

Every one of their students passed, with 69% of all grades achieved at a B or higher.

These statistics follow on from the school’s excellent A-Level and IB results earlier in August.

PAW PATIENTS

O

ne of the highlights of noncurriculum courses for post-GCSE pupils at Dauntsey’s School was the Canine First Aid session, which taught pupils how to handle and treat a wounded dog. The courses were part of Dauntsey’s extensive post-GCSE programme.

SOMETHING THEY SAID “A pretty ordinary education system – unfortunately we still have one – needs people who are flamboyant, colourful and yes, downright strange. In other words, we need extraordinary people. We need our awkward squad. The independent sector has always had them – our state system needs more of them.”

Ofsted Chief Inspector Sir Michael Wilshaw

2016

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An inspiration on the educational landscape

Lancing College Senior School & Sixth Form

AN EXCEPTIONAL INDEPENDENT EDUCATION FOR BOYS AND GIRLS AGED 13 TO 18

www.lancingcollege.co.uk Tel 01273 465805

West Sussex BN15 0RW

Registered Charity Number 1076483

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UPFRON T / NEWS

GOOD SCORE Former Malvern College pupil, Tom Kohler-Cadmore, has re-written the record books with a memorable century for the Worcestershire Rapids in the NatWest T20 Blast with a 38-run win over Durham. Tom amassed over 1,400 runs in his last year at Malvern as captain of the 1st XI.

BENENDEN

NEW START

T

T

ON THE UP

BRITISH EDUCATION IS ADMIRED AROUND THE WORLD IN EVERY COUNTRY EXCEPT ONE, AND THAT IS THE UNITED KINGDOM.

wo sixth form students have worked in conjunction with game manufacturer Winning Moves to create a special Benenden School edition of Monopoly. Isabella Cassidy and Tele Mobereola (left) decided to make the game as a way of marking their time at the school.

Available to both students and staff, the money made from sales will go towards the development of the school and the National

DRAMATIC ENTRANCE Prestigious RADA teacher and actor Howard Sykes has been appointed as the new Assistant Director of Drama at St Edmund’s, Canterbury.

The school already enjoys an enviable reputation for its excellent drama department and this will only set the bar higher.

his September, Clayesmore will be welcoming new Head Jo Thomson following the retirement of Martin Cooke and his wife Eleanor. The Chairman of Governors, John Andrews, summed up their time at the helm perfectly when he described them as ‘the father and mother of millennium Clayesmore’.

S

t James Senior Girls’ School will be opening its new Sixth Form Centre this September.

The new building will provide a stylish and contemporary working space for pupils while making space in the main school building for a new library and a new science lab.

SOMETHING THEY SAID SIR ROGER FRY Founder and Chairman of King’s Group, which runs schools in Spain and Panama

“We want our schools to take girls away from being quiet, neat, ‘good girls’ to becoming adventurous risk-takers who don’t allow their inner critic to silence their voices.”

Helen Fraser, outgoing CEO of the Girls' Day School Trust

2016

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UPFRON T / NEWS

ON THE RUN King’s School student Tom Hunt will be attempting to set a new world record this month for the youngest person to run from Land’s End to John O’Groats. Running approximately 1,000 miles, Tom is hoping to increase awareness of the neurological disease ME, whilst also raising money for the ME Association.

ALL BRAND NEW

D

ue to a significant increase in boarding numbers over recent years, The Downs Malvern is delighted to announce the complete refurbishment of their boarding house, The Warren. The improvements include new dormitories, showers, washroom facilities and communal games and TV rooms.

HE ADS UP

A

new Headmistress has started at Heathfield School this term.

Marina Gardiner Legge (below) succeeds Jo Heywood, who ran the girls’ school in Ascot for seven years.

Legge joined Heathfield in 2013 after eight years teaching English at a boys’ school in London.

She said: “I boarded in the UK from the age of 10 and I am a passionate supporter of the boarding system.”

Tom is running for the ME association

ROAD MAP

STAR JUMP

Windlesham House is placing digital literacy and computer science at the heart of its curriculum, basing its technology use and choices on ‘The Road Ahead’, the school’s own framework for staying up to date on developments in educational technology.

H

istory was made this August when Kate French (pictured, left), a former pupil at Cobham Hall, competed in the Rio 2016 Olympics. Her strong, consistent performances led her to a triumphant win in one show jumping discipline and sixth place overall.

Kate returned to the school to give an inspiring talk once she had left about her ambitions to compete in the Olympics. Her determination clearly paid off.

SOMETHING THEY SAID “The independent sector has to be the best in many areas to justify to parents to spend the money. You’re not going to pay for your bicycle if you can get your Rolls Royce.”

Charlotte Avery, Headmistress of St Mary’s School, Cambridge and President-elect of the Girls’ Schools Association 2016

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UPFRON T / OPINION

What Next?

The Chairman of the Independent Schools Council on how Brexit might affect the sector

By B A R N A B Y L E N O N

M

ost importantly, we run schools and look after children.

Over 30 per cent of ISC school pupils are from an ethnic minority and many of our boarding pupils are from overseas.

I would want them to know that the referendum result is largely a comment on the institutions of the European Union, the democratic deficit. It is not about them.

Most of the people who voted to leave the EU fully appreciate this country would be in a terrible state were it not for the huge contribution made by those who have migrated to live here – the parents and grandparents of our pupils, who have seen our schools work as a ladder to social mobility for succeeding generations.

“I would want children to know that leaving the EU is not the same as leaving Europe” I would want children to know that leaving the EU is not the same as leaving Europe. We are not leaving Europe. We are part of Europe and it is impossible to understand British values, British art, British architecture, British literature and British food without knowing that many of the main influences are European. If anything, schools now need to reinforce an understanding of the impact of Europe on our culture.

We have every reason to give deep thought to the impact of Brexit on the

finances of our schools. If the economy is weakened, we could feel it. If share values fall, our parents may feel poorer. School investments supporting bursaries may suffer. If jobs in the City relocate to the EU, London schools and boarding schools could possibly lose pupils. If car plants move to Spain, as they might, places like Oxford and Newcastle will feel the cold wind. Stabilising fees becomes even more important.

After the turbulence of the Gove reforms, most teachers now crave a period of stability. Unfortunately the referendum seems likely to spark political change – new ministers, possibly another election. This makes stability in education less likely and the attitude of government towards our schools less certain.

Visa reform will now return to the agenda. ISC will be at the table, alongside the universities, fighting to make it easy enough for students from abroad to come and study in this country. EU parents need to be reassured that nothing is likely to affect them in the foreseeable future.

There are many great independent

schools in Scotland. It seems likely that Scotland will now move towards independence from the UK. We should therefore be concerned about our colleagues north of the border whose future is less certain today than it was at the start of June.

Independent schools have propped up the teaching of modern languages in this country.

Modern language teaching has been in decline, and this will accelerate if children think that a knowledge of European languages is no longer a priority.

It will be a huge problem if the supply of native speaker teachers from the continent dries up. Our schools need to make every effort to support the take-up of modern languages at A-Level.

The referendum result was a rejection of the political elite in both London and Brussels. Independent schools may sometimes have shared this hostility towards government. But whichever way we voted as individuals, we know that the coming months and years will bring a raft of new challenges for us all.

BA R N A BY LE N O N Chairman Independent Schools Council 2016

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09/09/2016 10:38

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23/08/2016 09:48

UFRON T / OPINION

Out of their league The Education Editor of The Telegraph on irrelevant league tables and why the stellar schools are walking away J AV I E R E S P I N O Z A

E

very summer, national newspapers make a big feature of school league tables for A-Level and GCSE exam results as anxious parents explore their children’s future.

These tables are meant to represent the best state and private schools in the country reaching top-notch grades as proof that they are providing the best education youngsters can get. Every year I get inundated with calls from heads eager to find out where they stand on the league tables. It is ironic because publicly many of these heads would be quick to denounce school rankings as just one part of the information available to parents.

However, the reality is that the system is geared to care a great deal about them, with schools rushing to provide their GCSE and A-Level results when their pupils have done well. But the emphasis Right on league tables is Julian Thomas: ‘irrelevant rankings’ slowly changing.

Below Some of the country’s Out already: Eton most elite schools,

“I get inundated with calls from heads eager to find out where they are on the tables”

like Eton and St Paul’s, decided years ago not to submit their exam results to national rankings. Earlier this summer Wellington College announced it was abandoning ‘irrelevant’ rankings because they fail to recognise tougher qualifications schools use and the wide education they provide.

At the time of the announcement, Julian Thomas, the school’s headmaster, said: ‘We should recognise that there are exceptional schools outside the top 200 just as there may be mediocre schools inside the top 50.

“We simply cannot tell from the information provided. Yet we all collude in this harmful merry-go-round through our seemingly unquenchable fascination with measurement and comparison.”

League tables on their own do not work as a quick fix to find out the best-performing schools because they give the misguided view that the top schools are the only ones that matter. It would the equivalent of going through life just watching Oscar-nominated

films when there are plenty of quality movies out there beyond the mainstream, and even those ranked highly by Hollywood may not be to everyone’s taste. Schools that perform best in rankings give the illusion that they have met all the different criteria parents care about.

But, in fact, these tables lack crucial information about the calibre of pastoral care, facilities, the type of teachers that work at a school and even the mix of families that send their children there.

Given these limitations, parents need to take it upon themselves to be more proactive when it comes to choosing a school by visiting these places. In doing so, they will get a more accurate representation of the quality of the schools.

I am not saying ditch league tables – they are very useful in knowing a school’s academic performance in relation to others.

But this is as much information as they provide. League tables can be the starting point, not the dominating factor that determines choice or interest in certain schools. Instead, parents should do their homework and set up – if necessary – multiple appointments to visit the school.

This is the most accurate way to find out whether it is suited for their children.

After all you, wouldn’t buy a house solely based on its ranking in the area; you’d take your time to meet the neighbours, see the garden and find out if the building suits your needs. Why not take the same approach with your child’s education and future?

JAV I E R E S P I N OZ A Education Editor The Daily Telegraph 2016

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09/09/2016 12:40

WE CHERISH OUR PAST, BUT TEACH FOR THE FUTURE With a global reputation and a pioneering heritage, an education at Cheltenham Ladies’ College gives girls the best possible opportunities to achieve their potential.

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We’d be delighted to welcome you at one of our forthcoming Open Days on Saturday 1st October and Friday 2nd December, so that you can see for yourself.

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05/09/2016 10:06

UPFRON T/RUGBY GIR LS

Natalie W ILD I was a music scholar at Rugby – my motivation for going there was the music department, which offered so many opportunities. I studied music at Royal Holloway, University of London, then completed a PGCE in secondary music and am now Head of Music at a performing arts status comprehensive school in London.

Isabel WOLFF After sixth form at Rugby, I read English at Trinity Hall and made documentaries for the BBC before becoming a writer. I have now written 10 novels. If I have been successful, it's due to my two years at Rugby.

40 YEARS OF

Kat ie H A R R IE S I am an executive director in the Government Affairs team at Goldman Sachs. My interest in current affairs started at Rugby; my first job was in Brussels for an MEP whom I met when he visited the school. All my activities at Rugby were stepping stones to my career now.

RUGBY GIRLS

V

Devon

BY R N E I received a sports scholarship from Rugby School – a life-changing development for me. I learned the importance of a good work ethic there, both in a sporting context and in my studies. I have gone on to represent England and Great Britain in U23 Pentathlon. I will forever be thankful for the opportunities Rugby gave me.

isitors to Rugby School are often surprised to see girls walking around the grounds in their distinctive uniform of ankle-length grey skirts (which they love). But Rugby School has in fact been co-educational for 40 years. The first cohort of girls, a brave little group, arrived in 1976. They had no house, no uniform, no female staff – and the sports master didn’t know what to do with them, though the choir master was pleased to have some sopranos. How things have changed. Now the school population is just about at a ratio of 50:50. Here we profile some of Rugby's female graduates and find out what they've been up to in the intervening years.

Lucinda HOL ME S I was one of the first girls at Rugby, and almost 40 years later I am a governor of the school. Rugby opened my eyes to the huge possibilities of life after school.

After becoming Managing Director of an international marketing group, I cofounded an educational consultancy. I am also governor of a prep school.

Annabel N ICHOLS I joined Rugby from a girls’ school and a whole new world opened up! Rugby gave me the confidence to believe that pretty much anything was possible. I read Archaeology at Cardiff University and then won a place in Andersen Consulting’s HR graduate scheme and have not looked back. I now head its global Graduate Recruiting programme, hiring 20,000 graduates every year across 42 countries.

Kate JOHNSON I joined Andersen Consulting (Accenture) when I left Edinburgh University. Now, two children later, I’m Commercial & Marketing Director for Cowes Week, the British sailing regatta. Rugby gave me confidence because of its huge range of extracurricular opportunities: drama, Young Enterprise, volunteering, CCF – and sailing!

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09/09/2016 13:01

Badly PA R E N T S B E H AV I N G

Keyboard warriors, leave those teachers alone ELEANOR DOUGHTY

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09/09/2016 13:56

UPFRON T / OPINION

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t’s Friday night, and darling Araminta has stomped in home from school – nanny in tow. “Muuuuuuum?”

“Yes, darling.”

“Mrs X did…”

You don’t hear the rest of it.

It doesn’t matter. You’re one glass of wine down already – hey, it’s Friday – and the iPad is on the table, looking at you lingeringly. Pick me up, it taunts. Go on – you know you want to... Sod it, you think. I do want to. I’m allowed to – it’s my kid and I’m paying for it. So you bash out an angry email to Mrs X telling her exactly what you think of her. You sign off, ‘I shall expect to hear from you first thing tomorrow morning.’ You delete the ‘or I’m pulling Araminta out of school’ and then write it back in. It’ll be fine.

We’ve all done it: fired off an email after a glass of wine or two, not thinking of the consequences. Of course, a parent-toteacher communication is not the only scenario in which this kind of behaviour goes on. Whatever industry you’re in, whoever it is you need to be annoyed with in that split second, the invention of email has created an environment for passive aggression that can so easily go awry.

But according to members of the Association of Teachers and Lecturers (ATL), helicopter parents are increasingly inflicting grievances on their children’s independent school teachers via email.

These missives range from ‘WHY HASN’T BUNTY BEEN MADE A PREFECT???’ to ‘HOW DARE YOU ACCUSE EDMUND OF SKIVING GAMES!’ with everything in between. Teachers tell of having their bosses copied in – heads of year, head teachers, heads of houses – and some of other parents being added to the conversation to stir up a gang. Some teachers have described these emails as akin to road rage – taken out on whoever

happens to be in the way at the time, projecting their own stressful lives onto the teacher. The teacher is often an innocent bystander, and always the one tasked with putting up with the horror-child in question.

And skiving games is just not on.

The recent summer holidays presented another sort of crisis. You’re glad they’re over because not only has Cordelia now gone back to school but you can get your educational woes answered again on demand. School holidays are hell for badly behaved parents, because teachers – rightly – won’t respond to emails while they’re not being paid to. Of course, the problem, whatever shape it may take, hasn’t gone away in the meantime.

“You’re one glass of wine down already and the iPad is looking at you lingeringly” Guidance in these areas depends to a degree on your child’s school. A housemaster or housemistress at a boarding school may well have a different schedule to your Year 4 maths teacher.

But whatever the age of your child, parents, your pain is felt. You work full-time so after dinner, with kids’ bedtimes and other assorted chores completed, 9pm (or, let’s be honest, later) is the only time at which you are able to pick up any personal jobs. And, you might add, trying to get hold of Mrs X is difficult; during school hours she’s doing the teaching that you’re working so hard to pay for.

But that ‘pay for’ bit doesn’t mean you can send angry, snappy emails just because something hasn’t gone your way. If you feel there’s been an actual miscarriage of justice, then fine – email. Politely. Which

we’re absolutely sure you’d do anyway, but just for the avoidance of doubt, the answer, as with everything, lies in good manners. Most people are grown-up enough to understand that the time you send the email doesn’t necessarily dictate what time you’ll be expecting a response. No one is so cross about a lost lacrosse match that they want a reply immediately, and anyway, not everyone checks their work emails out of office hours. Quite rightly. You just wish you could stop yourself.

So, the rules for communicating with your child’s actually quite wonderful and not at all mean or Miss Trunchbull-like teachers? Be kind. Don’t drink and type.

Be realistic about how quickly you expect a response. One to two working days is probably fine, unless it’s really urgent. If you send an email on a Friday night, you’re looking at Tuesday. Don’t be too keen.

Consider your child. No, it’s not fair for the teacher at the end of your irritation to penalise your child for their overbearing, circling-like-a-helicopter parents, but it’s only natural that they might feel a little resentful if you’ve been a total nightmare.

We’re not saying any teacher would take action to that effect, but it’s probably best to play it safe, eh?

Equally, play the long game and pick your battles wisely. Complaining about prefect selection probably isn’t the most important thing in the world. For senior school parents, come GCSE and A-Level results, you want a good relationship with your child’s teachers. For prep schoolers, your time is only just beginning. If you were in a restaurant, you wouldn’t complain during the starter, in case the waitress spat in your pudding. As one teacher put it, school lasts a lot longer than one bad dinner. You don’t want to become that parent.

If you’re feeling on the edge, step away from the iPad. You know it’s the right thing to do. Whatever it is can wait until tomorrow morning.

‘WHY HASN’T BUNTY BEEN MADE A PREFECT??? & HOW DARE YOU ACCUSE EDMUND OF SKIVING‼’ I L LU ST R AT I O N BY P H I L C O UZ E N S

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2016

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09/09/2016 13:56

DISCOVERING

INSPIRING

UNDERSTANDING

EXPLORING

QUESTIONING

INTERPRETING

PERFORMING

CHALLENGING

IMAGINING

OPEN MORNINGS 14th October 2016 • 3rd February 2017

school, ages 2-13. Lymington, Hampshire SO41 5ZG. Please contact the School Registrar on 01590 613 303 or email registrar@walhampton.com

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06/09/2016 11:15

Nursery & Prep SURVIVING THE 11+ p. 38 LIFE OUTSIDE LONDON

p.

44 PREPARING FOR PREP BOARDING p. 46

SAM IN HIS WELLIES: A PUPIL AT BRAMBLETYE

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09/09/2016 12:52

Surviving the 11 plus If you have a child of 11+ age, the autumn term can be a whirlwind of open days, registration, last minute swotting up and family breakdown. Susan Hamlyn has some top tips on making it through S U S A N H A M LY N

Y

ou’ve just got back from a hot, hazy summer of beaches and barbecues, late mornings, family harmony and the odd Aperol spritz. And then it’s back to earth with a cruel bump, because if you have children heading towards the dreaded 11+, the autumn term means:

 Open days and school visits  Tottering piles of prospectuses and bookmarked websites  Deadlines for school place applications (therefore sleepless nights because Brainbox Towers' is the week before – or is it after?! – Laptop Hall's)  Trying to find out what a pre-test actually is and which schools administer one  Discovering that Troilus still doesn't know his tables and that Cressida still can’t spell her name with confidence  Finding a tutor – oh why didn't I do it before the holidays?  Book Week, school play, carol service, and everything else that gets in the way of what really matters!

But what is it that matters?

F

amily and parental sanity, in the first place. Schools don’t help in that respect. We have a chaotic way of doing these things to which the word ‘system’ simply does not apply.

Anyone who reaches the deadline to reply to an offer from their second-choice school while awaiting a response from their firstchoice school knows just how pointlessly nerve-racking the process can be.

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When it comes to independent schools, the one rule is there are no rules Be organised

S

o how do you negotiate this minefield with your sanity intact?

It comes down to two things: be organised and keep things in perspective. First of all, think ahead. Leave time for open days; school visits; checking school bus routes, admissions criteria and deadlines. If you are applying to several schools in different sectors, you need a clear head and time to be sure about what you are doing. This applies particularly to some of our independent schools, which set a pre-test years ahead of the actual entry year.

It’s hard to look at your innocent nine-yearold and realise you need to register him for a school he won’t enter until he’s a hulking teenager. And remember, when it comes to independent schools, the one rule is there are no rules – they all differ wildly with what happens when.

› Open Days. Go to as many as possible – for 11+ day schools, these are usually in the autumn term of Year 6, but for boarding schools, prep schools and many other schools they are scattered throughout the year.

Don’t miss deadlines. Once it has gone, it’s gone, whether it’s an 11+ exam, pre-test or Common Entrance. Merchant Taylors’, for example, set their 11+ in September rather than the more usual January and have different registration criteria. As a broad rule of thumb, make sure your child is registered for the 11+ by the time they are ten years old.

Pre-tests. Around 20 schools now set a pre-test or pre-assessment for 13+ entry. Most happen in November or January in Year 6 (eg City of London Boys, Westminster, Worth) but applicants now have some choice and flexibility over when to take this test and it is important to check the individual school’s website to see what they expect. Harrow, for example, pre-test in Year 7, not 6.

11+ entry to senior girls’ schools and many co-educational schools is via the schools’ own examination and, usually, interview. You should be registered for this early in the autumn term of Year 6. Exams usually happen in January. In London, many girls’ schools have combined into a consortium so that candidates only take one exam, even if they are applying to several schools. But take note, Haberdashers’ Aske’s, North London Collegiate and St Paul's do their own thing.

›

›

›

2016

09/09/2016 14:35

PR EP / TOP TIPS

Do not let your child feel your pain. An anxious child will never perform well A sense of perspective

T

here is no one perfect school for a child. Yes, you have always pictured her at Einstein Manor and you know she’d bring them academic glory and sporting triumph, but they may just not see it that way. Have two or three back-up options that will suit her – and you. Don’t rubbish any of your possible schools – they may turn out to be the only ones to offer a place. And they may turn out far better than you would imagined.

Be realistic. Don’t apply for a school with a 70 per cent Common Entrance threshold if Aeneas is gently bumping along near the bottom of Division 2.

Do not let your child feel your pain.

A pressured, anxious child will never perform well. A clenched fist cannot pick up anything. Your child’s brain is the same.

Don’t over-tutor. Instead of tabling more tuition, sometimes a child’s confidence can be increased far more in the run-up to exams by saying, “I think you'll do brilliantly – you don't need any more lessons.”

Do not listen to your friends – especially if they are competing for school places at the same time as you. Loyalty and truthfulness count for nothing. Everyone has an axe to grind, a child to educate, and friendship comes a poor second to that coveted place at Trophy Grange.

Finally, the only really important thing is that you and your child remain friends.

You want that relationship to last the rest of your life. Trust him. He will want to do his best. Praise her. It will help her more than any number of lessons. And remember that what comes from home is far more important than any school.

› › ›

›

›

13+ Common Entrance is now less of a roadblock than it once was. Many schools, for example Merchant Taylors’ and Whitgift, set their own alternative exams – usually in maths/English/reasoning/science.

You still need to register as early as possible but this does mean that applicants from overseas or from UK state primaries get a look in.

Prospectuses, websites, results and leavers’ destinations lists only tell you so much. Seeing a place and looking at the faces, the facilities, the pupil-teacher interaction, the pupils’ behaviour – this gives you a sense of a school’s character and whether or not it will suit you and your child.

›

I L LU ST R AT I O N BY P H I L C O UZ E N S

ED_Sept16_Surviving 11_USE.indd 39

Could these children be your child’s friends?

Could their parents be people you will want to know?

State schools’ online application forms or independent schools’ registration fees, exam subjects, interview dates – get on top of it all. Make lists. Spreadsheets. Set reminders.

If need be, get a tutor to plug gaps, improve thinking and writing speed and lift confidence. But it has to be the right tutor so again, think ahead – ask friends you trust or find a reliable tutor company. The tutor has to click with your child so don't take the first one offered if you’re not sure the relationship will work.

› ›

›

S U S A N H A M LY N Director Good Schools Guide Education Consultants www.goodschoolsguide.co.uk 2016

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Talking

PR EP / OPINION

HEAD

BRIGHT START A good prep school will ready your child for the rest of their lives, not just the 11+, says the Principal of Sinclair House C A R L O T T A O ' S U L L I VA N

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ccusations of hot-housing young pupils and excessive tutoring seem to have become recurrent themes in the national media and in educational debates over the last few years. It is widely acknowledged that the pressure on many young children today is much higher than in previous generations, and this is particularly exacerbated in the hypercompetitive atmosphere of the London independent sector. The demand for places at high-performing secondary schools mean that entrance exams at 11+ and Common Entrance level are becoming even more rigorous, and some schools have introduced pre-testing to further filter candidates, who are frequently as young as nine or 10 when they begin the process. This system not only places considerable stress on children, but also raises questions about how schools should manage the emotional consequences and equip pupils with coping strategies.

It is not just children who require support; many parents feel the pressure of these entrance exams just as acutely as their offspring, desperate to secure a select academic pedigree and future opportunities for university and the workplace. This parental stress can be contagious, negatively impacting on children (who are emotional sponges at such a young age) and fuelling anxiety amongst other families at the school gates. Parents often set their hearts on a specific school, resorting to extensive tutoring to secure their child a place at a highly prized secondary. This

“Parental stress can be contagious, impacting on children, who are emotional sponges�

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has become so normalised that what is frequently forgotten is that if children require this level of support to get through examinations, they often struggle with the heavier academic demands once they are in, as well as having to cope with the additional trials and tribulations of normal adolescence.

At secondary school the usual stressors (friendships gone awry,

difficult stage is not always taught within the curriculum Left but embedded A pupil at Sinclair into the fabric of House a school culture which facilitates positive learned behaviour, emotional engagement from children and healthy relationships and connections. Children should go on to future schools both feeling valued and with self-value. This is predicated on truly nurturing the GCSE and A-Level exams, large workload) whole child, structuring the way that school are typically played out on a bigger and, life operates and lessons are taught to thanks to the advent of social media, provide a holistic education. Caring school increasingly public stage. To thrive in this environments are often perceived to exist environment, pupils need not only to have within a false dichotomy, pitted against mastery of the core curricular areas, but those with extensive academic credentials, also to possess the emotional resilience to as if pastoral care were discrete from deal with stressful situations. the promotion of scholastic Preparatory schools are soprogress. Yet, as we witness a called because their role is to surge in pupils’ stress levels, prepare children for entry into it is even more important to secondary schools; this is not ensure we build self-esteem simply about ensuring pupils and empower pupils with the can showcase knowledge cognitive mechanisms to face acquisition and application. a world that is increasingly It is also about endowing competitive, performanceCARLOTTA O'SULLIVAN children with emotional driven and constantly Principal Sinclair House School intelligence and social skills. changing, without the fear True resilience at this of failure.

Above In the science lab at Sinclair House

2016

09/09/2016 14:56

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05/09/2016 11:11 11:15 10/08/2016

Talking

PR EP / OPINION

HEAD

BOYS CLUB

Anita Griggs, Headteacher of Falkner House, explains the ethos behind the pre-prep she will open next year

W

hat is the purpose of the new Falkner House boys’ school? Surely it is to provide an environment where boys love to learn, gain a great deal of self-confidence, and are happy and able to explore their own creativity. They will learn how to get on with their peers as well as adults; learn maths, English, geography, history, science and computing; and be exposed to both religious ideas and agnosticism. They should have ample opportunity to play competitive sport (and thus learn how both to win and lose), have involvement in key current events such as elections, and be expertly prepared for exams.

Falkner House, as a boys’ pre-prep, will have the task of helping pupils (and their parents) navigate the world of the complex, competitive and challenging 7+ and 8+ exams. The system within London for boys is particularly tricky, with a dizzying variety of ages of entry and differing

“We will develop a boy's intellect but we know when to stop” degrees of academic selection. These exams all, however, require academic ability as well as considerable maturity. A 7+ boy, who may well be only six when taking the exams, has to tackle formal timed tests in English, maths and potentially verbal and non-verbal reasoning at the prospective new school. There will then be an interview for some or all of the candidates. As far as the independent sector is concerned, with a few exceptions, things are generally less brutal outside London because the demand is less, so schools are not able to be quite so selective.

A boy will not pass these exams just because he can do the mechanics; just as

will not mask any fundamental lack of understanding. Falkner House, in common with other good schools, will teach exam techniques, we will know the ins and outs of the different exams, we will know about peaking at the right moment.

It is all very subtle and for the best results needs to be bespoke for each boy. Falkner House will do two key things: first, develop a boy’s intellect as much as possible, and second, know when to stop.

Hopefully, a good schoolparent relationship helps parents remain strong and resist the urge to engage a tutor. If a trusted teacher is saying that tutoring is at best unnecessary and at worst harmful, parents should listen. After all, their interests align. Tutoring has reached Above important, he has epic proportions in London and many Falkner House girls to be able to think families will feel that it is indeed an essential in their distinctive independently, for their son to be ‘successful’. Many able uniform be brave, be children will be being tutored and will do determined. It is well, but unless their schooling was poor, crucial that boys have understood concepts the tutoring will almost certainly have been and not just processes. Teachers have thus unnecessary. to facilitate learning and not put boys onto It is thus key that parents should be able a pointless and damaging conveyor belt. to trust a teacher when they say that a child And yet many pre-preps are doing too much is performing to the best of their ability. In too soon, and in the process are arguably reality, what is the problem? That a child may destroying confidence and future academic get into a school deemed less prestigious achievement. More and more sums and than a classmate? But GCSE or A-Level more comprehension practice worksheets results and indeed the university destination do not make any boy better able to think, are likely to be the same for a given boy even though thinking skills are irrespective of what school what top schools always look he attends. No one – neither for at any stage in the selection school nor parent – wants a process. Perhaps schools are child to underperform in key bowing to parental pressure, exams, but in reality leopards but just because every parent are leopards and tigers are wants and believes their son to tigers. The task for parents and be a top achiever relative to his teachers alike is to try and get peers does not make it so. every boy to be the best leopard ANITA GRIGGS Much of this conceptual or tiger they can be at any Headteacher Falkner House learning is developmental, given moment. And no one can and academic force-feeding ask for more than that.

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Branching Out Once head at a London prep school but now Headmaster of The Pilgrims’ School in Winchester, Tom Burden believes that children, just like trees, need space to grow TOM BURDEN

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PR EP / OPINION

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here are good reasons for believing that London is the world’s greatest city. It is Europe’s most visited city – and second in the world. It is arguably the most energetic, and the most creative, and the most fashionable and iconic. It is probably the most multicultural.

And it trades more dollars than New York.

It is wonderful to have the centre of such a magnificent city under an hour away if you live in Winchester, as I now do, as Headmaster of The Pilgrims’ School. This is not an article extolling the virtues of moving to Winchester (or anywhere else), though it was capital of England when London was a mere trading centre, has a longer cathedral than any in London, and was called “practically perfect” and named the best place to live in England by the Sunday Times ‘Best Places To Live' Guide in March 2016. With boarding as an option, and a weekend return shuttle service offered by an increasing number of schools within easy reach of London Ω Pilgrims’ included Ω you don’t even have to move.

I am certainly not arguing that London doesn’t have great schools and I thoroughly enjoyed being Headmaster of Hereward House, a successful prep school in

A highly academic London prep school delivers a diet of all meat and no veg

Hampstead. It is true that a certain type of child flourishes in the London system: high-IQ, stellar-CV types who will do well anywhere and have no problem bagging a St Paul’s place after playing first team games for their prep school. However, I believe that even these superstars would be better off outside the metropolis, even if only by a short bus ride.

London prep schools have to be academically strong because of the enormous pressure they are under to deliver. In particular, they must deliver at 11+, which means a diet of English and Maths and Reasoning – all meat and no veg, one might say. And even then, limited senior school capacity means failure can follow failure, especially for boys, for whom there is no single co-ordinated exam. The schools into which we feed are more likely to consider potential and character rather than draw a line on a list of names ranked by exam result.

Having seen both sides of the fence, I firmly believe everyone would benefit from education Above A game of tug-of-war outside of London. Everyone Left benefits from having playing Headmaster Tom Burden fields and a swimming pool a Far L eft On the run

few seconds away (no buses involved). Everyone benefits from Ω in the case of The Pilgrims’ School Ω having open countryside five minutes in one direction and a town centre five minutes the other. Everyone benefits from a rounded curriculum and characterbuilding clubs and activities such as river swimming, sailing, fishing, and golf, as well as all the usual sport and music and art and drama. Everyone benefits from being in a school that, for example, allows boys to build a scooter track and race around it, or a school that promotes camp building and raft construction and forest school. This summer, just for example, we have had boys complete the Three Peaks Challenge, others swim the Channel (in distance, that is, over time: 21 miles), others sail across Poole Harbour, and others cycle The South Downs Way (all 100 off-road miles with 12,000 feet of ascent). Our boys are not wrapped in cotton wool; instead, they are wrapped in experience.

Does this mean compromise on standards? Quite the opposite. 20 academic, music, or sport awards to senior schools were won by our 37 leavers this summer.

Boys and girls have one chance to enjoy being young and to build the character and skills that enable them to flourish for a lifetime. Personally, I do not want to engineer carefully-cultivated bonsai trees.

I want to encourage the growth of freegrowing, strong oaks. And oaks grow better outside the greatest city on earth.

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BE PREPARED Sending your child to board at seven is not as popular as it was, but schools have adapted, and with the right groundwork from parents, children can flourish

By E L E A N O R D O U G H T Y

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one are the days when boarding school meant that children were packed off at seven pulling their trunk behind them, only to return before university aged 18.

The modern boarding school is technological, funky and full of fun – especially for those who start at prep school age.

The boarding outlook has changed over the last decade. Since 2006, the number of seven- and eightyear-olds boarding at independent schools has fluctuated.

According to the Independent Schools Council, which represents 80 per cent of pupils in independent schools, there were just 135 seven-year-olds boarding in 2006. This rose to 163 in 2010, but sunk to 119 by the time of the ISC’s 2016 Annual Census. Of the 74,688 boarders at ISC schools, just 4,809 are juniors. Fewer than half of these board full-time, just over 40 per cent board on a ‘flexi’ basis – between one and three days a week – and just over 10 per cent are weekly boarders.

As society has changed, through economic crises and generational divides, the boarding landscape has changed too, confirms Will Brooks, Headmaster of Brambletye, a preparatory school in West Sussex. “A generation ago, it was common for parents to send their children to the schools that they had attended, which were often far away from home. Nowadays, parents tend to look more locally, and consequently their requirements have changed. Parents are keen for their children to experience boarding and to benefit from everything it offers, but they would like to see them more often.” This outlook has caused schools to widen their boarding offerings, introducing flexi days and encouraging weekly boarding. At Beaudesert Park School, a co-educational prep school in Gloucestershire, pupils can board with a flexi or weekly arrangement from Year 4 upwards. Almost all of them live within 25 miles of the school, explains Headmaster James Womersley. He points to the local benefits of boarding school. “Parents with long commutes and other commitments tell us that our flexi

“Parents no longer send their children far from home, they want to see them”

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Above Relaxing in the bluebells at Brambletye

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U ng ni ol pe !

O 17 cho ol 20 r.s ho er pe Sc m b p e r t e re u pp ep qua S ns

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Open Mornings Monday 3rd October Monday 27th February Booking is essential

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79 Eccleston Square, London SW1V 1PP T: 020 7931 9469 E: registrar@eatonsquareschool.com

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Open Mornings Wednesday 12th October Wednesday 1st March Booking is essential Hyde Park School offers your child a unique, well-rounded education, with 2 locations in central London. Our Nursery & Pre-Prep is located near Marble Arch (W2) and takes children ages 2 - 5. Our Preparatory is in South Kensington (SW7) and takes ages 6 - 11.

The Long Garden, St George’s Fields, Albion Street, London W2 2AX ~ 24 Elvaston Place, London SW7 5NL T: 020 7225 3131 E: registrar@hydeparkschool.co.uk

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Open Mornings First Tuesday of every month 4 Oct, 1 Nov, 6 Dec, etc Booking is essential The Lyceum is a small, non-selective, independent nursery and school for boys and girls aged 3-11, with a unique educational philosophy delivered through topic-based learning. The school is situated in the City of London, near to Old Street and Shoreditch.

6 Paul Street, City of London EC2A 4JH T: 020 7247 1588 E: admin@lyceumschool.co.uk

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PR EP / BOA R DING

Above

“Mobile phones have revolutionised the way parents can interact with their children at school” boarding helps them balance the demands of professional and family life. For many families it can make the difference between employing a nanny or not.”

Whatever the style of boarding, the biggest change to all prep schools now is the advent of new technologies, says Tom Rogerson, Headmaster of Cottesmore

Pupils at Beaudesert Park

School in West Sussex, which Right takes boarders from age Playing at Brambletye seven. Email, mobile phones Bottom and social media have had a Rugby at Cottesmore role in revolutionising the way parents can, and do, interact with their children while at school. “I’m a big fan of Twitter because it fills in the gaps,” Rogerson enthuses. “The cricket win is a big shouty piece of news, but what about the jam that we made on Sunday?

The scholarship to Eton is a great thing, but these forms of social media allow you to paint a more human picture of the school.”

Connecting children to parents is critical, through a variety of methods. His charges can email home whenever they have access to a computer, and parents are invited to matches on Wednesdays and Saturdays.

Rogerson stresses the importance of giving parents access to their children in between times, and credits mobile technology with this. “If Jemima has just had a birthday, at the moment of birthday action and blowing the candles out, you can take a picture. The parent will have it in five seconds. That’s a big change.”

But still, some parents have misgivings about sending their children away. The idea of boarding school for those so young fills many with images of Tom Brown’s School Days – far from the Malory Towers existence of so many prep schools across the UK. These days, it’s all extremely jolly: as well as offering boarding on a flexi or weekly basis,

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Nursery · Pre-Prep · Prep · Senior · Sixth Form

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High expectations of effort and achievement in every area of school life

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Extensive co-curricular programme including CCF, Duke of Edinburgh, music, dance and drama

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Intensive one-year GCSE/Pre-IB course with over 23 subject choices, including Design & Technology and Dance

Whole School Open Mornings Saturday 1st October 2016 · 09:30 - 12:30 Saturday 28th January 2017 · 09:30 - 12:30 Monday 1st May 2017 · 09:30 - 12:30

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IB Information Evening Thursday 13th October 2016 · 18:30 - 20:30

Sports Open Morning Saturday 19th November 2016 · 09:30 - 12:00

www.tauntonschool.co.uk · 01823 703703 · registrar@tauntonschool.co.uk TAUNTON SCHOOL.indd 1

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PR EP / BOA R DING

Above A ride around Brambletye

Left A cross country run at Brambletye

many schools provide endless fun such as hide-and-seek in the grounds, board game nights and hot chocolate at bedtime, all popular with pupils, who may choose their evening activities from a long list.

If this busy timetable seems daunting to parents, Rogerson is confident that children take it in their stride. “Prep school is all about action and getting stuck in with things. That’s what seven- or eight-yearolds are like – that’s their makeup. At that early stage it suits them because they are all about doing.” His younger boarders rarely have a difficult time, he says. “They just get on with it. It’s counter-intuitive but it’s true – they just go with the flow.”

There are some useful preparations to do at home before term starts, however.

Make sure that children have done – and enjoyed – a few sleepovers, and give them a bit of responsibility for their own kit.

Rogerson requests that parents put names on everything – “Every pencil, sharpener and sock, please!” he laughs. Introducing children to a little bit of everything also helps: some garden sports, chess and singing. “Get them to talk to guests in their own house,” Rogerson adds. “Teach them to look adults in the eye and smile and engage in conversation, because that’s going to be super important.”

“Make sure your children have done, and enjoyed, a few sleepovers before term starts” Brooks reminds parents to prepare themselves, too. “It is usually the children who are excited about embarking on the boarding adventure, and the parents who find the concept more difficult. We never forget that it is not only the child’s first experience of boarding, but sometimes it is the parents' too.” But while worrying about your children being away for the first time is natural, Brooks stresses the importance of trust. “Parents must support the house parent. It is completely normal for parents to be worried in the first few days, but they shouldn’t let their child know about this too much.” Trying to put initial concerns aside is essential, however hard it may be, Womersley adds.

“For parents to find the right boarding experience and to encourage their children to board is to give them a great advantage in life.”

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PR EP / OPINION

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BE POLITE Old fashioned good manners really do matter, says Tim Lello, Headmaster of Babington House

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aybe I’m just old-fashioned, but I think good manners and courtesy are very important.

Treating people with respect and dignity, irrespective of background or social class, is the sign of a civilised society. I therefore argue that good manners are the antithesis of snobbery. It doesn’t really matter what colour or race or creed people are, or what income they have or which football team they support, even though these might be important in how we perceive our own identity. Everyone deserves respect. Everyone has something to offer, everyone has some gift that they can share, a talent or contribution that ultimately might make the world a better place. Understanding that is the true meaning of politesse.

“I’m more Jonny Wilkinson than John McEnroe when it comes to sporting etiquette” Researching this piece, I found a fascinating statistic: two generations ago, 95 per cent of pupils would stand up when a teacher or adult entered the classroom, dropping to 51 per cent a generation ago, to just 19 per cent today. It’s such a shame because this simple demonstration of respect to the person who is about to teach you is rather important. I think it’s important that children don’t speak when the teacher is speaking, that they put up their hand if they want to ask a question, that they listen to each other. Classroom etiquette is essential to learning.

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is the clincher, where I prefer their own opinions they can start Above a civilised atmosphere rather to play a real part in a school’s A pupil in the recital room at Babington than elbows on tables and open direction or even – heaven House mouths. Good table manners forbid – in society. Wasn't it great are an important life skill and when Scottish young adults of 16 much more significant to future success were given the opportunity to vote in the than many would care to admit. The dining referendum? It was a shame a similar thing room is as important as the board room wasn't done over the European referendum. and a faux pas in either is best avoided. In I think it’s brilliant when young people sport, knowing how to lose well and win have a view, provided that view is based with good grace are equally important. I on knowledge, respect and a foundation of frequently find myself on the touch line substance. watching highly competitive matches, and What else is important? I think looking when it comes to sporting etiquette I prefer someone in the eye when you talk to Jonny Wilkinson’s approach to that of John them. Saying ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ and McEnroe. Rather like knowing a genuine ‘sorry’ when it’s your tables and how to spell required, being interesting, correctly, good manners in and being pleasant. Smiling, outside the classroom should listening, being a good friend, be flagged up as essential being a good neighbour, learning. respecting your parents.

When children are given These are all examples of parameters of respect and caring and at the heart of what politeness, they can then be being well-mannered really encouraged to experiment means. At Babington House TIM LELLO with their own opinions, which School, these things are valued Headmaster of Babington really matter. If young people and very much part of our House have the courage to form vocabulary.

2016

09/09/2016 14:41

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24/08/2016 17:24

Bright STARS Choosing the right education for an exceptionally able child can be challenging CHARLOT TE PHILLIPS

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he government calls them gifted and talented; Potential Plus, a UK charity, speaks of them as having High Learning Potential or HLP. They’re the brightest of the bright – pupils who even in the most selective of schools stand out as being head and shoulders above their peers.

We’re not just talking about what Rebecca Howell, senior education consultant at Potential Plus, refers to as ‘top table’ children – the more able bunch who speed through their worksheets and are asking for more before some of their classmates have even got started – but those rare spirits who appear to have sourced their DNA from a completely different gene pool to the rest of us.

“I can think of one child who spends most of her time in, broadly speaking, a parallel universe,” says Nicola Dick-Cleland, head of The Abbey Junior School in Reading. “She is a voracious reader, an immensely deep thinker and the trick there is trying to make her inner world align with ours.”

The first inklings that you may be raising a really exceptional child may not be the speed with which they absorb new information alone, but the way in which they apply it.

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Take the solar system. Many able children will love learning the names of the planets. An exceptional child may go on to absorb the physics that’s behind their creation. “They want to learn more.

Memory is part of it but you also have that superior understanding that seems beyond their age,” says Rebecca Howell.

Having a truly bright spark sounds like a no-brainer of a blessing, something that the average parent would be bonkers to turn down if offered as a christening gift by a passing fairy godmother.

And yes, there can be wonderful consequences. One of the highlights of

family life in the Morley Jacob household in Essex is an economics discussion over the Sunday roast.

It’s far from being merely a laudable attempt to elevate the tone of the conversation (though that’s undoubtedly a fringe benefit). Instead, it is almost an essential, a way of ensuring that Bec Morley Jacob’s three bright sons get the intellectual nourishment they need. That’s particularly so in the case of Kit, 12, who like his older brother, Matt, is a pupil at Felsted School.

Kit was speaking fluently before he was two and appeared so grown-up that it would have been easy for him to have felt out of kilter with his peers. The most obvious manifestation of his ability was the non-stop questioning – a common characteristic of very bright children. “When his class lined up, he had to know the reason why,” says Bec. “He wouldn’t accept what you’d say at face value but once he had an explanation, he would be fine.”

Like Kit, other very able children will manifest their giftedness in blindingly obvious ways. “Some, aged three or four, will question the Tooth Fairy or Father Christmas and they may dwell on death when they first realise that people die,” says Rebecca Howell.

But there again, others may not. And that’s when difficulties can arise. It’s all too easy for a really bright child whose ferocious intellect goes unrecognised and

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09/09/2016 12:30

SENIOR / DEBATE Prep/SEN

Above Pupils at The Abbey School Left Kit with his mother Bec Morley Jacob

“These rare spirits have sourced their DNA from a different gene pool to the rest of us”

Below Stargazing at Bedford Prep School

Above Are our public exams no longer suitable?

unchallenged to become disaffected. They have an innate ability to learn and make connections simply from what they pick up in the outside world. That can mean that by the time they arrive in the classroom for 30 minutes of one-size-fits-all maths or literacy, they may be bored out of their brains if the level and pace aren’t right and they switch off. In some cases they can end up branded as troublemakers – or worse.

Research from Potential Plus indicates that really able children are more likely than others to end up in trouble – they make up a sizeable percentage of the prison population, for example.

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Above A teacher and pupil at The Abbey School

Fortunately, there is increasing awareness of the need to identify and support these super-gifted children. The coveted NACE Challenge Awards recognise the effort made by schools to ensure that the most able pupils get the understanding and the boost they need to succeed.

At Bedford Prep School, a NACE Award-winner (like Felsted Prep and The Abbey School), one of the big treats for pupils is enjoying a trip to the stars, or as close as it gets, courtesy of the senior school’s planetarium and observatory (own meteorite included).

All the boys are encouraged to go beyond the curriculum basics – eclipses and lunar months – and ponder a smorgasbord of more complex questions, like why some planets have so many moons and what Galileo ever did for us (lots, as it turns out).

Everyone gets a level of challenge that feels comfortable while the children with high level thinking skills get the intellectual workout they need. “We’re giving them the hooks so they can explore further,” says Jo Christian, Head of Academic Improvement at the school.

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At Felsted, a science project on cell structure and DNA encourages the most able to start thinking about genetic engineering – well beyond the demands of the prep syllabus and open, as at Bedford, to every pupil. They can perform exceptionally well, challenging even teachers’ perceptions.

The resulting breadth of opportunity is overwhelming, says Bec Morley Jacob – and it doesn’t stop at the weekend. Currently, Kit is going into school on Sunday mornings to work on a science project – his big passion. “He was taking a torch to pieces because he needed some of the bits to generate electricity.”

It’s also vital, she says, that the school ensures that able pupils like Kit aren’t singled out or made to feel different.

Keeping children with their chronological peers is a key part of the process. A school might be tempted to bump an exceptionally gifted mathematician up a couple of years.

Easier for the school, perhaps. For a child whose social and emotional development might be nowhere near as advanced as their academic ability, the result can be isolation with a spot of recreational bullying thrown in for good measure.

If heads like Clare Robinson have her way, this should one day become a thing of the past. Her school, Holme Grange, also holds a NACE Challenge Award and has created a curriculum which ensures that all its pupils, who range from those with learning difficulties to the very able, have almost endless opportunities to shine.

It’s not just the core academic subjects that are benefiting from this approach. A recent music project saw pupils working

in mixed ability groups to respond to a technically challenging brief, composing impressively sophisticated music to order.

There’s also a strong focus on learning how to fail. It may sound counterintuitive but makes perfect sense. “People may always have been the best. Suddenly they’re not and they don’t know how to cope with getting it wrong, they have no resilience,” says Clare Robinson.

It’s one of the reasons, she believes, why so many of the best and brightest drift off course. “Many able students do fall off at some point because in adult life they’re not particularly happy.” Far better to ensure that when failure does happen, it’s in a controlled environment with people who can get you on your feet again.

Schools like these are working to ensure that, instead of squandering their talent, its most talented cohorts achieve personal fulfilment. Clare Robinson’s goal, modestsounding though it is, is helping these pupils to grow up into happy and fulfiled adults.

Giving them an education that praises effort rather than mere intellect, builds on creativity and adds a strong dose of resilience as well is critically important.

Get it right and it’s not just school communities that could be benefiting from their gifts but society as a whole. Given the problems we face and the pressing need for more brilliant brains to solve them, we should all be willing them to succeed.

•

ADDITIONAL SUPPORT

•

NACE Works with schools and teachers to improve learning for the more able and recognises excellent provision through the NACE Challenge Awards.

Welcomes enquiries from parents as well as teaching professionals. www.nace.co.uk

POTENTIAL PLUS UK Supports the social, emotional and learning needs of children from all ages and backgrounds who have high learning potential. www.potentialplusuk.org

MENSA Welcomes members (pre-school and up) whose IQ is in the top two per cent of the population. www.mensa.org.uk

THE GOOD SCHOOLS GUIDE Help and support for parents and carers on identifying and educating gifted and talented children. www.goodschoolsguide.co.uk

C H A R LOT T E P H I LLI P S Advisor at the Good Schools Guide Education Consultants

2016

09/09/2016 12:31

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02/09/2016 02/09/2016 16:06 10:58

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06/09/2016 16:27

PROMOTION

Seeing the light Lyndrea tried a two-week therapy that saw her child’s problems evaporate

L

ife was such a struggle for my 12-year-old son, Jack. Everything was a burden to him and we felt we must get him ahead in life. He suffered from very poor memory, poor reading and comprehension, low self-esteem and confidence, as well as high levels of anxiety so we decided it had to be worth a try. We and frustration. told him that 10 days wasn’t long to change He was getting nowhere at school and we his whole life. had to physically dress him to get him there.

About four days after treatment we He would become upset in class because he started observing improvements. His couldn’t do the work and didn’t understand spelling improved drastically – he has it. He was always very frustrated and surprised himself and his teachers by not highly-strung. A main source of his only remembering the work set in class frustration was that he didn’t seem to have but also knowing how to spell hard words the ability to retain what he had learned. that he had never spelt in his life before. He Then we came across ALC, a has jumped a lot of levels in maths and is revolutionary eye therapy for situations coming home every day telling me that he like Jack’s. The programme was has got really good marks in his only 10 sessions long and could be work. This is so rewarding!

Right completed in two weeks.

Since we completed the Jack in his school We really wanted him to enjoy programme he has just been uniform school and achieve better results, leaping forward in all his work.

“He is coming home every day telling me that he has got really good marks in his work”

He definitely concentrates well now, and has better memory, which enables him to do his homework on his own. As soon as he receives his homework he gets straight down to it without being told, and he would never have done this before. He not only remembers the things he has been taught in school, but he is remembering other details as well.

He completed a French test that he hadn’t revised for and he received 19/24.

Before it would have been 1 or 2/24, which was very demoralising for him.

Accomplishing this sort of result in English would be a massive improvement for him, but in French…!

Whatever he turns his hand to is done perfectly and to a high standard. He will pick up a book and read it now, whereas he never used to read anything unless it was a comic or picture book, and he loves school now.

We tried a lot of different things to help Jack and this is the only one that has produced results – quickly and for life.

ALC-UK: Opening eyes, changing lives.

Addressing challenges such as spelling, handwriting, concentration, reading, memory, anxiety, confidence, headaches, understanding and vision, with ALC’s unique two-week programme.

Far-reaching effects and fast results

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TOP 1 O TUTORS With so many tutors offering apparently identical services, it can be hard to choose the right one for your child. We’ve boiled down the best so you don’t have to

By E L E A N O R D O U G H T Y

01 OPPIDAN

THE NEW KIDS ON THE BLOCK

H

enry Faber and Walter Kerr, a pair of Old Etonians, set up Oppidan earlier this year, having worked for a number of large agencies.

Their aim? To get away from ‘agricultural tutoring’. With a team of 20 ‘mentors’, they cater for 7+/8+ prep school exams all the way up to Oxbridge preparation. Faber and Kerr work 40 per cent of the hours themselves, which they love doing, and having taken the Eton entrance exam themselves in 2002 – it hasn’t changed, by the way – they know it off by heart.

CLIENT BASE

time buyers’ – first generation public school families THEY SAY • ‘We’re honest. We want to be able

to tell a parent when they’re wrong’ oppidaneducation.com

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1

CLIENT BASE • London families at top schools

THEY SAY • ‘Our philosophy on tuition takes our

service above and beyond that of our competitors’ bonasmacfarlane.co.uk

BONAS MACFARLANE

THE OLD-SCHOOL TUTORS

• Europeans in London, and ‘first-

60

Walter Kerr and Henry Faber of Oppidan

offices all over the world: in Nigeria, the United States, and in Moscow too. They regularly hook up their mostly-Oxbridge tutors with longterm residential jobs to keep the relationships going and have a great track record with placing children in top London schools.

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T

he veterans, Bonas MacFarlane, are described by some as the Savile Row of tutoring. Set up by Charles Bonas (Harrow, Oxford) in 1998, they’re proud of being a very British company. They now have

Charles Bonas

2016

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3

PR EP / TOP TUTORS

05

ENJOY EDUCATION

THE HEADMISTRESS’S CHOICE

E

njoy Education, set up by Kate Shand in 2005, has recently recruited Vivienne Durham, the stellar former head of Francis Holland School, to help with their Schools Advisory Service. Shand regularly lunches with headmasters to get the inside scoop on the standards required, and her tutors are more than 75 per cent Oxbridge alumni.

CLIENT BASE • High net worth clients with multiple homes

around the world THEY SAY • We’re London’s most prestigious private tuition

and schools advisory company’ enjoyeducation.co.uk Lucy Cawkwell of Osborne Cawkwell

03

04

THE INDEPENDENT THINKERS

THE SLOWLY-DOES-IT GANG

or Lucy Cawkwell, founder of Osborne Cawkwell, tutoring is about thinking outside the confines of academic study. Cawkwell founded Osborne Cawkwell in 2000, wanting to reorganise the tutoring industry.

Her tutors give the full works, starting at primary level with Key Stage One and Two, and progressing through 7+, 8+, Common Entrance, GCSE, A-Level and university application.

e are acutely aware of the current competitive atmosphere of independent British education,” says Fred Sugarman-Warner, tutor at Carfax and former Winchester scholar. Set up in 2010 by Alexander Nikitich, Carfax are proud advocates of the ‘slow education’ movement, preferring to work long-term with clients rather than cramming at the last minute.

OSBORNE CAWKWELL

F

CARFAX PRIVATE TUTORS

W

CLIENT BASE

CLIENT BASE

• High net worth families and

• London and south-east families,

celebrities to those who spend the little extra left over on tuition

but expansion to Edinburgh is on the cards

THEY SAY

THEY SAY

• ‘We’re caring, experienced and

• ‘In three words, we’re appropriate,

trustworthy’

demanding and responsible’

octuition.co.uk

carfax-tutors.com

KATE SHAND REGULARLY LUNCHES WITH HEADS TO GET THE INSIDE SCOOP Vivienne Durham, now at Enjoy Education

5 2016

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DA Y O PE N

PREPARATORY SCHOOL

THURSDAY 29 SEPTEMBER 10.00am – 11.30am

SATURDAY 1 OCTOBER 10.00am – 12.00 noon

MONTESSORI NURSERY

FRIDAY 30 SEPTEMBER 9.30am – 11.00am Preparatory School 59 Fulham High Street, London SW6 3JJ Montessori Nursery 196 Munster Road, London SW6 6AU Tel: 020 7736 9182 Email: info@sinclairhouseschool.co.uk www.sinclairhouseschool.co.uk

S I N C L A I R H O U SE SCH O O L FOR BOYS & GIRLS AGED 2-13

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06

KEYSTONE TUTORS

WELL-CONNECTED AND WELL-SPECIALISED

O

ld Harrovian Will Orr-Ewing set up Keystone Tutors in 2007 with a view to ‘professionalising and legitimising private tutoring’.

Now he has 200 tutors on his books – PhD students, former public school teachers and Oxbridge academics, who offer tutoring from 11+ upwards.

His plan is to create a 'chambers' of long-term career tutors.

Orr-Ewing also has a particular interest in learning difficulties, and runs a project called dysTalk, which aims to open up this area of research in more detail.

CLIENT BASE • Not the spoilt plutocrats that people

often assume THEY SAY

6

08

FLEET TUTORS

THE NATIONALS

F

leet Tutors was founded in 1977, covering school entrance exams from 7/8+ upwards, GCSE, A-Level, IB, Pre-U and university level work. Operating nationwide, they also offer Live Online Tutoring.

SENIOR / DEBATE

10

KENSINGTON & CHELSEA TUTORS THE ULTRA-INTERNATIONALS

R

un by duo Nevil Chiles and Dr Anna Clark, Kensington & Chelsea Tutors was founded in 2002. With their supply of over 2,500 tutors, they can cover 70 subjects – with languages as wide-ranging as Ukrainian, Hebrew and Cantonese – and tutor from 7+ through Common Entrance to A-Level and the IB.

• ‘We’re professional, ethical and

CLIENT BASE

CLIENT BASE

efficient’

• Families nationwide of all budgets

• Diplomats, captains of industry

keystonetutors.com

THEY SAY • ‘Effective one-to-one tuition has to

THEY SAY

be properly tailored’

• ‘We have a wealth of experience

07

fleet-tutors.co.uk

EXPANDING EASTWARDS

09

HOLLAND PARK TUITION

H

olland Park was founded in 2004, offering one-to-one tuition, schools consultancy, and a university applications service.

Holland Park caters for 7+, 8+, Common Entrance, GCSE and A-Level, and offers support with the UCAS application process and specific entrance exam courses, including the BMAT for medicine and LNAT for law.

and children taking time out from school

within the realm of education’ kctutors.co.uk

BRIGHT YOUNG THINGS

IN THE COUNTIES

B

right Young Things was founded in 2008

by Oxford graduates Malachy Guinness and Edward Webster.

Their revision centres in Harrow, Rochester, Tunbridge Wells and St Albans offer group learning from 11+ to Oxbridge applications.

CLIENT BASE

CLIENT BASE

• Primarily west London families and

• London families and increasing

now some in Dubai

numbers of those in the counties

THEY SAY

THEY SAY

• We’re the first choice for families,

parents, students and pupils’

• We foster an inquisitive mind to help our students get beyond their textbooks’

hollandparkeducation.com

brightyoungthings.co.uk

9 2016

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09/09/2016 15:18

PUTTING GIRLS FIRST Open Events Saturday 15 October: Open Morning Thursday 6 October: Sixth Form Information Evening Wednesday 9 November: School in Action Morning Tuesday 15 November: School in Action Morning

INSPIRATION, CURIOSITY, DISTINCTION

Junior School: info@blj.gdst.net 020 8852 1537

BLACKHEATH HIGH.indd 1

Senior School: info@bla.gdst.net 020 8853 2929

@blackheathhigh blackheathhighschool www.blackheathhighschool.gdst.net

23/08/2016 12:13

Senior MENTAL HEALTH TALKING POINT p. 67 HE A D ' S DE B AT E p. 80 SE X T ING p. 82

A PUPIL AT KINGSTON GRAMMAR

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09/09/2016 12:53

Discover Discover Glenalmond College, a school with an excellent tradition of helping each pupil make the most of their personal journey. A school which encourages each child to reach their academic potential and develop their individual abilities to the full in a range of artistic, sporting, social and adventure activities.

• Full 7-days-a-week boarding environment • Girls and boys aged 12-18 • Outstanding pastoral care • 300-acre countryside campus

T: 01738 842144 Scottish Charity SC006123

E: registrar@glenalmondcollege.co.uk

www.glenalmondcollege.co.uk

inspiring learning

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SENIOR / TALKING POINT

All in the Mind

Adolescent mental health has hogged the headlines this year with concerns about soaring rates of anxiety, depression and other disorders amongst teenagers. Earlier this year, the Headmasters' and Headmistresses' Conference (the umbrella organisation of the UK’s leading independent schools) held a Good Mental Health conference to address these issues. Here Natasha Devon, the recently deposed government mental health tsar who spoke at the conference, discusses where she thinks the issues lie; Chris Jeffery, Headmaster of Bootham School in York and Chair of the HMC’s Wellbeing Working Group, explains what took place at the conference and outlines some of the challenges facing today’s teenagers; and a number of schools explain what they are doing to support their pupils' wellbeing.

“Social media is a catalyst, not a cause, of poor mental health in young people today”

NATASHA DEVON

D

Writer and mental health champion

uring a commons debate earlier this year, Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt was asked what he thought was responsible for the surge in poor mental health amongst the British population. His answer was decisive. For young people, he said, it is ‘social media’.

I wasn’t sure whether to laugh or scream in frustration. Of course, technological advances are having a huge impact on the way young people think and behave but they are a catalyst, rather than a cause.

And there is an important distinction here – poor mental health is not synonymous with mental illness. One in four of us will statistically experience a mental illness during our lifetime but four in four of us have a brain and therefore mental health.

I do not believe it is helpful to tell a pupil so strung-out with exam stress they’re having

panic attacks and unable to function that they are suffering from ‘anxiety disorder’.

They aren’t. They’re suffering from acute stress caused by unprecedented amounts of academic pressure coupled with momentous expectations in an increasingly competitive climate. This is particularly pronounced in independent schools. It does not mean, however, that their concerns are not serious and should not be dealt with.

What schools are facing is a crisis of poor mental health, and while this is leading to more instances of diagnosed mental illnesses, the greater issue is the number of children flying below the radar who have symptoms of depression, anxiety or selfharm but who do not meet the ever-higher thresholds of the Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services. It is their needs teachers are being expected to meet with only a few vague directives from above (generally parroting the words ‘resilience’ and ‘peer-to-peer mentoring’ ad nauseam).

The crisis in mental health is, I believe, primarily an economic one. A Young Minds survey in 2014 of 5,000 12- to 18-yearolds revealed worries about the future – the prospect of leaving university with record amounts of debt, the likelihood of unemployment or of not being able to afford to live independently on an average wage – to be a primary factor in spiralling anxiety in young people. Coupled with this, both parents increasingly have to work long hours to sustain the family’s lifestyle (interestingly, many independent school children I speak to say worrying about the amount of money their parents have to pay to send them to school causes them significant stress). This has led to a reduction in quality family time, community and communication, all of which are the bedrock upon which a child builds their sense of identity and self-esteem.

Mental Health First Aid England, a charity which offers training to education professionals, talks about a metaphorical ‘stress bucket’. We all have a stress bucket which is incrementally filled by the challenges of everyday life. This is entirely normal, but it is when our stress-bucket overflows that we are at increased risk of developing mental health issues. So we need a ‘tap’ – something that provides release from stress. Talking, writing down our feelings, exercise or indulging in something creative are all ways we can empty our stress buckets. But in a world where the pace of life leaves us unable to contemplate and reflect, it is little wonder that so many young people have reached crisis point.

2016

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Whitgift.

One of Britain’s finest independent day and boarding schools for boys aged 10-18

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admissions@whitgift.co.uk +44 (0)20 8633 9935 www.whitgift.co.uk/opendays

‘Superb cosmopolitan boys school, with outstanding facilities and a strong academic reputation – an example of what education is really about’ Good Schools Guide

Haling Park, South Croydon, CR2 6YT, United Kingdom

WHITGIFT.indd 1

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SENIOR / TALKING POINT

“We will never achieve perfection for our children, but they deserve better”

PARENTING

T

he desire to be ‘perfect’ parents and give a child a ‘perfect’ childhood is not helping. Australian parenting guru Michael Grose claims in his latest book, The Redundancy Effect, that such parenting 'overcooks' children, hindering development of the independence, selfconfidence and resilience needed for them to function well as adults.

CHRIS JEFFREY

T

UNIVERSITY POLICY

Chair of the HMC's Wellbeing Group

he HMC Wellbeing and Mental Health Conference at the British Museum in April marked an important point in HMC’s attitude to the growth of mental health issues that all schools have been facing. Having been confident enough to admit that independent schools, along with all others types of school, are struggling with this issue, it was time to move to look at practical ways of dealing with them in a series of seminars and presentations for a large audience.

We recognised that the solutions will only work effectively if the causes – not just the symptoms – of the phenomenon are properly identified and understood. Here I offer my – albeit imperfect – analysis of what it is we’re trying to solve.

PREVALENCE OF MOBILE TECH

R

only too well within themselves; a world in which sexting and online porn bring knowledge, expectation and pressures that the ‘battered-copy-of-Mayfair-under-thedesk-lid’ of my generation never did.

PERFECTIONITIS

G

iven that our youngsters find it very hard to look at technology critically enough to understand the judgements that they are making about others (and themselves in comparison), perhaps it’s not surprising that there is a discernible rise in perfectionism. Girls more than boys are putting themselves under unrealistic and intolerable pressure to live up to expectations of themselves and of life that can cripple them. It was fascinating to see Instagram model Essena O’Neill expose to her 600,000 followers the real story and frequent pain behind her perfect pictures.

We need more of that sort of honesty.

N

ear-perfection, too, seems to have been increasingly demanded by universities, whose standard offers have risen inexorably over the past 20 years.

Despite the increased competition caused by lifting the admission cap and a declining birth-rate, many courses appear to be if anything raising their standard offer grades, not dropping them. Whatever happened to the law of supply and demand? Anecdotal evidence from schools is that, in reality, students can afford to drop a grade or two for many courses and still be accepted.

The key question is: are large numbers of students being put under more pressure than necessary so that universities can look more exclusive than they actually are?

The stark fact remains, however, until we – schools, universities, parents, policy makers, technologists and health services – start understanding and thus addressing the root causes and not the symptoms of these mental health issues, little may change. We will never achieve perfection for our children, but they deserve better.

esearch suggests that the ubiquity of mobile technology in their hands has seen our children’s attention spans diminishing, sleep patterns badly disturbed and crucial switch-off time almost destroyed. In a fascinating piece in New Philosopher recently, author DBC Pierre points out how human beings, who as a species are adapted over tens of thousands of generation years to cope with a flat-line pace of change, are simply not wired to manage the unprecedented and sustained acceleration of recent times. Such warp-speed acceleration cannot but cause casualties

SOCIAL MEDIA

A

nd what are adolescents learning from this technology as they battle the same challenges that all teenagers have faced? For all the undeniable benefits, it means theirs is a world in which the visual and the ‘surface’ rule, via apps such as Snapchat, Instagram and Periscope; a world where youngsters cannot seem to see through the fact that others’ carefully curated on-line personae likely hide the same insecurities and angst that they know

Right Happy pupils at Lord Wandsworth College

2016

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Above St Swithun’s School Below Sixth form Pupils at Highgate School Far Right Highgate School

“In our Peer Education Project Year 12 volunteers deliver PSHE lessons to Year 7 pupils”

VERITY SMITH

Assistant Head of Sixth Form Highgate School

T

he process of growing up is one of working out who we are. This gradual discovery can come about through interaction with our family, significant adults, peer groups and friends. In recent years, a wide range of social media have created an additional sphere

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of virtual interaction where many adults fear to tread. And so schools are increasingly recognising the benefits that flow from encouraging young people to support one another through the long growingup process.

Last term, Highgate pupils were involved in a ground-breaking and ongoing Peer Education Project (PEP) that is supported and robustly evaluated by the Mental Health Foundation, Dr Yvonne Anderson of Cernis and Place2Be. The project brought together Year 12 pupils from

Highgate and three of its partner state schools with experts in the field of mental health and education to co-produce five PSHE lessons which the volunteer sixth formers then delivered to Year 7 pupils.

The classes were evaluated using the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) ‘Me and My School’ and a learning measure before and after delivery of the lessons.

It is one of few projects which has quantitative data measuring the impact of a peer education programme on both the attainment of pupils and their wellbeing.

It is hoped that the project can be extended to other schools in the coming academic year with the aim that, as peer teaching is repeated, year by year whole school communities will grow in confidence in managing mental health well.

2016

09/09/2016 14:37

SENIOR / TALKING POINT

“I provide one-toone sessions for girls as well as timely, targeted small group interventions”

DR HELEN O’CONNOR

Clinical psychologist St Swithun's School

I

was appointed in January 2015 and we are one of only a few schools in the country offering doctoral-level support to our pupils, staff and parents.

Mindfulness, Cognitive Behavioural Therapy and an emotional regulation skills programmes are proven ways to improve the mental health of adolescents and these are central to our support for girls at St Swithun’s.

Our school has a typical student population with many strengths and protective factors such as excellent IQs, but we also attract individuals with high perfectionism, which can

sometimes generate a level of added stress. It is for this reason that we have invested resources in improving the girls’ mental health.

Much of the role is providing one-to-one sessions for girls as required, whilst also offering timely, targeted small group interventions (for example considering stressrelieving techniques with girls prior to revision and exams). Our newly developed PSHE programmes (‘Thrive’ and ‘Flourish’) have been adapted to provide resilience training and to address mental health issues in small classes which allow for open discussion. To complement this, we also have a member of staff who is a qualified mindfulness practitioner.

We are developing this across the entire school, all the way from Year 3 to Year 13, aiming to teach the girls early about wellbeing and to prevent difficulties emerging. Teachers are considered highly significant in ensuring the girls’ ability to flourish, and this is achieved by appropriate training on mental health and access to suitable guidance if they have concerns.

The entire community – including pupils, staff and parents – have access to a dynamic programme of visiting speakers with a focus on mental wellbeing and resilience, which over the past year has included Dick Moore on mental health in education, Aric Sigman on drugs and screen time, and a mindfulness programme for staff.

2016

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how far would you go to get your child into the best school?

Developing outstanding leaders

A dynamic co-educational Catholic boarding and day school for 3 –18 year olds, set in a beautiful rural location – just over 2 hours train journey from London Stonyhurst Academic Scholarship & St Francis Xavier Scholarships 11+ and 13+ Examinations For children who do well in their online entrance examinations

Only the best for your child Stonyhurst is a school that is global in outlook and has produced world leaders for over 400 years A unique Christian heritage, offering extraordinary individual attention because each child and their potential as a person matters

London Scholarship Sitting Heythrop • 21st January 2017

Top academic students achieve 5 A* A levels and Oxbridge offers with our other students achieving places in excellent universities

Heythrop College, University of London Kensington Square, London W8 5HN

More than 100 clubs and activities to choose from including curating in the oldest museum in the English speaking world

Stonyhurst • 14th January 2017

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OPEN DAY 8th October 2016

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OPEN DAY 9th November 2016

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SENIOR / TALKING POINT

GARETH PEARSON

Senior Deputy Head Lord Wandsworth College

A

JENNI BRITTAIN

Head of Boarding Bedales School

I

t is no secret that recent times have seen serious and widespread concerns about the mental health of young people.

Some blame the internet and social media – not only because they can lure the unsuspecting into compromising situations and expose them to abuse; they can also be a distraction and get in the way of vital rest and sleep.

So, is the answer to police young people’s use of social media?

I’m not sure. To me this appears incompatible with any wider aspiration to encourage them to make good decisions and to accept that getting it wrong from time to time is an important part of that equation.

Does that mean we leave them to their own devices?

Not at all. At Bedales, we are quick to intervene should inappropriate internet use come to light, and we will work with content providers to make sites unavailable from the school premises if we see fit.

More generally, we do take phones and laptops from our new Year 9s overnight in their first term, and then we keep a distant but watchful eye thereafter – especially in the boarding context – and are not above gentle intervention if we, or parents, feel the need.

I am pleased to say that my colleagues and I have never agonised over how to get students to put their phones down. Perhaps we benefit to some extent from the nature of our curriculum – there are strong creative, practical and outdoor components, and the bottom line is that you can’t dig potatoes with a phone in your hand.”

“We benefit from a strong outdoor curriculum; you can’t dig potatoes with a phone in your hand”

Above A pupil at Bedales

t LWC we put our pupils at the centre of our pastoral care system and give them as many options for support as possible. Relationships between pupils and staff are excellent, our culture is open and calm and pupils are encouraged to talk freely about their feelings, whether that be to their peers, house parents, matrons, tutors, our chaplain or counsellor. Our senior boys and girls play an active role in looking out for and helping the younger pupils; we have trained a large number of students to be peer mentors, equipping them with active listening in order that every child in the school can easily identify an older

“Our culture is open and calm and pupils are encouraged to talk freely about their feelings” student who they can talk to.

We believe it’s important to work closely with parents and ensure that we are all on the same page regarding issues affecting our young people. We have held a series of seminars for parents over the last year on issues including overcoming stress and building resilience, and exploring the pressures and conflicting messages around sex, sexuality and relationships.

We are acutely aware that life is incredibly complicated for the average 21st-century teen. Whilst we pride ourselves on our ability to listen we also know that we can always do more; next year we are offering Mental Health First Aid training to staff and also exploring ways that we can use our 1200 acres of grounds to facilitate the ability for everyone to ‘hit pause’.

2016

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LEADERSHIP

• CHARACTER • PRIDE • SELF-DISCIPLINE • SPIRITUALITY • SPORTSMANSHIP • RESPECT

Open Morning: 8 October 2016 Contact us to book a place or to arrange a personal tour and interview

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Located on a beautiful 150 acre site in Dover, Kent, The Duke of York’s Royal Military School is a state boarding school for students aged 11 to 18.

We welcome applications from any student who wants to study GCSEs and A Levels at our unique and iconic school with its strong traditions.

Why choose us?

• An independent school atmosphere at • Full and weekly boarding available. an affordable price. £4,165 per term* • Students enjoy an active lifestyle covers ALL the boarding costs, with the education paid for by the State.

• GCSE results are significantly above the national average.

• Graded ‘Good’ in all areas by Ofsted.

• A £24.9m building programme has

just been completed to enhance our already impressive school site and facilities including new boarding houses, teaching blocks, drama studio, sports centre and climbing wall.

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• Unique ethos helps promote

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2016/17 fees are just £12,495* per year.

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www.doyrms.com *Fees are reviewed annually DOYRMS.indd 1

05/09/2016 16:14

SENIOR / TALKING POINT

“Our school approach is to never be afraid to tackle the issues, however great or small”

TRACY KIRNIG

Head Prior’s Field

A “Our Failure Day teaches junior pupils to think positively about setbacks and disappointments”

NICK FORSYTH

Head of Pastoral Training Kingston Grammar School

S

chool mottos can feel a little oldfashioned, but at Kingston Grammar School, Bene Agere ac Laetari – Work Well and Be Happy – is the ‘golden thread’ that weaves its way through school life.

Not for pupils to achieve academic excellence at any cost, but rather to aim high, be the best they can and,

equally importantly, to be happy.

In recent years, the school has placed a huge emphasis on improving mental health and wellbeing, not just of the pupils but of the staff as well. Last September, working in partnership with the charity Young Minds, KGS hosted a major conference on mental health in teenagers. The high profile speakers included Norman Lamb MP, health minister in the last government, who spoke movingly about his own family’s experience of issues concerning mental health.

A comprehensive and wideranging pastoral programme includes mindfulness for both pupils and staff, strategies for coping with exam stress, modern and bespoke sex and relationships education, and training on the use of social media. Junior pupils experience ‘Failure Day’, where they are encouraged to think positively about disappointment and setbacks. All pupils also have access to a school counsellor. All year groups have dedicated PSHE lessons and, unlike a lot of PSHE teaching, which tends to depict the world as a dangerous place, the emphasis here is on improving personal wellbeing with reference to the core KGS values of integrity, regard and independence.

Above Pupils at Kingston Grammar School

dolescent mental health is a challenging landscape requiring an empathetic and proactive approach. Blurred boundaries and the instant gratification and distraction of social media have added complexity in recent years.

Since its foundation in 1902, Prior’s Field has always focused on the development of well-rounded, balanced young women. We focus on motivation, self-belief and enjoyment to bring out the best in our pupils; there is no need to drive the girls with relentless pressure.

Our dedicated pastoral team has an open-door policy and staff work with parents to confront adolescent mental health issues head-on, preventing many before they occur. We run regular pastoral evenings for parents and encourage open discussion of such topics as managing stress and anxiety, depression, bullying, bereavement, eating disorders, self harm and LGBT support. Girls benefit from an annual Resilience Week, in which they are rewarded for demonstrating perseverance and determination in learning and life.

Our school counsellor is a specialist in adolescent mental health, and local links with both NHS and private therapists allow us to draw on the most appropriate guidance available. As a school, our approach is always to keep in touch with current thinking, and never be afraid to tackle an issue, however big or small.

2016

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GDST schools.

Where girls can.

Choosing your daughter’s school is one of the biggest decisions you, as parents, will make.

At the GDST we put girls first, ensuring that everything in their school lives is calibrated and designed to meet their educational and pastoral needs.

The GDST has always been a pioneer of girls’ education in the UK. Our network of 26 schools and academies provides unmatched opportunities, connections and resources for girls between the ages of three and 18.

GDST schools in London

GDST schools and academies outside London

Blackheath High School Bromley High School Croydon High School Kensington Prep School Northwood College for Girls Notting Hill & Ealing High School

Putney High School South Hampstead High School Streatham & Clapham High School Sutton High School Sydenham High School Wimbledon High School

The Belvedere Academy, Liverpool Birkenhead High School Academy Brighton & Hove High School Howell’s School, Llandaff Ipswich High School for Girls Newcastle High School for Girls Northampton High School

A network of confident, composed, courageous, committed girls.

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Norwich High School for Girls Nottingham Girls’ High School Oxford High School Portsmouth High School The Royal High School, Bath Sheffield High School Shrewsbury High School

See www.gdst.net to find your closest GDST school or academy and arrange a visit.

03/08/2016 11:45:11 22/08/2016 18:13

SENIOR / TALKING POINT

LINDSEY BRYANT

Assistant Headmistress St Francis’College

A

“Pupils are allowed to express themselves by drawing on our health centre walls”

HILARY DUGDALE

Senior Deputy Head Lancing College

I

know of few people who, if given the chance, would go back to being 15 or 16 again.

These have always been ‘interesting’ years with all sorts of challenges thrown into the pot, and ones where a propensity for risk-taking comes at just the same stage as access to dangerous and exciting stuff: alcohol, cars, ‘relationships’.

Our young now have a cocktail of connectedness and online presence and exposure – and the kind of hypervigilance that goes with this – that was completely unknown to previous generations. Pastoral care needs to

reflect age-old issues and encompass these modern ones too.

Our housemasters and housemistresses and tutors are trained in Mental Health First Aid. We have a group of sixth form peer supporters who are trained in listening skills. Our charities and Outreach programmes give pupils the chance to stand in the shoes of others. We encourage challenge, and we support people through set-backs.

A school counsellor is available three days a week and pupils self-refer to her, the chaplaincy, school GPs, the Health Centre nurses, trusted staff, tutors, matrons... And our pupils have their own resources to draw on – literally – in the paintings they create on the Health Centre walls as art therapy or self-calming.

If our pupils can say where and how things hurt, we can help them to heal. The foundation of this, of course, is not a modern one at all; it is trust.

Above Paintings in the health centre at Lancing College Below A Lancing College pupil

t St. Francis’ College we take a very proactive stance, developing strategies early in the girls’ academic careers to promote positive mental health and resilience to cope in the stressful world in which they find themselves.

Our girls are encouraged to balance the high demands of academic excellence with extracurricular activities and enrichment.

This provides opportunities for sport, dance, art, musical endeavours and a vast array of other hobbies that are all known to be vital for good mental health.

In addition, our PSHE curriculum allows strategies to be explored to

“Girls are encouraged to balance demands of academia with other activities such as sport and art” deal with transitions in life such as puberty and moving between key stages. Similarly, coping mechanisms are discussed and taught on numerous topics such as peer pressure, positive body image and self-esteem. We also offer Teen Yoga to the older girls. These sessions aim to give teenagers the ability to find peace, acceptance and compassion for themselves and for others.

We have been improving academic resilience in our girls. Staff have received training on Growth Mindset and lessons throughout the college endeavour to promote the idea that intelligence can be developed.

Students focus on improvement instead of worrying about how intelligent they are. They work hard to improve learning techniques. In turn, this is proven to lower anxiety levels and improve mental health.

2016

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Experience Millfield Prep and Millfield at an Open Day on Saturday 8 October or Saturday 4 March 2017

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02/09/2016 13:51 12:06 24/06/2016

Talking

SENIOR /OPINION

HEAD

AIMING HIGH Lee Glaser, Headmaster of Taunton School, on what it takes to achieve great grades

H

ere at Taunton School it has been a tremendous year and I am incredibly proud of this summer’s exam results.

Our students have undertaken exams in a range of qualifications – GCSE, A-Levels, BTECs and the International Baccalaureate. Our 2016 GCSE results are the best for six years and we are delighted for this year’s cohort. A 100 per cent pass rate with 28 per cent A*s is extremely pleasing, and we will continue to build on these strong results. Our top student achieved 12 A*s and two students achieved 11 A*s. These results demonstrate our academic strength and progression.

Our students put in tremendous amounts of hard work and I am delighted that their efforts have been rewarded with such success. As ever, our dedicated teaching staff continue to provide a challenging and inspiring environment for learning. Their invaluable guidance and support, alongside the commitment of our students, are evident in our results. We have welcomed these students back this term to continue their academic success into the sixth form.

Taunton School has shown itself as an academic leader at A-Level too, with an overall pass rate of over 98 per cent and an A*-C rate of 85 per cent. I am particularly delighted with the increase in the number of A*-B grades; 68 per cent is an outstanding achievement. I am committed to ensuring that we continue to build on this momentum across all subjects. Our teachers have

“Our global outlook has meant students gaining university places in eight countries”

Above

delivered academic veterinarians obtaining places at their first depth and exceptional choice university. support, and Our aim at Taunton School is to demonstrated why challenge, inspire and nurture our students.

Taunton School is the Education is at the centre of everything we right choice for so many students. do, and I firmly believe that every child has The vast majority of all our students are the right to an outstanding education. going on to their first choice university, From nursery, through pre-prep, prep including King’s College London, University and senior school, whether or not a child College London, Bath and Exeter. Our joins via Taunton School International or diversity and global outlook have further led its middle school, we are one school sharing to students obtaining university places in the same vision for our children. eight different countries across Europe, in I am proud that Taunton School provides the USA and in Canada. This year’s leavers an outstanding education. It is a happy, are going on to study subjects caring community with very ranging from medicine, high standards, and teaching aeronautical engineering, is outstanding. We are a global psychology and veterinary school recognising that our medecine to music, sport children will work with people science, languages, arts and from around the world in their humanities. future careers.

This was the first year that Taunton School’s ethos is the Taunton School Pre-Med giving every child a lifeLEE GLASER programme has run, and it changing education and Headmaster Taunton School was very successful, with all allowing them all to fulfil future medics, dentists and their potential.

Students celebrating exam results

2016

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09/09/2016 15:04

MINDFULNESS

Dr David Moses  He a d  S t M a r t i n’s A m p le fo r t h

T

he world in which young people are growing up is more challenging than it was for my generation and we need to find ways of helping them to cope with the fast pace of 21st century life. Mindfulness has been hailed as a panacea, but whilst there are positive effects for many who practise it, we must be wary of promoting the technique as the only coping mechanism to deal with the challenges of life.

All too often we allow ourselves to overanalyse the past and to worry about the future. To be able to take a step back from our daily deliberations to focus the mind on the present moment can indeed be an effective way to relieve stress and allay unnecessary worries. However, the concept of concentrating on the present moment is by no means exclusive to mindfulness; this type of meditation is very similar to the Christian practice of contemplative prayer.

The difference, it would seem, is that mindfulness is rather more introspective, in that it encourages us to retreat from the world and focus all attention on ourselves.

Rather, our children need structure and balance, and to be brought out of themselves in order to seek the wisdom which comes with a knowledge of the world. We need to teach young people the importance of resilience and that they will learn as much from failure as from success,

that they can make positive changes to the world rather than just find ways in which to cope with difficult and unjust situations. A crucial element of fostering well-roundedness is growing up with a strong sense of community, through helping others and through practising empathy and understanding. Actively engaging with the world and with people from different backgrounds and cultures can have a positive effect on our well-being, as it allows us to gain a different outlook on our own situation. It is these wider experiences that can help us to rationalise our feelings and emotions and examine our lives from a different perspective.

Whilst mindfulness may be a useful tool, we need to be wary of promoting apathy and indifference to situations that require action to avert injustice and intolerance. We need to instil our children with values that they

can carry with them throughout their lives to help them cope with the circumstances they may find themselves in, and to equip them with the confidence needed to make the right decisions.

We must not be involved in denial of the world as it is, or with the notion of building a defensive mechanism to deal with our world rather than engaging with that world, its problems, pressures and people. In a society which is looking for quick fixes and which is increasingly seeking its utopias in the promise of material gains, we need to encourage our children to think through some of the more important questions: What is it to be human? What is the purpose of being human?

Not all children will respond well to mindfulness; for some the inability to switch off and concentrate on the now can in itself cause anxiety. In the same way that children respond to different teaching techniques in different ways, they will find certain stress-reducing practices more valuable than others too. One child may find solace during violin practice and another may find it whilst enjoying playing in a cricket match. Likewise, some children will find mindfulness a useful tool, whereas others will prefer to discuss their worries and look for practical solutions to their perceived problems. For this reason, a tailored approach for each individual is far more beneficial than trying to find a cure-all answer to the pressures of modern life.

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09/09/2016 12:35

SENIOR / DEBATE

MINDFULNESS

Mark Beard  He a d m a s te r  Un iv e r s it y C o l le g e S c h o o l

M

indfulness has grown in popularity and as a buzz-word over the last few years, but is not itself a new concept.

Mindfulness is said to have originated in Buddhist thinking and meditation practice over 2,500 years ago. Its original purpose was to address and relieve self-induced suffering caused by the dysfunctional ways in which people respond to life situations.

Over the last decade, education has changed rapidly. The popularity of mindfulness stems from how it speaks to the urgent and prominent concerns of education: the apparent need to strive for ever greater success, to be better teachers and better pupils, to keep up with changes in the education system and in society, and to better prepare young people for global competition. The expectation to achieve high academic standards whilst simultaneously developing important soft skills – in order to help those leaving the school gates flourish in a world that will require flexibility of career and application of skill sets – has never been greater. We also want our young people to have highly developed emotional intelligence and strong moral fibre.

If that wasn’t enough, add to this the impact of social media on young people – the peer pressure, the often unrealistic

expectation to look or act a particular way just at a time youngsters are dealing with adolescence and discovering who they are – and you have a potent mix. Indeed, when you investigate the chief causes of unhappiness in children, it is more often issues to do with their social lives than their school lives, and yet schools are expected to play their part in helping find solutions.

Schools have to strike the careful balance between mental health and personal development coupled with academic success. To move forward, we need a paradigm shift in how we approach this.

At UCS Hampstead we have decided to trial mindfulness for both pupils and staff in order to give them the tools to cope with ever-increasing demands. Unlike some other programmes, we are starting with our staff so that we can first develop a mindful community which emphasises the qualities

that are essential for all great teachers: patience, curiosity, kindness and a desire to truly help those around them.

For our pupils, we see mindfulness as a means to help enable them to have as positive an experience of our education as possible. Our preliminary research with pupils has shown that the introduction of mindfulness techniques can increase not only a child’s mental wellness but, tantalisingly, we have also seen a correlation between mindfulness and academic success.

We don’t think mindfulness makes our students smarter but that it provides them with ways to fully benefit from the opportunities that they are given. Our extended trial and data analysis with Year 9 next year will allow us to assess more fully the longer-term impact of mindfulness, but we hope our pupils will feel calmer and more fulfilled, get on better with others, concentrate and learn more easily, manage stress and anxiety better, and have improved performance in music and sport.

Mindfulness is a sophisticated concept because it is not only about dealing with our reactions to stressors but also giving us the ability to tackle and face their causes. Yet it is a practical toolbox of deceptively simple techniques and coping strategies, supported not only by academic research but by the teachings of mental well-being that go back centuries. It enables teachers and pupils to anticipate and respond to the challenges of our modern world and it is here to stay.

“MINDFULNESS SPE A K S TO THE URGEN T CONCER NS OF EDUC ATION” 2016

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At the touch of a button Sexting is now a bigger concern to parents than smoking or alcohol abuse. Absolutely Education talks to some schools about how they are tackling the problem A M A N D A C O N S TA N C E

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SENIOR / TA LK ING POIN T

“Girls do not appear to care that their images will be there forever”

Above

An image from Live My Digital

Right

Pupils in the film

I

s your child ‘roasting’ or ‘snaking’?

Are they sharing ‘dodgy pics’ or ‘nudies’? These are just some of the terms today’s teens use to describe cyberbullying and sexting. It is a world alien to most parents and it scares them. A survey for the PSHE Association earlier this summer revealed that sexting is now a bigger worry for parents than smoking or alcohol abuse.

And it’s no surprise that parents are concerned. Schools are reporting a sexting epidemic as thousands of children share sexual imagery online via smartphones and tablets.

Research findings released by the Girls’ Day School Trust (GDST) show that over 50 per cent of teachers know of pupils who engage in sexting, with a quarter of those aged 11.

“Sexting is extremely common and increasing,” said Helen Harris, Deputy Head at a north London school. “Girls do not appear to care that their images will be there forever or that strangers will be viewing them. They think we are very old-fashioned and everyone does this.”

Why has sexting become so widespread?

Reasons include: access to technology – everyone has a smartphone these days; the fact it has become ‘normal behaviour’ for young people in our society; the sense of lack of consequences amongst teens – it all happens remotely, at the touch of a button; and peer pressure, ranging from the more innocent sharing of images between a consenting couple to the more sinister distributing of pictures against somebody’s will.

Very few teenagers realise that they are acting illegally and could face police action if caught.

The sending and distributing of indecent pictures by or to a minor (anyone under the age of 18) is illegal. In some extreme cases, it could result with a child’s name going on the sex offenders' register.

The YouGov poll for the PSHE Association reveals, however, that nine out of 10 parents agree it is up to schools to do more to educate pupils on the dangers of sexting. Only 13 per cent of parents with children aged 18 or under feel that involving the police is a worthwhile approach.

But are schools up to the job? “Sexting is one of the biggest issues at the moment in schools and a lot of them are ill-equipped for making clear decisions about this,” says Charlotte Robertson, co-founder of online safety consultants Digital Awareness UK. Robertson says her firm may get a call to visit a school after a serious sexting incident, “and more often than not the school will say, ‘We didn’t know, we didn’t have the tools’.”

The GDST, a group which includes Notting Hill & Ealing, South Hampstead and Oxford High, has recently launched a video campaign with Digital Awareness UK for students and parents to highlight these very issues, the reason being that “parents feel so disempowered and so out of the loop with what young people are doing,” says Robertson.

2016

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05/09/2016 09:17

SENIOR / TA LK ING POIN T

HOW ONE SCHOOL DEALS WITH SEXTING

W

e can’t hide it, we can’t ban it, we can’t block it,” says Annabel Taylor-Ross, a geography teacher and Head of PSHE at Blundell’s in Devon. “But we do normalise it; we deal with sexting in the same way we would any risks posed to students, whether it’s crossing the road or financial difficulty, which is to provide students with as much information as possible.” At Blundell’s, sexting comes under a house parent's jurisdiction.

Pupils at the school are allowed their phones at school – “they can be very helpful in a geography lesson,” says Taylor-Ross – but not during prep.

Sexting is part of PSHE and sex education lessons, and role play is used

The campaign, called Live My Digital, is a series of six short films for parents and six matching films for children. The topics covered are: Cyberbullying; Identity and Self-Esteem; the Digital Footprint, Relationships and Grooming; Security and Privacy; and Sexting.

Each film lasts for between four and six minutes and is aimed particularly at girls in the 11-13 age range, the group most vulnerable to sexting.

Made by Robertson, who is a YouTuber, and her sister Emma, a social media consultant, they are bright, fresh and full of practical advice such as what to do if your child is sending or receiving sexual imagery.

“GDST is very much on the front foot when it comes to tackling these sorts of issues in schools,” says Robertson. “We were very much on the same wavelength and wanted to do something a bit different.”

Robertson says it helps that they are tech-savvy, industry-leading experts: “We can talk to young people on their level.”

Above Cat Scutt, the Head On the LMD set of Creative Teaching Below and Learning at An image from the GDST, says the Live film cyberbullying film My Digital series is “absolutely not about scaremongering.” The law is, of course, made clear but the series focuses more on motivations, why teens do what they do, and includes open discussions with girls from GDST schools.

“We wanted to spread a positive message,” says Scutt. “We look at ways of creating a positive digital footprint such as people creating online CVs, and at digital entrepreneurs such as Zoella.”

Scutt hopes the films will be used both in schools and by parents. “Educating parents about e-safety is a massive thing for us.

The aim of the the dual films is to ‘open up conversation’ between teens and their parents at home. “Parents are not always that well equipped,” says Scutt. “Just saying, ‘Don’t do it’ drives teens underground. We want to support parents in their support of their children with digital and social media.”

Robertson agrees: “There are two reasons why parents are so disengaged from the online world of teenagers,” she says. “Firstly, teenagers think their parents will overreact, especially if they have done something they perceive as ‘wrong’ online.

Secondly, teenagers think their parents are dinosaurs who won’t understand.

“But there is actually so much parents can offer – these are all social issues, just in a different medium. We just want to connect the dots.”

“If it isn’t a photo you’d leave lying around for your granny to see then don’t send it” in drama to promote discussion. “I also bring in past students to give talks,” says Taylor-Ross. “It has more impact for pupils to hear from older students who have been damaged by it.”

“The key to it is teaching pupils about healthy relationships,” she says.

“It’s about respect. If you wouldn’t say it to your friend’s face, then don’t do it.

And if it isn’t a photo that you’d leave lying around for your granny to see, don’t send it.”

“It is a minefield,” she admits; the school must be appropriate at all times.

“We don’t want to explain to a Year 8 child what sexting is and how to do it if they don’t know yet.”

Parents often ask Taylor-Ross for advice. “The answer is to communicate with our children," she says. "Get them to talk and discuss their feelings and experiences.”

A N N A B E L TAY LO R - R O S S Head of PSHE Blundell’s School

www.gdst.net/parents/livemydigital 2016

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‘Excellent in all 9 areas’ ISI Inspection 2016

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24/08/2016 17:06

SENIOR / OPINION

Stay connected The Head of Digital Learning at Westonbirt School on the importance of technology for girls

By D U N C A N T H O M P S O N

W

estonbirt schools are committed to the innovative use of technology throughout their two schools.

Algorithms are taught from reception upwards, starting in a simple form with pupils learning coding on Scratch and using 2D animation. 3D games are taught using Kodu and Flowol, an online programming tool that enables pupils to program traffic lights and avoid virtual traffic collisions.

Pupils are also learning to build their own robots from kits which they then program to move as they choose. Technical knowledge and learning continues throughout the schools, with more applications being used as pupils move through the years.

Headmistress Natasha Dangerfield says: “I firmly believe that technology in the classroom underpins much of today’s learning across all subject areas.

Knowledge of technology and experience in its wide range of application will reduce barriers for girls wishing to enter Above STEM careers Westonbirt pupils and those in the Below digital and creative In the lab industries.”

“Tech knowledge will encourage girls to enter STEM careers and jobs in the digital industries”

One of the barriers to technology use amongst the older generation is the fear of pressing the wrong button or not knowing what to do. Pupils who engage with technology at an early age are not afraid to try new applications and will carry this learning with them as they grow.

Younger boys and girls at Westonbirt Prep all have access to iPads and interactive white boards are used where teachers, using Classflow, can see all the iPad screens in the classroom at once and can zoom in on one and display it on the whiteboard to the class.

Minecraft is used across the prep school as an additional educational tool. Younger children also use Sumdog for online mathematics, and computer-aided design programs called Techsoft 2D Design and Google SketchUp for drawing. For Key Stage 3, we use an app which has a number of interactive programs for designing and making mechanical toys. Meanwhile, another app is used for designing electronic circuit layouts as well as for designing and testing bridges.

The sport department in the senior school uses YouTube clips to demonstrate techniques such as sprint starts, and video technology is also used to play students' own performances back to them. iMuscle 2 is also used for sports planning and fitness.

Sixth form pupil Scarlett says: “Over the years, the use of technology has definitely grown in the classroom and I find the use of programs like Photoshop very practical.

Internet resources and apps are great sources of information for school subjects, both creative and academic.”

The geography department uses iPads for research, often referring to specific websites like National Geographic and Kerboodle instead of paper textbooks.

Kerboodle is packed with customisable learning content, assessment materials and reporting tools. In the creative departments, screen shots are used for recipes, for example, and videos used for Art History research.

Technology use continues in the Classics department with the Cambridge Latin Course website linked with all manner of online activities as well as fantastic resources about the Roman world.

Clearly, technology in the classroom is here to stay, and it brings the world to life at the touch of a button. At Westonbirt, staff are committed to ensuring pupils have access to the technology they need for research and learning, and pupils leave the sixth form confident in the knowledge that they can apply technology to a range of situations and use it effectively in their chosen careers.

DUNCAN THOMPSON Head of Digital Learning Westonbirt Schools 2016

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SWAP SHOP Partnerships between state and private schools have had some stellar results

By L I S A F R E E D M A N

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09/09/2016 13:04

SENIOR / FE ATUR E

Lord Adonis exhorted private schools to implant their ‘educational DNA’ into state schools

I Above

Harris Westminster pupils

n January, the London Academy of Excellence in east London’s Newham – one of the country’s most deprived boroughs – heard some exciting news. Eight of its sixth formers had received offers from Oxford or Cambridge.

This triumph was, at least in part, attributable to LAE’s ‘partnership’ with some of the county’s leading independent schools. Eton and Highgate, Brighton College and Caterham (amongst others) have all contributed to making LAE a spectacularly above-average addition to the local education landscape.

Less directly, the school is the beneficiary of policies which originated with the last Labour government. In 2007, Lord Adonis, then schools minister, speaking at the Headmasters’ and Headmistresses’ Conference, exhorted independent schools to implant their ‘educational DNA’ into state schools. At the same time, in a less conciliatory manner, the Charity Commission warned fee-paying schools they’d have to do more in the way of ‘public benefit’ to retain the tax advantages charitable status confers.

The independent schools’ response, if not entirely altruistic, has been impressive, and there’s now a raft of state primaries, comprehensives, sixth form colleges and even a boarding school sharing at least part of the genetic make-up of their independent counterparts.

Some of these partnerships have undoubtedly been successful. Others, equally clearly, have been less so. It’s perhaps legitimate to suggest that the greatest benefit has been in schools modelled closely on the independent sector itself, i.e. in schools which admit the brightest by competitive entry, providing them with a motivated peer group, highly-qualified teachers and eyebrow-raising aspirations.

While the independent-state alliance has invariably been targeted at schools admitting pupils from deprived homes, many of them are anything but comprehensive.

2016

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12/08/2016 10:14

SENIOR / FE ATUR E

Left Harris Westminster Above Pupils at Holyport College Below A pupil at Harris Westminster

“Sponsored sixth forms are able to take a picky approach to admissions” The London Academy of Excellence, for example, ‘the Eton of the East End’, was founded in a borough where sixth form places are particularly thin on the ground.

At its launch in 2012, the GCSE grade requirement for entry was six Bs – a fairly standard minimum. For entry in September 2016, the expected bar has risen to five As or A*s. This shift undoubtedly reflects the success of an institution which this year will send three-quarters of its pupils to Russell Group universities. It does not, however, mirror average attainment in West Ham. LAE is not the only recently founded, independent-linked sixth form with its eyes set firmly on the top. Harris Westminster Sixth Form in London’s Victoria, launched in 2015, is a partnership between the highly effective academy chain Harris Federation and Westminster School, one of the country’s most elite schools.

Westminster School provides no financial assistance, but plenty in the way

of academic input, and Harris Westminster sixth formers are taught a Westminster syllabus (with an emphasis on the Pre-U) on a Westminster timetable (including Saturday morning school). In some subjects where the take-up is unusually small, they’re also taught alongside the school’s own pupils.

Getting into Westminster’s £26,000-a-year sixth form is anything but a doddle, and Harris Westminster has a similarly taxing admissions process. Last year 1,000 applicants competed for 250 places and were selected, as at Westminster, on the basis of subject-specific entrance exams and interview. Most successful candidates had GCSE predictions of all A*s and As and, while those in receipt of ‘free school meals’ were given preference (51 places were allocated on this basis), the remainder of the 125 desks were distributed on academic merit ‘regardless of socioeconomic background’.

Independent schools are not the only ones attempting to impart their genes to the gifted and talented. King’s College London Mathematics School, sponsored by the historic London University college, opened in September 2014, and has taken an equally picky approach to admissions, with candidates for its narrow range of subjects (maths, further maths, computer science, economics and physics) selected by

written exam, interview and a minimum A* or A in maths and physics GCSE. The school has obviously selected wisely, as, in last summer’s first ever AS-Level results, 97 per cent of its students achieved a grade A in maths.

It’s hard not to feel that these sponsored sixth forms have confirmed the views of the grammar school traditionalists, i.e. that if you admit the most able, regardless of background, and teach them well, results will be stellar. But this outcome is not, necessarily, directly related to the input of independent schools or universities. Many of the students applying to these recently opened sixth forms were also applying to London’s high-flying unsponsored comprehensives and grammar schools, such as Dame Alice Owen’s School (17 leavers admitted to Oxbridge in 2015), The Camden School for Girls (11), The Latymer

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with Midhurst Rother School in Edmonton (20), The In the science lab at College, a co-educational Henrietta Barnett School (19), Holyport College academy for 11- to 19-yearand Seven Kings in Ilford (7), Right Pupils at Cumnor House olds in West Sussex. Here, amongst others.

England’s oldest public Below Where the independentWalter Boyle, school has helped develop state relationship seems to Headmaster of Holyport maths and science teaching, have been less successful is areas of the curriculum in challenging non-selective where the state sector often environments. Theale struggles to recruit well-qualified staff.

Green School in Berkshire, for example, Of course, boarding itself is something while undoubtedly improving under the English independent schools are renowned sponsorship of Bradfield College, has only for. Eton College (for many the archetype of moved from pre-sponsorship ‘inadequate’ to the genre) has, amongst its many charitable post-intervention ‘requires improvement’ in endeavours, become involved with the statethe opinion of Ofsted. funded Holyport College, a non-selective, It seems that targeted expertise is the co-educational day and boarding school most productive, and Winchester College seven miles from Eton’s Windsor base. has established a successful partnership Opened by the Queen in November 2014, Holyport will eventually admit about 45 per cent of its pupils as boarders paying up to £4000 a term (though a sizeable number will also be on bursaries).

Eton – which has declared its faith in the ‘beneficial, even transformative, influence’ of boarding – shares its teaching, pastoral expertise and facilities with Holyport pupils.

The two schools have also set up a joint investment club for students interested in a career in the City.

If making the right contacts at school is part of independent schools’ DNA, then those attending Holyport may end up in the cabinet yet.

THE THIRD WAY

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umnor House, a 400-strong prep school in Sussex, has taken a different approach to implanting its DNA, setting up a number of fully funded foundation bursaries for those who would never, traditionally, have considered a prep school. ‘The awards are strictly meanstested,’ says Headmaster Christian Heinrich. ‘They’re definitely not for the squeezed middle.’ The two (and, ultimately, it is hoped, four places offered annually) will take children from Year 4 to Common Entrance, when the school intends to pass these bright sparks (‘We expect applicants to be in the top 10 per cent of the year group’) onto linked independent secondaries like Roedean and Tonbridge to continue their education.

LI S A F R E E D M A N Founder & Director of education advisory service At The School Gates attheschoolgates.co.uk 2016

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Learn for Life

We offer the IB Diploma and A-Levels

We are a highly successful co-educational school for 10 -18 year olds offering boarding, Call now to book an flexi-boarding and day places Open Morning or individual visit

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06/09/2016 14:34

Talking

SENIOR / OPINION

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LATERAL SPACE John Browne, Headmaster of Stonyhurst College, on the benefits of horizontal boarding

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s the newest head of the oldest Jesuit school in the world, I am the incoming guardian of a school that believes horizontal, rather than vertical boarding best meets the needs of young people.

Stonyhurst, the oldest Jesuit school in the world, is an extraordinary and unique school with a forward-looking academic culture backed by a strong tradition as part of the Jesuit school system. The Jesuit pedagogy, based on meeting the needs of each child as an individual and supporting them in developing their full potential in life, has been in operation for 450 years, with its philosophy set out formally in the Ratio Studorium of 1599.

As the curator and custodian of the oldest museum in the English-speaking

“Jesuit education focuses on the different needs of children according to their ages” world, which is entrusted to Stonyhurst, Jan Graffius explains, “The Ratio Studiorum did away with the medieval system of education where children of mixed ages were educated in one class, as they found it disruptive, and it did not meet the needs of children at different stages in their educational and mental development. They designed a new system of education which focused on the needs of children at different stages in their development, and advocated that teachers and pupils must get to know each other very well so that teachers were better able to support and guide the children.”

This philosophy also applies to the Jesuit system of boarding. The needs of a 13-yearold are very different to those of a 17-yearold. They take examinations at different times of the year, and their concerns and

preoccupations will be specific to What about role models, you Above their age. At Stonyhurst, there is a may ask. Well, we have those too.

Stonyhurst students by the separate boarding house for each There is a ‘line system’, which pond boys’ year group, and at the end works vertically through the of the year the pupils move up to school, so for the purposes of the next boarding house. The girls’ house competitions, charity fundraising and so is structured slightly differently, with the forth, younger students are encouraged, first three year groups in the Lower Line supported and led by older ones in much the boarding house before moving up to the same way as would happen in a system of Higher Line (sixth form) boarding house. vertical boarding houses. The Jesuit ethos The girls benefit from the same advantages of ‘young men and women for others’ helps of horizontal boarding, such as getting to everyone feel supported and the prefect know everyone in their year group very and committee systems ensure that older well, developing leadership skills within students have plenty of responsibilities that group, having a safe space in which throughout the school. to relax where everyone is at Small tutor groups, with around their level and, for full academic tutors staying boarders, ensuring that there with their students as they are plenty of friends around at progress up the ‘lines’ the weekends. ensures continuity of support, In the traditional vertical but the fact that students model, where boarding pupils move to a new boarding are spread across a number of leader who is a specialist in houses in which they remain caring for students at their throughout, there might be developmental stage also gives JOHN BROWNE only a few friends of similar an opportunity to start each Headmaster age at weekends, which would year anew, and to be the very Stonyhurst College never happen at Stonyhurst. best they can be.

2016

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Finding the person in the pupil since 1841 OPEN MORNING Saturday 1 October from 9.00am

01242 265600

admissions@cheltenhamcollege.org

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SENIOR / INSIDER

Mind the gap The higher education advisor at Cheltenham College on the disparity between boys and girls applying to university

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R E B E C C A E VA N S

he national gap between the total number of young men entering university compared to women continues to widen.

According to UCAS, the entry rate for women at age 18 increased far more than for men in 2015, stretching the gap to a record 9.2 per cent. This translates into the stark reality that young women are now 35 per cent more likely to go to university than men. These figures reflect concerning national trends across a wider educational spectrum. According to the Higher Education Policy Institute (HEPI), boys are under-performing across primary, secondary and higher education – and the situation is intensifying year on year.

This difference in attainment is often attributed to the shift from O-Levels to GCSEs in 1988. Forty GCSEs are thought to have been particularly female-friendly, with more focus on coursework and less on examinations. Girls were more likely than

“The stark reality is that young women are 35 per cent more likely to go to university than men” boys to achieve five or more A-C GCSEs and the gap gradually increased before stabilising at 10 per cent in the mid 1990s.

There is no one simple reason for the different performances of men and women going into higher education, but contributory factors include differing educational attainment, gender differences in the labour market, and the upgrading of nursing and teaching to the status of graduate professions.

It is often said boys in particular would benefit if there were more positive

male role models in schools: in English primary schools, 85 per cent of teachers are female, and in secondary schools the figure is 62 per cent. A more even balance could conceivably help reflect wider society, make up for a lack of male role models at home and help raise achievement levels.

Cheltenham College’s co-educational offering is bucking the trend. In recent years, attainment grades for both GCSE and A-Level results have shown to be remarkably similar between the sexes.

Cheltenham College started admitting girls in the 1980s for sixth form and has been fully co-educational since 1998. Almost 20 years on, girls now represent 42 per cent of the college population aged 13-18 years, with the vast majority boarding.

When comparing the number of grades A*-C at GCSE in 2015, girls inched ahead of boys at Cheltenham by 1.5 per cent. At A-Level, the numbers are very similar.

Above

Cheltenham College Students at Cheltenham encourages applications College to universities across the UK which are best suited to individual student needs and 99 per cent of the student population entered Higher Education last year, with 1 per cent going straight to employment. If using the marker of Russell Group university and Oxbridge places offered, then students are turning the national tables again. In 2015, 51 per cent of Cheltenham College boys went on to study at Russell Group universities or Oxbridge, compared to 38 per cent of the girls in the Upper Sixth.

Overall statistics show boys and girls at Cheltenham benefit from a co-educational setting, achieving high standards at GCSE and A-Level. Furthermore, there is very little discrepancy between the sexes when it comes to university applications.

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09/09/2016 14:42

WORLD-CLASS IB SCHOOL Sevenoaks (founded 1432) is a co-educational day and boarding school for students aged 11 to 18. Just half an hour from Central London and Gatwick Airport, our superb 100-acre campus is in the Kent countryside. Sevenoaks is known for its global outlook and forward-thinking ethos. With over 1000 pupils, the student body is lively, cosmopolitan and open-minded. Boarding is an important element in the school’s daily life and ethos, while our 600-year history, location and 700 day students ensure that the school remains firmly grounded in the local community.

It’s all about the IB here and Sevenoaks shows everyone else how it’s done.

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Academic excellence is delivered by a broad, balanced programme of study and exciting teaching. We have offered the International Baccalaureate since 1978 and our average score is consistently ten points above the world average.

Our students go on to study at leading institutions worldwide, including Oxford, Cambridge and Ivy League.

www.sevenoaksschool.org Registered charity 1101358

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05/09/2016 15:55

Talking

SENIOR / OPINION

HEAD

BUILD BRIDGES Isabel Martínez, Director of The Spanish School in Kensington, on the benefits of being bilingual

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anguages are no longer mere instruments of communication, but also a much-needed set of bridges between different cultures in our global world. As key players in education, schools must contribute to the communicative competence of the new generations. While half of the world’s population is already bilingual, we now know that the human brain is wired for polyglotism: recent neuroimaging research has proved that bilingualism should be the norm, not the exception. Research suggests that bilingual education improves academic excellence and linguistic competence in both languages. Bilingual children develop a mental agility monolinguals lack and perform cognitive tasks better, they are more creative and better at problemsolving, they score higher on standardised

“Bilingual children develop a mental agility monolinguals lack” tests, and their abilities transfer to the acquisition of other languages. Maybe even more importantly today, bilingual education fosters the appreciation of other cultures and provides better job opportunities – two issues that are undoubtedly central to our global societies.

Within the context of bilingual education, language immersion is considered one of the fastest methods to become fluent in a second or foreign language. A bilingual curriculum in Spanish and English in the UK has unquestionable advantages for both the native Spanish speakers and the native English speakers. Firstly, Spanish and English are two of the three most widely used world languages, so full proficiency in both offers students a future ripe with opportunities. While this type of programme preserves the heritage,

Spanish School, where native English speakers and native Spanish speakers are integrated for instruction, so that both groups of students play the role of language model and language learner at different times. It is an inclusive school, offering pre-school, primary and senior education including the IB. The teachers are natives of one language or the other.

The curriculum taught is the Spanish one, and students may continue their studies or a professional career in the UK or Spain. This curriculum, as well as the immersion program in Spanish, enables students to achieve a high level of competence in both languages.

French is also studied from the first year of primary education to the second year of Baccalaureate, and Latin and Galician are also offered as optional subjects. Students and parents actively take part Above language and culture of in school life through their representatives Pupils at Instituto Español Cañada the Spanish students, on the Board of Governors and the Parents Blanch native English speakers Association. The school follows the calendar greatly benefit from set by the Royal Borough of Kensington school immersion in Spanish, thelanguage and Chelsea: classes start in the second with the second-largest number of native week of September and end in the second speakers after Mandarin Chinese. week of July. Lessons begin at 8.45am and The Instituto Español Cañada Blanch finish at 3.25pm (primary) or 4.30pm (senior is a case in point; it forms part of the school). From 3.30pm students can attend Spanish Ministry of Education’s network after-school clubs. The school canteen of Spanish Schools abroad that cater to offers Spanish cuisine in the dining room, the educational needs of but students may also bring a international students. The packed lunch from home. objective is to extend the At The Spanish School, we access to high-quality bilingual believe that every student can education (in Spanish and the achieve bilingually at very language of the host country). high levels. It is our mission is In the UK, a unique bilingual to promote lifelong language programme in Spanish and learning, bi-literacy, personal English – which also includes integrity, a global awareness DR. ISABEL MARTÍNEZ 3-4 hours a week of French and academic excellence Director – has been developed since through a bilingual Spanish Instituto Español Cañada Blanch the 1970s at Cañada Blanch immersion programme.

2016

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They are so so helpful and incredibly supportive.

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MPW colleges are some of the country’s best

The ISI awarded MPW London the highest grade in every category in

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their most recent inspection.

form education, offering GCSEs and A levels in over 45 subjects. We are distinctive in many ways, not least in our small classes of no more than eight students and our exceptional university preparation: over 70% of our students each year progress to top tier universities.

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02/09/2016 10:47

School Leaver STUDYING IN EUROPE p. 102 GUIDE TO OXBRIDGE p. 110 CHANGINGING COURSE p. 115

HARROW BOYS: WHERE NEXT?

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YES TO EUROPE We voted no to the EU but more students than ever are crossing the channel for university J A N E T T E WA L L I S

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n the last century, most of us viewed the offerings of European universities with the enthusiasm we showed continental delicacies like French horse meat, Sardinian maggot cheese or Norweigan boiled lamb’s head. Foreign, and worthy of respect, but most definitely not for us.

That was in the days before tuition fees and grade inflation. Funny how £9,000 fees and spiralling demand for British university places can make European offerings look very appetising indeed.

For more than a decade, the tide of Brits studying in Europe has been rising steadily. The number of British students at Maastricht University in Holland, which teaches most courses in English, has quadrupled in the past five years.

The good…

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ost is probably the biggest motivating factor behind the surge. In 2017, UK tuition fees will rise to £9,250 per year, and they were already the highest in Europe.

By contrast, universities in Denmark, Austria, Norway, Greece, Germany, Ireland, and elsewhere charge no fees at all to EU students. Maastricht charges only around £1,600 a year.

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But money isn’t everything – many British students only look to Europe after failing to win a university place in the UK. Gap years and crammers, once the traditional remedies of the disappointed, have been supplanted by turning to Europe, where overseas credentials may set British students apart – in a good way – and money may be saved in the process.

The growth in English Medium Instruction, especially at post-graduate level but increasingly for undergraduate study too, has made all the difference.

Maastricht led the way, taking the decision to offer most courses in English from 1996.

The university’s write-up in Uni in the USA… and Beyond, a student guide to study abroad, says it all: “With an admissions process that will practically send a taxi for British applicants, it’s a wonder that people aren’t abandoning UCAS in droves to get out here.” Other top destinations for UK students are Utrecht University, the University of Copenhagen, the Polytechnic

“Funny how £9,000 of fees and spiralling demand can make Europe look appetising”

University of Milan (where all graduate courses are taught in English), and Trinity College, Dublin.

British students who can speak, or are willing to learn, a European language, have even greater choice. Online search engines like StudyInEurope offer useful filters, allowing prospective applicants to choose European universities based on language of instruction, fees, subject of study and even cost of living.

Independent schools have been standardbearers in the march to Europe. Their applications to US universities have also risen, but Europe is closer and your Ryanair chariot awaits you. At Dulwich College

2016

09/09/2016 13:26

SCHOOL LE AV ER / FE ATUR E

Above Dulwich College pupils: keen on Europe Right ...As is Headmaster Joe Spence

roughly a dozen boys consider university in Europe each year, a rise from half a dozen two or three years ago.

Headmaster Dr Joseph Spence endorses the trend: “It really does widen the horizons and, in an increasingly competitive job market, I can’t help believing that a good degree from the foreign university will stand out from a 2:1 from any one of those universities up the A1 to which independently educated pupils so naturally progress, in their herds,” he says.

Cheltenham Ladies College also reports more of its girls aiming for university in Europe: “Over the last five years, around 15 per cent of CLC girls have chosen to study 2016

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The Sunday Times top performing independent school for Highers & Advanced Highers 2015

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Whole School Open Day Saturday 1st October 2016, 11am - 2pm Scholarship & Whole School Open Day Saturday 4th February 2017 Open Doors Afternoon Friday 17th March 2017, 2pm - 4pm Open Doors Afternoon Friday 28th April 2017, 2pm - 4pm To find out more, request a prospectus, or arrange to come to see Kilgraston for yourself, please contact Admissions on admissions@kilgraston.com or 01738 812 257.

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05/09/2016 11:18

SCHOOL LE AV ER / FE ATUR E

The ugly…

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he European option will become more of a gamble once the UK leaves the EU. British students’ tuition fees may rise, as they will no longer benefit from EU citizenship, and they could no longer be eligible for student loans and free European medical insurance.

Universities have, so far, kept calm and expressed the will, if not the way, to carry on. The Erasmus Programme, which since 1987 has allowed over 200,000 UK students to study for periods of up to a year at European universities, has said there will be “no immediate change” to the UK’s participation. In the longer term, though, Britain may need to dream up its own exchange programme.

Arnold Digva, in Poland, feels relatively bullish. “When we leave the EU I’m sure we will go to having a relationship like Norway with the EU – there are many Norwegians at the university and they don’t have any problems studying. The issue is whether the UK would accept the degrees from the EU.” “Brexit could be devastating for UK

abroad,” the school told us. “And Europe was the second most popular destination, after the US.” Arnold Digva had lined up an impressive list of exam results when he left Nottingham High School a few years ago with three A’s at A-Level. But when his UCAS application for dentistry fell flat, he decided to look abroad. He is now completing his degree at Poznan University of Medical Sciences in Poland and has never looked back: “I definitely enjoyed studying abroad and it made me into a different person.”

An exception to the rule of cheap courses in Europe, Arnold’s tuition fees are £10,000£12,000 per year, but this is the same for all Above & below Sixth formers at Cheltenham Ladies College

students, whether from the EU or further afield. “In my year we have six Brits in a class of 30, so that’s quite a lot. There are more and more UK students coming here each year, which has led to the university establishing an admissions office in London.”

The bad…

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ot everyone’s European adventure works out as seamlessly, so choosing carefully is important.

Simon Hudson, who enrolled in an economics masters degree at KU Leuven, was disappointed with the teaching. “I experienced a very different (in many ways worse), old-fashioned style of learning and teaching there.”

The following year Simon moved to The United Nations University – Maastricht Economic and Social Research Institute on Innovation and Technology (UNUMERIT). “I was among an incredibly diverse and international group of people from 50-odd countries and I preferred its problem-based learning.”

Living costs can be higher than in the UK, and the weak post-Brexit pound has made survival in many European cities fiendishly expensive. Don’t assume you will be assigned accommodation – or anything else. “They expect you to fend for yourself,” says John Wallis, co-author of Uni In the USA… and Beyond. “Finding an acceptable place to stay will take hard work, patience and a willingness to settle for less than what you were hoping for.”

“Independent schools have been standard-bearers in the march to Europe” higher education,” says Harriet Plyler, who runs the Good Schools Guide International.

“Before the referendum people had no idea how much UK university funding came from the EU. We now know that fees alone paid by EU students totalled £600m a year by 2015. Fees will have to rise significantly here to make up the shortfall. European options, as well as the US, will likely become even more attractive to UK students than they are now.”

Even in a worst-case scenario, in which UK students end up having to pay the same in Europe as non-EU students do, the fees will still, usually, be less than in the UK. Some EU countries already charge the same price (sometimes zero) to all students, wherever they come from.

If all else fails, Ireland’s Boarding Schools Conference advises British sixth formers to examine their family ancestry for an Irish grandparent for access to an EU passport and the study rights it may carry. Never has Irish citizenship been more highly prized!

JA N E T T E WA L LI S Senior Editor The Good Schools Guide goodschoolsguide.co.uk 2016

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31/08/2016 30/08/2016 21:04 17:48

SCHOOL LE AV ER / INSIDER

Choose wisely The Director of Higher Education at Sevenoaks School says it isn’t all about Oxbridge; other universities might offer a better course for you W E N DY H E Y D O R N

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rospective parents often ask me about our number of entrants to Oxbridge. Offers from Oxbridge have traditionally been regarded as a barometer of the quality of a school.

There’s a good reason for this. Oxbridge is synonymous with quality, and if you want a first-rate university education, Oxford and Cambridge, consistently ranked near the top of world university tables, have few rivals in the UK. Around 20 per cent of Sevenoaks School students receive Oxbridge offers each year for a range of courses and it remains an attractive option. The lure of the academic environment, the prospect of being taught in small-group supervisions or tutored by world-leading experts, the eight-week terms and the specific appeal of the academic courses available all still have a magnetic appeal for prospective students.

“Oxbridge numbers are no longer a reliable measure of a school’s worth” And yet the landscape has changed dramatically, and in my opinion Oxbridge numbers are no longer a reliable measure of a school’s worth. And here’s why.

The first reason is the international university landscape. In the 2015 Times Higher Education World University Rankings, 10 of the top 15 ranked universities were in the US, including three of the top five. The high reputation that these institutions enjoy means that students will obtain a top quality degree that is globally recognised.

Above

The second reason A sixth form student at is course choice. The Sevenoaks Liberal Arts courses School that are distinctive of US university education enable students to maintain a breadth of study across disciplines, an approach which is highly prized in our interconnected world. Whilst Liberal Arts is not offered at Oxbridge, it is at universities including Durham, Exeter, Leeds and Bristol.

University College London’s pioneering undergraduate degree in Arts and Sciences (BASc), launched in 2012, enables students flexibility to choose a Major and a Minor, and to combine science and humanities courses with core modules that aim to promote interdisciplinary thinking. Indeed, UCL (along with Imperial) appears within the top ten global universities.

There are many excellent traditional academic courses on offer at Oxford and Cambridge, but other universities offer

niche courses that simply aren’t available at either of those institutions, such as Artificial Intelligence at Edinburgh, Sustainable Development at St Andrews, Sports Science at Loughborough or International Management and French at Bath. It is crucial that students apply for a course that best suits them and their interests.

It’s worth researching the best institutions for your chosen course. Close scrutiny of the Research Excellence Framework reveals that if you are looking for overall quality of research, Birmingham, York and Southampton are top for History while UCL, Warwick and Imperial are top for Computer Science and Informatics.

According to research conducted recently by High Fliers, the most targeted universities by graduate employers are Manchester and Nottingham.

So rather than enquire about Oxbridge numbers, it’s worth asking what a school does to help students decide about course choice and then prepare them for university, the workplace and beyond. At Sevenoaks we have 13 staff who work on this, including specialist higher education advisors. In today’s climate, schools, students and parents need to be more strategic. Whilst Oxford and Cambridge will continue to suit many excellent students, other equally capable students may opt to study elsewhere, and in an increasingly global workplace, students would do well to think broadly.

W E N DY H E Y D O R N Director of Higher Education Sevenoaks School, Kent 2016

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UNIVERSITY CHALLENGE Academic advisors Bonas MacFarlane on how to give your child the best chance of securing the university place they deserve

By S A R A H C H A R T E R S

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any parents see getting into the right university as the culmination of everything their child has worked for over the last 14 years at school. However, this final step can often be the hardest and feel the most complicated. The headaches start with having to choose which university and which course is right. Once that’s narrowed down, you then have to secure the place.

For many students the aim is a place at one of the Russell Group universities.

These include Oxford, Cambridge, Warwick, Edinburgh, UCL, Bristol, Imperial, LSE and York. Applying to these institutions means students are competing against applicants from all over the world.

A place at a top university can define your child’s career and future, so it is always surprising how little time many sixth formers dedicate to researching the choices available and completing their applications.

The personal statement is the one chance students have on the UCAS application form to convince admissions tutors that they should be given a place. Because it is so crucial it can often be a source of great stress for both students and parents. It has to show that the student is interested in the chosen subject and has the academic potential to cope with studying it for three 108

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of four years. It’s challenging to get it right. The personal statement should not be a list of achievements, books and work experience placements; the best ones will map out the journey which the student has undertaken in order to arrive at the decision to study the chosen subject.

While many schools have their own support services, the best applications are made by those students who have thought ahead and spent a considerable length of time planning their applications. By planning, I mean more than the structuring and drafting of the personal statement itself. A planned programme of reading and research will help a student to gain a better understanding of the subject that they want to read at university.

At Bonas MacFarlane our advice is that, even before an applicant puts pen to paper, they should research their subject and how it is taught at university. A student who has made a genuinely informed decision to study a course will find the entire application process less challenging.

Knowledgeable students find it easier to convince an admissions tutor that they are a strong candidate. The challenge is how to become genuinely informed about university courses.

The Bonas MacFarlane Academy offers a unique University Preparation Programme designed to make sixth formers become more effective university applicants.

Students joining the Academy’s programme

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Above Balliol College, Oxford Left Christ Church, Oxford Right A building at University College London

are taught in small online seminars, working alongside high calibre fellow students from all over the world. Students are asked to consider the skills required in their chosen degree subject and helped to reflect on how they can evidence these. They are fully prepared before they begin writing their personal statements. The Academy also provides expert guidance on aptitude tests and interviews, which are required for Oxbridge courses and for highly competitive subjects such as Law and Medicine.

“The best personal statements map students’ journies” We find that as students investigate their subjects more deeply, many want to undertake further research. For those interested enough to do this, the Academy provides courses which will steer a student through a supported piece of research on a topic of their choice. It is a good option for those students whose school does not offer an opportunity to study for the Extended Project Qualification. As well as extending their subject research and, therefore, their interest, it can be an excellent source of discussion for an interview if it is mentioned in the personal statement.

The University Preparation Programme aims to give students the tools to produce something truly excellent for their application. It encourages self-reflection and careful consideration of the subject which the student has chosen to study. The very best personal statements are from students who have done these things.

My experience in sixth forms has taught me that the best applicants are the most prepared. Those who leave this to the last minute do not obtain the offers they want, because the lack of preparation shows. In the Academy, we aim to address this by asking students to start thinking in January of their Lower Sixth year. We then work with them all the way through to the point of application in the autumn. University really does set us on a certain path in life and so the application warrants some very careful attention.

SA R A H C H A R T E R S He a d Bonas MacFarlane Academy 2016

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TESTING TIMES With Cambridge introducing an entrance exam for next year’s intake, the university advisor at Keystone Tutors explains how best to navigate the Oxbridge application process

By E D R I C H A R D S O N

I

s it getting harder to win a place at the best universities in the UK? In 2015 Cambridge received 16,431 applications and rejected over 12,000 of them. Are there simply more applicants than before? UCAS’s end of year report recorded a 3.1% rise in the number of students entering UK higher education compared to the previous year.

And over the last 10 years the number of applications to both Cambridge and Oxford has increased considerably (Oxford: 42%; Cambridge: 30%).

But more applicants doesn’t necessarily result in a more competitive entry. The UCAS report shows a 5.6% increase in the number of A-levels sat over the last 10 years, suggesting that more applicants are increasingly academically dexterous.

But do today’s applicants achieve better results? Yes, data shows that more applicants are indeed achieving the best grades: in 2015 26% of entries were A* or A grades, compared to 22.6% of results being an A in 2006 (the A* was introduced in 2010).

So, how do universities sort through so many top-quality applicants? Typically, students need to submit a UCAS

application by 15 January in their last year of school. This consists of a set of predicted grades (historically AS-Level), a personal statement and a teacher-written reference supporting a candidate’s academic credentials for degree-level study. However, Oxford and Cambridge are exceptional when it comes to the application process, as their deadline for submission is on 15 October each year. So candidates wishing to apply need to begin to prepare much earlier, ideally before the summer break, to ensure their application is suitably strong. The personal statement (a 4,000-character, one-page document) is often viewed as the key element of a candidate’s UCAS application; it is a chance for candidates to show admissions tutors that they’re ideally suited to study their chosen course at undergraduate level and is often the only differentiating factor Ω an opportunity to stand out from the crowd.

Crucially, admissions tutors, particularly those at Oxford and Cambridge, want to see candidates demonstrate their enthusiasm and commitment for their preferred course.

They must also convey how they have developed their subject interest beyond their studies at school.

“The Oxbridge personal statement is an opportunity to stand out from the crowd”

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Punting on the River Cam near King’s College, Cambridge

Unfortunately, a place at Oxford or Cambridge is not won merely on the strength of a UCAS application. Successive years of A-level grade inflation have also led to some universities, including Cambridge, to question their true value.

Professor Barbara Sahakian of Cambridge's Department of Psychiatry says: “What people are concerned about is whether the A-Level exam results still mean quite the same thing as they used to mean. There are a lot of students getting very high grades but not all of them would have got those grades in the past.” Cambridge, therefore, has sought to develop new ways of assessing the academic profile of candidates during the admissions process; those applicants applying for courses starting in autumn 2017 will be required to sit entrance exams.

There are two types of test: pre-interview and at-interview. Oxford University has long

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required the majority of its applicants to sit written pre-interview assessments as part of the application process (e.g. the History Aptitude Test (HAT)) and it seems that in some subjects Cambridge has opted to introduce similar or indeed the same tests, such as the English Literature Admissions Test (ELAT).

Applicants are then shortlisted for interview on the basis of their application and pre-interview test. At-interview tests are similar in form to pre-interview ones, but admissions tutors may well refer to the these tests during the interview if they are sat beforehand. At-interview results are then used alongside the UCAS application and interview performance to determine whether an offer is to be given.

Like at Oxford, both the pre- and at-interview tests at Cambridge are designed to test aptitude in areas such

as comprehension, thinking skills, and, where appropriate, knowledge. Whereas A-levels often test factual recall, these written exams look for analytical and critical abilities. Although Cambridge states that ‘no advanced preparation is needed’ it is advisable for candidates to ensure that they: have strong specific subject knowledge read beyond the syllabus requirements do practice papers expect these tests to stretch them in ways

they may not have experienced at school Cambridge (like Oxford) shares more information than you might think on their websites, including numerous past papers for almost every subject; applicants should be able to get a good idea of what they are getting themselves in for. Most at-

interview assessments will be an hour long and most pre-interview assessments will be no longer than two hours. Cambridge has added a new section to its website providing further information on the duration, content and format of each test.

Applicants should not fear these new exams, but instead look upon them as another opportunity to state their case for studying at one of the world’s premier universities. Ultimately, the addition of such tests brings Cambridge more in line with Oxford regarding what to expect, bringing the admission process a sense of clarity.

For more information visit: www.undergraduate.study.cam.ac.uk www.ox.ac.uk/admissions www.ucas.com 2016

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FIND THE RIGHT ANSWERS The Independent Schools Show is the UK’s largest school open day. With more than 200 of the country’s leading nurseries, pre-preps, senior schools and sixthform colleges, it is the ultimate forum for parents to meet the biggest names in British education under one roof. Come to Battersea Park on 12 and 13 November to get all your education questions answered

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he Independent Schools Show is celebrating its 10th anniversary this year.

That’s ten years of helping thousands of parents find the right school for their child. Come and meet key admissions staff and receive advice on fundamental questions such as how to navigate the London system, when to start tuition, how to win a scholarship, what the options are for children with special educational needs, and whether or not boarding school is the answer.

There is also the chance to attend a number of talks at the renowned Education Theatre, where the UK’s top heads and brightest thinkers will address some of the most important issues in schools right now.

And it’s a fun day out for the family, with two great cafes from Muriel’s Kitchen, a free crèche, and Battersea Park to play in. With so much in one place, there is no better way to plan for your child’s future.

SATURDAY 12 NOVEMBER / 10:00 ˜ 17.00 SUNDAY 13 NOVEMBER / 10.30 ˜ 16.30

INDEPENDENT SCHOOLS SHOW Battersea Evolution, Battersea Park, London SW11 4NJ. Find out more at schoolsshow.com

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EDUCATION THEATRE TALKS INCLUDE The changing face of independent education PATRICK DERHAM Head Master of Westminster School

ADAM PETTITT Head of Highgate School

•

State till eight?

Moving your child between state and independent schools RALPH LUCAS Editor of The Good Schools Guide

KEITH BUDGE Headmaster of Bedales

•

Action For Happiness SIR ANTHONY SELDON Vice-Chancellor of the University of Buckingham

•

How to choose the right school BARNABY LENON Chairman of the Independent Schools Council

•

How to navigate the 11+ and 13+ systems BEN THOMAS Headmaster of Thomas’s Battersea

• Increasing access to independent schools

PROFESSOR MARK BAILEY High Master of St Paul’s School •

Starting out in London NICK BAKER

Head of Wetherby Preparatory and Senior Schools

JANE RITCHIE Alpha Plus Group

•

Your changing child: providing support, learning to cope and nurturing achievement From the Tavistock and Portman Clinic

DR SARAH WYNICK Head of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry

LAVERNE ANTROBUS Consultant Child and Educational Psychologist

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Scholarships and bursaries answered SUSAN HAMLYN Director of The Good Schools Guide Education Consultants

2016

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Discover the science and technology that will change your life, your planet and how you see the cosmos

22–25 September 2016 ExCel London

BOOK TICKETS NOW newscientistlive.com *transaction fee applies, must be booked by 21/9/2016, £20 tickets available on 22/9/16-23/9/16 only. Tickets £22.50 on 24/9/16 and 25/9/16

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Tickets start from just £20* Quote ABS16

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SCHOOL LE AV ER / INSIDER

Mind the trap It’s surprisingly easy to change your GCSE or A-Level course if you’re not happy JO CARTER

S

tudents realising that they are studying in the wrong place at the halfway point in their GCSE or A-Level courses often feel trapped, believing they are obliged to stay at their current school to complete the second half of their qualifications. In fact, mid-course transfers are far more common than most people think, and are usually very straightforward.

There are a number of reasons why students and their families would consider a mid-course transfer. Some outgrow boarding and prefer to gain a little more independence and control in their final years of schooling. Others might have been streamed into a group with a ‘glass ceiling’, one preparing them for foundation papers and thus preventing them from aiming for top grades. A

“Take a proactive approach. Don’t languish for a further three terms in a place that feels unsuitable” desire to learn study skills is another key motivator. It is not uncommon for a student to work hard but achieve low grades, and a possible solution to this is to move to a school where examination technique and revision tips are integrated within the scheme of work.

Many independent schools and colleges have years of experience in accommodating students midway through a course, and staff in these establishments will work hard to minimise disruption and facilitate a smooth

Above

transfer. Students are Students at often surprised to learn Mander Portman Woodward that the work they have already completed is a relevant grounding for a second year elsewhere and they will not be required to start again from scratch.

Another revelation is how common such a transfer is and how many of their peers are in very much the same situation.

Taking a proactive approach to education is encouraged. If they are feeling disillusioned at the halfway point then students would be well-advised to investigate alternatives and make an informed decision about where to continue their studies, rather than languishing for a further three terms in a place that feels unsuitable.

Savannah Adler transferred schools halfway through her GCSEs and describes her experience as follows: “I was at a drama school when I started my GCSEs but by the end of the first year my mother and I decided that it would be better for me to go somewhere more academically focused, and so in year 11 I

moved to MPW. It was a safe choice because it came recommended by two of my cousins and two of my godbrothers who had all studied there. I was also reassured by the long meeting I had with the principal before I came. He took a lot of time to explain to me and my mother what to expect and how a transfer would work.

“I needn’t have worried anyway; moving was much easier than I imagined and I settled in straight away. I had a director of studies mentoring me, which helped me a lot.

It felt like there was someone looking out for me and making sure I was OK, and there was always someone to approach if I had any questions.

“The class sizes were much smaller than I was used to, which meant that I got a lot of attention, and the teaching was fantastic. I used to really struggle with GCSE Chemistry and was getting E and U grades. When I took my first revision test after a month at MPW, I got a high B. I couldn’t believe it. We were taught study skills like exam technique and how to revise well, which made a huge difference to me.

“Another thing that was great was how easy it was to make friends. I met other students at registration, in my classes and in the common rooms. MPW has the best atmosphere; it’s such a friendly and inclusive place. I stayed on after GCSE and am just coming to the end of Year 13. MPW feels like home.”

JO CARTER Director of Studies Mander Portman Woodward 2016

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Absolute Education A4 Sep16.qxp_Layout 1 07/09/2016 15:28 Page 1

OFFERING AN

OUT STANDING EDUCATION

Outstanding off the field…

And on the field…

• 91% of pupils gained places at their first or second choice university*

• No 1 UK Junior Golf School (ISGA, 2014/15 and 2015/16)

• 50% of pupils went to UK Russell Group Universities, Bath, St Andrews and leading international institutions*

• U18 Scottish Schools Tennis Champions, 2015 - winners an impressive 7 out of 9 years

• SAT support clinics for applicants for American Universities held weekly. In the past two years, many students have gained admission to Ivy League Universities such as Cornell and Brown • Top 5% of UK Schools for value-added, 2015

• No 3 UK Tennis School (LTA, 2016)

• 64 Merchistonians capped at full international level (most recent – Sam Hidalgo-Clyne, 2015) • Representation in all of the 2015/16 Scottish National Rugby Teams

• Gradual progression to secondary teaching from Primary 6

• In 2015/16, there were 87 different teams, of all abilities, playing competitive fixtures across 16 sports: a total of 590 fixtures

• Best Head of Public School 2016 (runner-up) - Tatler Schools Guide

• 89% of all pupils, from 7-18, have represented the School in sport in 2015/16

* Based on Interim Results August 2016

• New floodlit 2G Astroturf-opened September 2016

• 96% A*-C pass rate at GCSE*

“A balanced curriculum, excellent pastoral care and a high A Level pass rate make Merchiston one of the UK’s leading independent schools.” www.ukboardingschools.com

Personal tours available all year

0131 312 2201 MERCHISTON.CO.UK Recognised by the Inland Revenue as a Charity, number SC016580 Merchiston Castle School, Colinton Road, Edinburgh, EH13 0PU, Scotland

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A Boarding and Day School for Boys aged 7- 18

07/09/2016 16:00

Autumn Books BOOK REVIEWS p. 118 CRESSIDA COWELL p. 122 MATHS ON THE GO p. 127

FIERCE C R E AT U R E S

Wild Animals of the North is an amazing ilustrated encyclopedia of the wildlife of the northern hemisphere, from American in the west to the furthest reaches of Asia.

Here you'll find polar bears, roe deer, lobsters and butterflies depicted in a fierce, geometric style.

Dieter Braun, £20

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AUTUMN BOOK SPECIAL

Top Children’s

BOOKS

MUST READ

11+

With a new term upon us and hundreds of titles to choose from, here’s our pick of the best autumn titles from the brilliant book site Lovereading4kids

8+

THE SECRET HORSES OF BRIAR HILL

The Hypnotist

b y Megan Shepherd & Levi Pinfold

WALKER

 This story of a young girl in a sanatorium and the magical winged horses that only she can see is beautifully written and illustrated. Emmaline is sick with the ‘stillwaters’ and traumatised by a terrible event in her past, though this is wartime and her story is not unusual. When she finds a wounded winged horse she resolveses to save it, and brings colour into the grey sanatorium. Emmaline is a heroine in the tradition of David Almond’s Mina – a vital character who transcends her surroundings.

by Laurence Anholt

T

CORGI

here are three very different narrators in Laurence Anholt’s debut children’s novel. Pip, a young black boy is an orphan employed to look after the bedridden wife of a farmer.

Jack is Irish, a professor of neurology at a university, and a gifted hypnotist. Hannah is Native American, also employed by the farmer, and selectively mute. Pip’s story is told as third person narrative, Jack narrates the story himself, and Hannah’s contributions are in verse.

The setting is 60s America – the deep south – and the shadow of the Klan threatens them all. But Pip is named after Dickens’ hero, and does indeed have great expectations. Tense, exciting and often funny, this is a story Dickens would be proud of.

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9+

COGHEART

by Peter Bunzl USBORNE

 From its opening scene aboard an airship harpooned mid-air, Cogheart is filled with fabulous visual images and a tangible sense of adventure.

It follows the story of Lily, whose inventor father is missing, presumed dead after the airship crash.

What secrets was he keeping and why are others so determined to find them out? Lily is a great character but readers’ hearts are likely to be won by her clockwork fox companion, Malkin, one of many automata created by her father. The story proceeds at speed, reaching its climax – where else? – on the clock face of Big Ben!

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AUTUMN BOOKS

13+

Word Nerd

7+

MUST READ

b y Susin Nielsen ANDERSEN PRE SS

 Susin Nielsen has won many fans for her poignant, character-driven stories of young people in difficult situations. Ambrose, the eponymous word nerd, is just such a central character; he’s isolated, lonely and socially awkward too. His life changes when he strikes up a friendship with a former drug addict with a prison record and the two join a local Scrabble club. A feelgood story filled with memorable characters, and one that sneaks all sorts of life truths past its readers, too.

13+

FANTASTICALLY GREAT WOMEN WHO CHANGED THE WORLD b y Kate Pankhurst BLOOMSBURY

 It’s impossible not to be inspired by this book, written by a descendent of Emmeline Pankhurst, and the great women featured in it. Their stories are told across bright spreads, which are packed with information that will make readers excited about the remarkable achievements described. It’s a varied lineup of subjects, including a scientist, a writer, an athlete, an explorer and a fashion designer, alongside a civil rights campaigner and even a secret agent.

Each page explains what these pioneering women did, and shows that everyone has the potential to change the world – just follow your heart and don’t listen when people say you can’t do something!

LYDIA THE WILD GIRL OF PRIDE & PREJUDICE

by Natasha Farrant CHICKEN HOUSE

Y

ounger sister of Lizzy and Jane, Lydia Bennet is one of literature’s great catalysts. Her actions are fundamental to the story of Pride and Prejudice, but there we never learn exactly what lead up to her elopement with Wickham.

Natasha Farrant fills in those gaps, drawing Lydia as an impetuous, bold, determined teenage girl, much more likeable than she’s allowed to be in Austen’s novel. She gives Lydia some 21st-century sensibilities, showing her frustrated by society’s constraints on women and dreaming of escape and independence. This story is full of surprises, a fresh, sharp but faithful reimagining which will delight readers, whether they know the original or not.

11+

Here I Stand

b y Various authors WALKER

 This powerful collection of stories, commissioned

by Amnesty International, features contributions from a stellar lineup of authors including Matt Haig and Frances Hardinge. Human rights abuses of many different kinds provide the starting point for the stories, but despite the cruelty described, the tone is mostly one of hope. These are stories that will do more than make readers think, they will make them recognise the responsibility we all share to stand up for human rights.

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AUTUMN BOOKS

7+

The Royal Rabbits of London

7+

MUST READ

b y Santa Montefiore & Simon Sebag Montefiore SIMON & SCHUSTER

 You may not know this, but whenever a rabbit hears the words ‘the Queen’, it sits up and uses its ears to bow, even if it is in bed or on the run. It’s testament to the authors’ gifts as storytellers that within a few paragraphs readers will believe this completely. There are shades of Watership Down in the story of Shylo, the runt who embarks on a daring adventure, but it brings to mind Wind in the Willows too.

13+

THE RACEHORSE WHO WOULDN’T GALLOP b y Clare Balding PUFFIN

THE THOUSANDTH FLOOR

 Young readers will gallop through Clare Balding’s utterly delightful debut children’s novel – in fact, they’ll be smiling from the very first sentence. Steeped in farm and family life and full of fascinating details from the world of horse racing too, it’s the rags-to-riches story of Charlie, who buys the racehorse no one else wants and goes on to enter him in the Derby.

Noble Warrior isn’t the only one to prove what he’s made of; Charlie too finds the confidence to ignore her brothers’ taunts about her thighs. Heaven in a feed-bucket for pony-mad readers, this will win everyone’s heart!

b y Katharine McGee HARPERCOLLINS

S

et 100 years in the future, in a world of luxury and wealth, this slick, savvy debut explores an ageold theme: money doesn’t make you happy, and it certainly can’t buy you love.

It opens dramatically with a girl plunging from the top of the 1,000-storey tower that now houses all the inhabitants of Manhattan.

The story then goes back to explore events that led to the tragedy, following five teenagers: Avery, flawlessly beautiful; Leda, struggling with addiction; Eris, suddenly and shockingly deprived of her privileged lifestyle; Rylin, working as a maid; and Watt, the boy who knows everything about everyone.

A heady mix of gossip, scandal, love, jealousy and intrigue makes for addictive reading.

12+

Wonderboy b y Nicole Burstein ANDERSEN PRE SS

 Joseph is asthmatic and rubbish at sports, bullied regularly and nicknamed Wilco because he always complies when someone demands he does their homework. Imagine his surprise and excitement, therefore, when he develops special powers. The story that follows is a sharply-observed comedy of teen life with a serious undertone. Amongst the comic-book action, Burstein shows what heroism – the kind that calls for true courage – really is.

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The

M A K ING of Me

AUTUMN BOOK SPECIAL

Cressida Cowell The children’s author and illustrator on the very different influences of her two senior schools

C

I loved Marlborough more because it was freer – I was always in lots of trouble at St Paul’s and it’s hard to love a school that’s permanently telling you off.

ressida Cowell, 50, is a children’s author and illustrator, best known for the How to Train Your Dragon books, two of which have been made into award-winning animated films. She lives in west London with her husband and her three children.

What were your schooldays like?

I was not totally straightforward as a schoolchild: very disorganised, very dreamy and very clever – I was reading Chaucer for pleasure at 14. Not necessarily what school was looking for. I was always in trouble for losing things and for handing in my homework late.

Q

A

Where did you go to school and when?

St Paul’s Girls’ School in the late 70s, before that Bute House (St Paul’s Girls’ Preparatory School) and then Marlborough College for sixth form.

Q

A

What sort of school was it? What was its ethos?

A St Paul’s was very feminist and academic; it promoted a fierce questioning intelligence. We weren’t expected to absorb knowledge passively, but to ask questions and speak out.

Marlborough was more entrepreneurial, creative and accepting and, funnily enough more diverse than St Paul’s – it talked to the all-round child. There were pupils at Marlborough who said they didn’t want to go to university at all. You would never have heard that at St Paul’s.

Q

Did you love it or hate it?

St Paul’s was very feminist and I loved that. The underlying assumption was that women were as good as men – if not better.

But it was an education that made me question education itself – it felt very narrowly academic. At St Paul’s, if you didn’t get into Oxbridge, you felt as if you had somehow failed. I was a very creative child and I wanted to do art A-Level but they said, ‘No, you are an academic child.’

That’s why I went to Marlborough, where I did four A-Levels: Art, History of Art, English and History.

Q

A

Q Who was your favourite or most influential teacher?

A Miss Mellows at Bute House – such a brilliant teacher. She gave me books that I could write stories in without her correcting the grammar. I made up masses of stories to put in this book. It was unmarked, which was terribly important.

What you want to do is develop the child’s imagination and writing – nowadays it's difficult for children to develop that pure love of writing.

I was simply copying The Famous Five but I was creating and Miss Mellows was uncritical. That one teacher had a huge effect on me.

I also had an incredible, inspirational teacher at Marlborough, my charismatic head of art, Robin Child. His daughter, Lauren (the Charlie and Lola author), was at Marlborough with me and we are still great friends.

Did you have a favourite place at school?

A I loved the countryside around Marlborough – it’s absolutely stunning.

Even when I was young and going out for a sneaky fag I really appreciated it.

I really like the girls-only places at Marlborough. We had a special place for break and girls-only dorms. It gave us a great sense of sisterhood Ω we were 10 to one in those days!

Q

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PROFILE

Above Cressida as a child in Scotland

What was your proudest achievement?

My friendships, my soulmates, from those days.

Q

“There was a great sense of sisterhood at Marlborough, we were 10 to one in those days!”

A

Q What was the most trouble you got into?

A I was always getting caught smoking at Marlborough, and always in trouble for being chaotic. If I had a pound for every teacher who said, “You’ll never make anything of yourself being so disorganised”...

Q What is your most vivid memory of your time there?

A I loved the singing and music at St Paul’s.

There was an incredible organist. I adored the carol concerts, singing very loudly and wildly out of tune.

Q Would you send your own children there?

A I wouldn’t send my children to boarding school. I want them at home. All three are currently at Latymer Upper. We are very lucky, it is down the road from where we live.

A Growing up I didn’t know any writers or filmmakers in the way my own children do now. My father was a businessman and there were a lot of politicians in my family.

I knew I wanted to do something creative. At school I was always writing books. I briefly worked in publishing but realised I wanted to be on the other side.

What are your plans for the future?

I’ve got something very exciting coming in September 2017 – a whole new series I’m working on for eight- to 12-year-olds.

And I’m an ambassador for the National Literacy Trust and World Book Day – getting children to read is very important to me.

Q

How did school influence the person you are today?

A I think I’m a pretty strong feminist. I’m a questioner and I’m very creative. I think the two schools balanced me – I have the entrepreneurial side that Marlborough encouraged and the questioning side from St Paul’s.

I was in education for a long time and I use all of it now – at Oxford I read AngloSaxon and did Beowulf and at art school I studied illustration. Everything has had a part to play in where I am today.

Q

Did you ever imagine as a schoolgirl that you’d be a famous writer?

Q

A

Q How would you sum up your school days in five words?

A Inspiring, creative and being scolded!

The Incomplete Book of Dragons (Hodder Children’s Books, £12.99) is available in paperback from 6 October

2016

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Forest School London London’s diamond-st ructure school with single-sex teaching in a coeducational environment for girls and boys aged 4-18.

We are a city school with 30 acres of grounds where north east London meets Epping Forest. Our Open Day will be held on Saturday 24 September 2016 from 8.30am1.30pm. www.forest.org.uk admissions@forest.org.uk 020 8520 1744

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AU T UMN BOOKS

AUTUMN BOOK SPECIAL

Youth Appeal

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eenagers who were bookworms when they were younger can often turn their backs on reading as the books get more complex. Packaging classics for the young adult market is all the rage right now in publishing. Vintage have published three children’s classics for the autumn, pitched at readers discovering these works for the first time. With contemporary covers and extensive extra material, these books are presented in an insightful, entertaining and accessible way – a great introduction to more grownup books for even the most print-averse teenager.

The Handmaid’s Tale b y Margaret Atwood £8.99, avail ab l e now

“It isn’t running away they’re afraid of. We wouldn’t get far. It’s those other escapes, the ones you can open in yourself, given a cutting edge.” Margaret Atwood’s landmark dystopian novel about Offred the Handmaid is republished with an exclusive author account of how she came to write this classic novel.

MUST READ

THE NIGHT CIRCUS

S O N N E TS b y William Shakespeare

b y Erin Morgenstern

£5.99, avail ab l e now

£7.9 9, a va i l a b l e 6 O ct o b e r

“Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, But bears it out even to the edge of doom.”

The best sonnets ever written, Shakespeare’s romantic poems are for cynics as well as starcrossed lovers. The 154 poems, first published in 1609, appear in this edition with a short, funny guide to everything you ever wanted to know about the Bard and his work.

“The circus arrives without warning. No announcements precede it. It is simply there, when yesterday it was not.” This new edition of the international bestseller has been republished for a new generation of readers and includes an interview with the author as well as extra material about the story, its characters and its creation.

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The best bilingual education in the heart of London

317 Portobello Road, London W10 5SZ

Tel: 020 8969 2664 spanishschoolvcb.co.uk

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AU T UMN BOOKS AUTUMN BOOK SPECIAL

Keep it Real A new book encourages parents to teach their children maths in the everyday world

By R O B E A S T AWAY

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K, parents, what do you think about maths?

Well we all agree it’s important. Children are going to need it for their work and personal finance when they grow up – and before that, they’re going to need to do well at it to get into the school or university they (or you) aspire to.

That’s why you stand over your child checking whether they’ve done all their subtractions for homework. And it’s why you get frustrated when they say maths is boring, and why you get angry when they still haven’t done their maths questions and it’s bedtime on Sunday evening.

What’s strange, however, is that I meet lots of parents who see maths as little more than a necessary chore, made all the more stressful because children don’t do maths like we used to. You try to help, and discover

“Driving through town, you can play ‘Higher or Lower’ like Bruce Forsyth when you see a bus” they are learning about ‘number lines’ and ‘grid multiplication’. And when they’re adding, they don’t ‘carry one’ and put it in the place we did when we were kids.

But maths doesn’t have to be like this.

There is far more to maths than arithmetic.

And it can be playful, and creative, and surprising.

Six years ago, Mike Askew and I wrote the book Maths for Mums and Dads. The idea was to explain to parents why maths is being taught differently these days. Some of the reasons are very sensible. The book became a bestseller, but many parents told us, “Your book’s on my shelf, but I’m always

too busy and just don’t have time to read about how maths is done.”

That’s why Mike and I decided to write a companion book, called Maths on the Go. This is for parents who don’t have time to sit down and ‘do’ homework with their children. Instead, this is ideas for how to do (or even better, ‘play’) maths together as part of your busy everyday life. It’s things to do when the kids are with you at the supermarket or while you’re on the school run or driving up to visit grandma.

And maths really can become a game.

Driving through town you can play ‘Higher or Lower’ (like Bruce Forsyth in Play Your Cards Right) when you see a bus: “That was a 185 – do you think the next bus we see will be higher or lower than that?”

Maths can crop up in conversation too.

“I hear Wayne Rooney’s being paid £10m a year,” you say. “Grandma gave you £20 for Christmas. How many more presents is she going to have to give you before you can save up to buy Rooney for a season?” (You Above The front cover of Maths on the Go

can work it out together – with a calculator if you want. The answer is 500,000 more presents from grandma. Even if she gives you £20 a week it’s still going to take 10,000 years before you’ve saved enough, by which time Rooney may well be past his best...)

Even necessary – but usually dull – arithmetic practice can be turned into a game. My children love playing ‘Who Wants to Be a Mathionaire?’ Like the TV show of a similar name, the kids have to answer questions in the hope of making it to the top prize (I find a 20p jackpot is usually enough of an incentive). The early questions are easy: “So for half a penny, what is six plus nine?” They get progressively harder: “For two pence, what is four times nine?”; “For five pence, what is 10 per cent of 80?”; “For 10p, what do you get if you add half a pizza to one third of a pizza?”

The joy of this game is that your child is allowed to stop at any point and take the money they have earned so far if they aren’t confident of the answer (in reality, mine always go for the money regardless). You can adjust the difficulty of the questions to make them the right level of challenge for your child. And if you’re feeling generous and they are stuck, you can even allow them to use a lifeline.

Of course children still need to learn their tables, know how to calculate fractions and jump through all those other maths hoops. But if you can connect maths to their everyday life and make it something fun that you can do together, they’ll learn far more than a workbook will ever teach them.

R O B E A STAWAY Maths on the Go (Square Peg, £9.99) is available now 2016

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CO-EDUCATIONAL BOARDING

IN THE HEART OF ENGLAND Shrewsbury School provides an outstanding full boarding experience for boys and girls aged 13-18. We provide a rigorous approach to learning and an extraordinary variety of extra-curricular activities alongside personal pastoral support.

Scholarships and bursaries are available for talented pupils for entry at 13+ and 16+.

Please contact the school for further information or to book a place at one of our Open Days.

We look forward to welcoming you!

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Shrewsbury School

admissions@shrewsbury.org.uk 01743 280552 www.shrewsbury.org.uk ShrewsSchool

05/09/2016 16:23

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AU T UMN BOOKS

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AUTUMN BOOK SPECIAL

Bee Amazed

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beautifully illustrated new book by cartoonist Piotr Socha will delight your children with all things buzzy. This encyclopaedic book tracks bees from the age of the dinosaurs to their current precarious position, examining the role they have played in the natural world throughout history. It is a brilliant way to educate the younger generation about something very small but very important.

THE BOOK OF BEES b y Piotr Socha THAME S & HUDSON,

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The

M A K ING of Me

AUTUMN BOOK SPECIAL

Louis de Bernières The bestselling author and poet, Louis de Bernières, on his brutal prep school and an intellectual flowering at Bradfield College

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lackadaisical atmosphere of teenagers playing Dylan and Leonard Cohen on their guitars combined with these tough, sporting boys.

Looking back, we were brought up to be Spartan warriors and I’m very glad of it. My two children are not nearly tough enough now.

ouis de Bernières, 62, is an award-winning writer and poet. His bestselling global hit, Captain Corelli's Mandolin, won the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize in 1994 and was turned into a feature film starring Nicholas Cage. He has two children and lives in Norfolk.

Who was your favourite or most inspirational teacher?

A That would have to be Charles Lepper and Richard Osborne tying equal first.

I was at Bradfield in a golden period for the English department. Lepper – known as Chuckles – was an inspirational English teacher. He had been an actor at Stratford but then started to go deaf and decided to be a teacher, which was slightly odd.

He got us to put on a Greek play every four weeks – in Greek, in a Greek theatre – which is extraordinary, thinking about it now.

And Richard Osborne, now an eminent music critic, was very keen on teaching us what wasn’t on the curriculum. He taught me about DH Lawrence and Eliot and said something I will always remember: “If you only read English literature then you are not literate.” It was very good advice. I read the great Russians at school and then Flaubert, and in my 20s I read nobody but Latin American writers when everyone else was reading Martin Amis.

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Where did you go to school and when?

A I went to a prep school called Grenham House in Birchington, Kent in 1962. It was disgusting – it was owned and run by a sadist. The master, Denys Jeston had been tortured by the Germans in the war and took it out on us. His deputy was nicer but he liked to put his fingers up our shorts, although he never went too far.

All the old boys feel really angry about their time at Grenham House. I was there with the Suchet brothers, who feel much like I do. It’s long gone, thank goodness, but I also had some fantastic teachers there. Major Nelson was one. He’d been in the Indian Army and started every story bellowing, “When I was out in India…” And my inspirational English teacher, Benjamin Adam, was great. He got us to learn a poem by rote every week and to write a story a week. He definitely had a great effect on me then and now.

Then I went to Bradfield College in Berkshire. It was much more human though the education wasn’t so thorough.

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What was Bradfield like?

A It was designed by the great Victorian architect Sir Gilbert Scott. It was an Q

impressive-looking school with a large quadrangle and a depressing chapel which just had lists and lists of boys who died in the Boer War in South Africa. This included a number of my great uncles – my grumble with the British Empire was that it killed so many of my relatives.

What was its ethos?

I was at Bradfield at a strange time, as the old regime – the tough, sporty ethos, which included The Cheese, a cross country run which culminated with splashing through icy water – met the hippie revolution of the 60s. The hair got longer and sideburns appeared, so there was a Q

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What was your greatest triumph?

I won the Denning English prize for poetry. I had to share it with William Rivière, another pupil. Funnily Q

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09/09/2016 15:36

PROFILE

enough, he went on to become a poet – a very good one – and now he is a novelist and lives near me in south Norfolk. And we are both of French Huguenot descent.

Q What was your favourite place at school?

A There was a place nearby called Englefield House with an estate. I used to disappear there and lie down in the bracken and read poetry. I was very into Wordsworth and considered myself one of nature’s children.

What was the worst thing you did?

The most disgraceful thing we did was cycle into Theale and buy a barrel of cider, which we drank in the dorms. I then woke up in the urinal.

We also cycled to Downe House to look at the girls through the hedge. What’s funny is we could have just gone into Theale to look at the working class girls but we were so stuck in our middle-classness that we went all the way to Downe House.

I also used to go to work for the local potato farmer. The prefect would ask us what sport we were doing on games afternoons and I would just lie and go and earn 2/6 harvesting potatoes. There was much more freedom than there is now.

When my father was at Bradfield he kept a motorbike at school.

The 1971 production of The Taming of the Shrew in Bradfield's Greek theatre – Louis de Bernières is in the cast

“We used to cycle to Downe House to look at girls through the hedge”

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What did you excel at?

Self-deception. I thought I could do brilliantly without doing any work. I did not get a decent degree although I made up for it with an MA later. But you can’t get by on natural talent, you have to work for it as well.

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Q How did your schooling affect the person you are today?

A I have an intellectual depth and breadth which I owe to the school and it sent me in the direction of being an intellectual rather than a man of action.

I had a friend, Robert Brown, who was older than me and a great influence. He was into continental philosophy, things I would never have known about if he hadn’t introduced me.

Bradfield also turned me into a musician.

Herbert du Plessis, another friend, is now a concert pianist. I think my friends there were as much an influence on me as the masters.

Q Would you send your own children there?

A I would in the sense that I think Bradfield is so much nicer and better now – it’s really got its act together – but I wouldn’t in the sense that I want to live with my children.

They are fantastic fun and I don’t want them, or me, to miss out on that fun.

What do you do now?

Blue Dog, the prequel to my bestselling novel Red Dog, has just come out and I’m working on the second volume of The Dust that Falls from Dreams, an adult novel.

My future plans include writing the third volume of The Dust that Falls from Dreams, and I hope to write at least two dystopian novels and more poetry, and then I’m expecting to be dead.

Q

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Sum up your schooling in five words.

Patchy, inspirational, eccentric, memorable, liberating.

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Blue Dog

(Penguin Random House, £10.00) is available now

2016

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AUTUMN BOOK SPECIAL

FREE THEIR MINDS A children’s author on why we must re-wild a generation of children ABI ELPHINSTONE

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t school I was branded ‘unteachable’ and ‘prone to spasmodic outbursts of tiresomeness.’ Yes, I was a bit naughty (I see, in hindsight, that setting traps for your French teacher is unacceptable and stealing out of maths lessons to run wild in the forest is unwise) but at the heart of this wayward behaviour was another issue, one that didn’t get ‘detected’ until many years later.

I’m dyslexic and, while I can’t pin all of my childhood misdemeanors on my dyslexia, I do think it explains a lot of the problems I had with processing information, structuring essays and concentrating in class. I didn’t understand a word of what my science teachers taught me so when I finished school every evening I had to read over all the notes, at snail’s pace, to make sure they sank in. I spent ages trying to decode simple explanations in physics and when

trying to copy a number in maths I would invariably write it upside down or select a completely different number altogether.

English lessons, though, were my haven.

The wonderful Mrs Johnson didn’t draw attention to my spelling mistakes and she never made me read aloud. She knew I adored annotating Wuthering Heights and talking long past the bell about how Cathy should have run away with Heathcliff, but when I tried to read aloud while concentrating on the story, the words and sentences jumped around and all that came out was a stutter of incoherent words.

I worked hard at school and in the end I got a string of good grades to put on my CV, which no doubt paved the way for my former career as an English teacher in a secondary school. But I do not think it was my academic scores that made me a writer. I am a writer because the wilderness in Scotland, where I grew up, made me one.

I am a writer because my weekends were spent scrambling across the moors, building

“Outdoor memories of childhood stamped a sense of wonder on my soul”

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dens in the woods and jumping into icy rivers. I am a writer because the outdoor memories of my childhood stamped a sense of wonder on my soul that no amount of classroom learning could have matched.

I used to go searching for golden eagles up the glen with my dad and sometimes we’d spot one in its eyrie on the highest crag. Other days the eagles didn’t show and we’d just stand in the middle of the moors, surrounded by the stags and the cairns and the mighty lochs, and I remember marvelling at it all, at the sheer wilderness spread out before me. But the rugged

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09/09/2016 10:46

AU T UMN BOOKS

Above Pupils at Cottesmore jump into a lake

Left Abi hiking in Scotland

scenery that shaped my Right upbringing not only inspired Writing by Loch Muick awe, it taught me to be curious and brave, too. By the time I was nine, I had counted all the birds’ nests in the garden and climbed almost every tree – up through the maze of jutting branches until I emerged into a world of buzzards and owls – but the holly was my nemesis, all prickled leaves and branches just beyond my reach. I remember the failed attempts – the bruised shins and grass-stained trousers – but I also recall the feeling of forcing back the nerves, of 2016

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AU T UMN BOOKS

Above Abi in Iceland

Left In the Cuillin moutains on Skye

“My parents didn’t push me to be in the top sets. Instead they gave me space to play outdoors” steadying my weight and hoisting my body up through the branches, and as I gazed down at the garden having made that climb, I felt invincible. I felt, at nine years old, as if I could climb anything. Years later, when I faced 96 rejections from literary agents for my debut book, The Dreamsnatcher, I thought back to that time, to the many failed attempts at scaling the holly tree – of the fear and frustration – and I kept on writing, just as I’d kept on climbing.

I didn’t grow up with parents who pushed for me to be in the top sets or who insisted on extra tuition in the holidays to improve my spelling and vocabulary. Instead my parents gave me space to play outdoors.

Much of my childhood was unstructured and there was time for me to be bored, but it was during this time that I invented games in the woods, made potions from flower petals and fished for beetles in the pond – experiences that would later lead me into writing books. Children need time to be bored (cue author Jonathan Stroud’s campaign, Freedom to Think) because this is when imagining begins – and in our fast-paced and demanding world I believe it is the children with bold, original ideas who will succeed. The children who, amidst their busy school schedules, had the time to think.

Growing up in such close communion with nature sparked a thirst for outdoor adventure within me and it is perhaps not surprising that my first two books, The Dreamsnatcher and The Shadow Keeper, champion wild settings and characters.

When I visit schools, I talk to the children about the adventures behind my books so that they realise that exploration and wonder – not simply good grades and perfect spelling – are at the heart of the bravest writing. I speak about living with

the Kazakh eagle hunters in Mongolia and what it feels like to touch a wolf, hold a golden eagle and gallop through larch forests. I tell kids about abseiling into jungle caves to explore settings, watching killer whales in the Arctic and swimming across Scottish lochs to see just how cold it would have been for my characters.

I’m not a parent yet – I don’t have children of my own – but hopefully one day I will. And when I do, I want them to have a ‘wild’ childhood like mine. I want them to explore woods, rivers and hills without too many rules. I want them to understand that they’re braver than they realise and that our world is a magical place. And in the meantime, I’m going to keep on touring schools and festivals, speaking to kids about how stories can be found through outdoor adventures. Because for me, writing a children’s book doesn’t stop after the last line is written. That’s where it starts – that’s where I’m in with a chance of re-wilding a generation of children...

T H E D R E A M S N ATC H E R & T H E S H A D OW K E E P E R Published by Simon & Schuster, £6.99 2016

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‘The spires of Oxford ... and the 100 acres of green loveliness make Teddies a winning co-ed boarding ticket.’

Tatler Schools Guide 2017

‘We chose Teddies because it is mixed, with a wonderful reputation for happiness.’

Current parent

See our pupils in action on Teddies TV www.stedwardsoxford.org

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School’s Out IS RUGBY SAFE? p. 138 FAMILY-FRIENDLY ITALY p. 150 SKIING IN SCOTLAND p. 156

A RUGBY PLAYER AT BRYANSTON

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CRUNCH TIME The safety of children’s rugby has been under the public lens like never before this year. Here, seven schools outline how they tackle the perils of the pitch

“The RFU has made great changes”

JOHN MALLETT DIRECTOR OF RUGBY Millf ield School

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illfield is committed to ensuring a safe environment for our pupils’ learning.

Exploring, creating, enjoyment and a degree of risk are all important parts of this. Playing sports is a well-established means of achieving an effective learning environment and rugby’s values of teamwork, respect, enjoyment, discipline and sportsmanship are a good foundation for education through sport.

The boys playing rugby are divided by their age groups and

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BOYS PLAYING RUGBY ARE DIVIDED BY THEIR AGE GROUPS AND THEIR PLAYING ABILITIES

their playing abilities. A competitive fixture list of appropriate age and ability levels is an important part of rugby delivery at Millfield.

I have been part of the Age Grade Competition Review for the Rugby Football Union (RFU). This has been an important driver for the introduction of new rules of play to ensure safety is at the heart of the game. These changes are in place up to the Under 11 age group and are being introduced up to Under 15 in the 2016/17 season.

In addition to the pitch-side physiotherapy cover, all Millfield rugby staff have completed the online RFU ‘Headcase’ concussion training module. For the 2016/17 season, all rugby staff will have complete their ‘Rugby Ready’ course too.

From our annual concussion audits we have implemented an increased focus on tackle technique at Under 14 level, more appropriately balanced fixtures and greater staff, pupil and parent awareness on concussion. All these recent developments will further benefit the safe delivery of school rugby.

The RFU ‘RugbySafe’ programme, meanwhile, is an excellent resource for schools and enhancing the safe delivery of rugby overall.

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09/09/2016 14:39

SCHOOL’S OU T / RUGBY

“We work with Bath RFC on conditioning”

PETER SHORT

DIRECTOR OF RUGBY C a n fo r d S c h o o l

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uch has been made in the media of the increased number of injuries in the sport. It is widely acknowledged that professional players are becoming larger and stronger. Therefore a high level of strength is becoming paramount across all positions and at all levels. Canford firmly believes that young rugby players

need a long-term, comprehensive programme of skills and conditioning that includes well-planned and well-supervised strength training from an early age. With a variety of standards, the aim is to challenge players of all abilities and ages through appropriate strength and conditioning protocols following RFU guidelines. The school recently took part in the University of Bath's study in conjunction with the RFU aiming to show that there are some injuries that may be preventable through improving elements of physical fitness such as strength, power, balance and agility. Canford is a satellite training centre for Bath RFC and has developed appropriately

WEIGHT BANDING IS NOT THE ANSWER. AT CANFORD WE HAVE A NUMBER OF SMALL BOYS DOING WELL

designed resistance training programmes with Bath coaches as an essential component for all pupils according to their training age, motor skills, competency, technical proficiency and existing strength levels. It also follows the principles of Bath’s physical conditioning model, split into three levels depending on target age and level of competency.

Weight banding is not the answer.

There are a number of smaller boys at Canford doing very well in the Bath Elite Player Development Group Academy. As educators, we believe that the key is to know your players in order to keep the right amount of pressure on them and ensure they remain in the ‘learning zone’ – and advocate playing up a year group if that works well, while acknowledging that in other cases it would put pupils in a situation where they would be unable to cope.

Our focus is on developing the core skills and generating a genuine enthusiasm to continue with the sport well into adulthood by providing a challenging rugby programme for all levels.

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“The new rules introduce contact gradually”

NIGEL REED

DIRECTOR OF SPORT Wa l h a m p t o n P r e p S c h o o l

I “We make sure our players are protected”

BRIAN ROBINSON HEAD OF RUGBY

C a m p b e l l C o l l e g e , B e l fa s t

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ampbell College boasts an enviable track record on the rugby pitch as 23-time winner of the Ulster Schools’ Cup – the second-oldest rugby tournament in the world.

Therefore we take the sport and the safety of our rugby players very seriously indeed.

As the game has developed over the years, we at school level have had to keep pace with these changes. That means strictly following the guidelines around injuries and ensuring that we endeavour to minimise any risk

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to the players. The concussion protocols are clear and we go above and beyond to make sure our players are protected. We train all our pupils on concussion at the earliest stage through specific sessions, and we have safety posters everywhere around the school. We also work with parents to communicate the protocols and ensure we are all working together for the benefit of the pupils. We have recently been signed up as a Schools Academy Partner with Ulster Rugby, which offers fantastic opportunities for our up-and-coming talent whilst also ensuring that we continue to be at the forefront of player safety.

Rugby is an amazing game and one that teaches teamwork, discipline and endurance. We all need to work hard to ensure our pupils continue to enjoy this fantastic sport in the safest way possible.

THE CONCUSSION PROTOCOLS ARE CLEAR AND WE GO ABOVE AND BEYOND TO MAKE SURE OUR PLAYERS ARE SAFE

t would be fair to say that when the new rules at Under 9 level were introduced to prep schools three years ago I was not totally in favour, as I felt that the old rules worked well.

Since then, however, I have seen their benefits.

First and foremost, the core skills of running, passing and catching are still at the heart of the new game and whether you are a forward or a back, you have to have develop these skills to be successful. At all prep schools our core purpose is to prepare the children for the next stage of their education and sport is no different.

The new continuum introduces the contact side of the game gradually

and so the less aggressive children have an opportunity to participate.

The set plays have changed and so the game no longer gets bogged down with scrums and line-outs, which at prep school level were often a bit of a lottery and slowed the game up. Probably the most important positive is that smaller numbers in each team means we can involve more children in matches by playing festivals and mini-tournament safely as opposed to the traditional single fixtures against other schools.

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09/09/2016 14:39

SCHOOL’S OU T / RUGBY

A “We do everything to avoid injuries”

PAUL DUNNE HEAD OF RUGBY Br yanston

t Bryanston we are acutely aware that sport and the occasional injury go hand in hand.

Participation in sport is vital for all children, and anything that can be done to reduce the chance of injury to a pupil must be a positive thing. We have aimed to get ahead of the game in terms of highlighting where injuries might occur through physical development and musculoskeletal screening in the first weeks of the autumn term for all new Year 9 pupils. This helps highlight areas of movement

and musculoskeletal concern for individuals before fixtures have begun, and has helped the school’s medical centre and physiotherapists to manage issues before they become an injury. Similarly, prior knowledge of potential problems leads to a flexible delivery of PE and sport moving into the future.

This approach has been coupled with correctly managing and documenting any injuries that may occur during the rugby season specifically. With the help of the University of Bath, we carried out an extensive injury audit, continuing to implement the full extent of the RFU guidelines on ‘return to play’.

We have structured and documented warm-up routines throughout training and before games to help prevent muscular and contact injuries in line with the study by the University of Bath. We follow up all injuries, however small, noting their effect and longevity. The results are fascinating and hugely reassuring to us in both a pastoral and coaching context.

This issue is certainly top of our agenda and we continue to do everything we can to reduce injuries.

It’s a job we take very seriously and, like all schools, we must continue to educate both parents and players on the best ways to prevent injury in the first place.

WE HAVE AIMED TO GET AHEAD OF THE GAME BY SCREENING ALL YEAR 9 PUPILS AT THE START OF THE AUTUMN TERM 2016

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‘ Enjoying childhood and realising our imagination.’ Challenge your preconceptions about Education.

Give your child time to develop a love of learning and enjoy the academic successes that it brings.

Dallington is a family-run co-educational independent school, with a nursery, in the heart of London.

Personal tours each day of the week, except Wednesday.

Autumn Open Evening Wednesday 28th September 2016.

Reserve your place now registration.dallingtonschool.co.uk/openevening.php

Email: hercules@dallingtonschool.co.uk Phone: 020 7251 2284 www.dallingtonschool.co.uk

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SCHOOL’S OU T/ /DEBATE RUGBY SENIOR

“It’s about equal ability players”

IAIN SCARISBRICK DEPUTY MASTER CO-CURRICULAR

Dulwich College

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“We build skills over time”

IAIN SIMPSON DIRECTOR OF SPORT Oakham School

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here are risks in children taking part in all sports – not just rugby. Schools need to be aware of all risk, across every sport that they offer.

For the 400-plus boys who enjoy rugby at Oakham, we teach them to identify the risks (a valuable life lesson) and give them the skills to deal with them and the resilience to make the right decisions while ensuring the right safety nets are always in place.

There are a number of challenges to teaching rugby safely in schools – it is, after all, a contact sport.

Coaching students correctly is crucial. Trained and experienced coaches are an absolute necessity.

We manage contact sessions so that the emphasis is on correct and safe technique rather than the one-sided expression of a player’s dominant velocity and mass. This can be achieved by the use of tackle shields, suits, and by limiting high-velocity contact in training. Non-contact touch rugby is another method that allows the boys to develop the relevant techniques, enabling them to play the game more safely.

At Oakham, boys play in groups that are not simply banded by age but also by playing ability and experience. And we have the right safety measures in place; all of our coaches have been trained in the management of injury, particularly concussions, and we employ two paramedic crews on match days.

ugby in schools has always offered a range of positive experiences.

Now, as the game itself moves on, schools must adapt too. At Dulwich we have introduced initiatives to address the changing game.

At younger age levels, pupils are taught the core aspects of the game within carefully chosen groups so they play with others of equal ability and aptitude. Some will learn many of the skills required but without the physical contact element. Older pupils who have experienced rugby but feel it is not for them are free to choose alternative sports options.

Expert coaches are trained using RFU and internal courses, enabling all of them to teach children of a wide range of ability levels. They work regularly with the same group of children to maintain continuity and decide when pupils are ‘rugby ready’.

Managing rugby injuries continues to be a top priority. Qualified medics are always pitch-side, and this month we will write to all parents and encourage them to read the RFU guidelines and also complete the online ‘Headcase’ concussion awareness module.

WE TEACH THE BOYS TO IDENTIFY THE RISKS AND GIVE THEM THE SKILLS TO DEAL WITH THEM 2016

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INDEPENDENT CATHOLIC DAY & BOARDING SCHOOL BUCKINGHAM PREPARATORY † SENIOR † SIXTH FORM

A WEALTH OF OPPORTUNITY BOTH

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INSIDE & OUTSIDE THE CLASSROOM

Head of Thornton College, Mrs Jo Storey

Thornton College is situated on the Buckinghamshire/ Northamptonshire border and educates just under 400 girls aged 2 ½ to 18. Children of all faiths and of none are welcome.

Thornton is well-known for its exceptional pastoral care, outstanding academic achievement and high expectations of all its pupils. It is one of the top performing nonselective schools in the UK (54% A*/A). Pupils respect one another, value the community spirit, have fun learning and accomplish great things. They are extremely well educated both inside and outside of the classroom and grow up with confidence and a strong sense of humility.

For further details and to arrange a visit please go to our website

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Talking

SCHOOL’S OU T/OPINION

HEAD

PRO CHOICE

Too much sport is a turn-off for teenagers, says Jonathan Taylor, Head Teacher of North Bridge House, Canonbury. We have to adopt a more inclusive approach

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love sport. I still spend my Sunday mornings playing competitive football, and when not utilising my Arsenal season ticket, can often be found flicking through Sky Sports channels.

Rugby. Cricket. Tennis. Golf. If it involves a ball, I’ll happily watch it.

I loved sport at school. Where I grew up in Wigan we had the choice of playing rugby league, or rugby league. And when we were bored of that, we were given rugby league. For a few weeks in the summer we were allowed to do field athletics. Then it was back to rugby league. The lack of choice didn’t bother me; PE was always my favourite lesson.

As a head teacher, I know how important sport is for children. Parents know it too.

Physical activity isn’t only good for the body; it’s good for the brain. I can cite French, American and British research that shows how sport has a positive Above effect on academic & below Rock climbing and achievement. Good sailing are popular at marks in the exam Northbridge House hall owe something

is no choice at all, they turn off, zone out and find imaginative ways to skip PE. As a result, physical activity levels for teenagers in the UK lag behind those of other developed countries and child obesity rates have never been higher.

The problem is especially acute among teenage girls. Only 12 per cent of 14-year-old girls get enough physical activity each week.

That’s half the amount of boys that do.

When asked by researchers why they do so little, they said they felt self-conscious and sweaty. Sport makes them feel awkward and unhappy, especially if boys are around.

The irony is that they aren’t unaware of the benefits any less than the rest of us – 76 per cent say they want to do more exercise.

So at North Bridge House we’ve ditched the Wigan option for the Islington smorgasbord. Sport is compulsory for teenagers, but we give them a variety of different activities in six-week blocks: judo, volleyball, tennis, rock climbing, sailing and aerobics. Everyone finds something to like in at least one of those activities – and they to participation on the pitch, in the pool and don’t get bored. Rock climbing and sailing on the track. Sport is good and students are particularly popular. Students who love should play it. competitive sports have extra-curricular I love sport. The problem is, many clubs for the usual football, basketball and teenagers don’t. Schools and parents can athletics to choose from. But we use the proselytise endlessly about how good it is regular PE lessons to engage the many – not for them, but many teenagers will roll their to burnish the competitive spirits of the eyes and do everything they can to avoid few. And as a result our teachers aren’t it. They hate sport. They aren’t going to bombarded with dodgy sick notes or faced skip off gladly to the gym or playing field with sullen and very reluctant players. simply because the latest research suggests For sports-obsessed parents, particularly it’s good for them or because those who love teams because their head teacher thinks it’s a they were always picked for brilliant idea. them, or who insist children They often hate sport won’t learn endurance until because they’ve never been they have been pulverised in especially good at it. They a scrum or run cross country never get picked for a team in a hail storm, that may seem and they get tired of always a bit namby-pamby. But take being overlooked. They’re not it from a sports fanatic – most JONATHAN TAYLOR engaged with sport because teenagers won’t learn to enjoy Head Teacher North Bridge House, Canonbury it doesn’t engage them. Faced sport unless they get to play with the Wigan option, which one they actually like.

“We use PE lessons to engage the many, not burnish the competitive spirits of the few”

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LOST & FOUND

Absolutely Education stayed in the Old School House on the remote Scottish island of Eilean Shona and discovered a timeless wilderness that inspired JM Barrie’s Peter Pan A M A N D A C O N S TA N C E

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SCHOOL’S OU T/SCOTL A ND

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hat house,” blustered the colonel, in plummy tones, “is diabolical!”

We had bumped into the colonel and his grandchildren on our first morning on Eilean Shona, the remote Scottish island in the western Highlands that was our home for a week in the summer.

The colonel, whose family used to own the island, was referring to our holiday cottage, the Old School House, on the north-west corner of the island. His ire was directed at the house’s location – the crofters’ children who attended the school in the Victorian era lived on the south of the island. Their daily commute to school – done in bare feet – would have been across the Saddle, the pass over the island’s mountainous interior, and back again. We did the same walk, albeit at a more leisurely pace, and with the luxury of shoes, in about three hours.

“Crofter’s children used to cross the mountainous Saddle in barefeet to get to school” One of the popular local myths as to why the schoolhouse was built so far from the population it served is that the landowner at the time didn’t like children and built the school out his way. With over 100 people living on the island at the end of the 19th century, that’s a lot of cold feet every winter.

Thankfully, the island’s current owners, Vanessa Branson and Robert Devereux are no child haters. Their own four children grew up with Eilean Shona as a second home, since the couple – who are now divorced – bought it in 1995. In recent years, Branson has opened up the cottages for rent. The Old School House, renovated in 2013, is the most recent addition to the island’s portfolio.

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Left The Old School House

Right The light, open kitchen

It is a beautifully scaled stone building designed by Victorian architect Alexander Ross which sits in a natural bowl in the landscape with huge views across the north channel of Loch Moidart. In a state of near ruin, Branson – the sister of Virgin tycoon Richard Branson - peeled the house back to its shell and had it completely renovated.

It is now a spacious, open house, with white clapboard walls, grey wooden floors and light streaming in through large windows. In the evening, the setting sun blazes through the westerly window bathing the whole ground floor in golden light. Due to modern conveniences such as doubleglazing, super insulation and two wood burning stoves, the house manages to be airy without being draughty and never felt damp, a considerable feat in this misty, damp corner of Caledonia.

Branson and Devereux have always run Eilean Shona in an eco-friendly way. The School House is off-grid, the fridge, cooker and lighting all run on gas. Heating comes from the wood-burning stoves and water from the island’s own reservoir.

The water is peaty, soft and yellow; it is quite an experience to sink into a steaming hot yellow bath. (It is almost exactly the colour of urine.)

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Below The gas-lit bathroom

“The Old School House has the same gas lamps as Buckingham Palace” The house manages to be pared back, in keeping with its Highland surroundings but also luxurious. Branson and Devereux know a thing or too about art and hotels – between them they’ve run galleries and art collectives, opened hotels, been at the helm of Soho House and the Frieze Art Fair (Devereux), and opened the feted Riad El Fen and founded the Marrakech Biennale (Branson). The interior of the school house reflects this wide experience: it has a simple Shaker style but there are quirky details: Moroccan art, rugs and accessories – a legacy of the time Branson spends in Marrakech every year. And attention to luxurious details: furniture that would be more at home in a West London house than the traditional Scottish croft, thick fleecy towels to swoon in and Egyptian-cotton bed linen - plus the comfiest beds we’ve ever slept in. Even the gas lamps are top notch: Paul Waddington, the island’s manager, told me proudly that they are the same as the ones in Buckingham Palace. To light an elegant gas lamp, see the glow and hear

the faint hiss of gas is a romantic thing and our eldest quickly took on the job of lamp lighting in the evening.

But as lovely as it is, the school house will only ever be a poor second to Eilean Shona itself. The island, just off the west coast of Scotland, is an hour and a half’s drive from Fort William. It is two and a half miles long and one and a half miles wide with 1500 acres of hill and moorland and 600 acres of woodland, including 300 acres of ancient and rare pine trees. The centre of the island rises to a dramatic summit and the everchanging shoreline is full of coves and rocky inlets. At the south-east corner is Shoe Bay, at high tide an inviting place of pristine, turquoise water and at low tide, a bowl of clear white sand. There are no cars on the island and only one stony track. It is still the same wilderness that so inspired JM Barrie when he rented the island in the 1920s as a summer bolthole. It was here that he wrote the screenplay for the 1924 film adaptation of Peter Pan. Eilean Shona is a natural paradise: there are red deer, sea otters, rare red squirrels and even rarer pine martens on the island.

We saw many seals and a glimpse of a red stag but little else as our five-year-old struggles with volume control and our every movement was announced to Mother Nature long before we actually arrived.

Fed by the Gulf Stream, the west coast of Scotland is a comparatively warm and very moist climate. Trees wore beards of

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SCHOOL’S OU T/SCOTL A ND

“In the mossy dells we could almost hear the whoop of the Lost Boys” moss and lichen, and thick, bouncy beds of brilliant green moss carpeted rocks, roots and crevices. Heather blazed purple across the mountainsides and flowers bloomed.

Insects and bugs were in abundance, in numbers you just don’t see in our pesticiderich Home Counties. There were clouds butterflies, crane flies and bumble-bees plus slugs, slow-worms and caterpillars; many which we had never seen before and some we don’t ever want to see again: the dreaded midges and the odd tick.

As a holiday destination, Eilean Shona remains a choice for the fairly hardy. And while the staff and brilliant and helpful, you are expected to get on with it yourselves, which suited us just fine.

When we arrived on the island, after an exhilarating whizz across the loch on a RIB, our luggage and vast amounts of shopping were taken on a trailer pulled by a quad bike (one of only two motorized vehicles on the island). We had to walk the 40 minutes around the island to the school house. This became our daily commute to ‘town’ as we jokingly called it. The main hub of the island is around the jetty, the impressive main house which sleeps up to 24, most of the other rental cottages, plus the shop (part of a barn, open for 2 hours a week) and the village hall (another barn, but with electricity and WiFi) are all here.

The stony track to the school house traces the island’s north-easterly edge, lapped by the brown, clear waters of the north channel of Loch Moidart. It was an ever-changing scene, the tidal shift here is often up to five metres and the view was always different, depending on the time of day. Out of ‘town’ we walked past the lilypad covered lake, built in Victorian times to feed the old saw mill, past the rusting tractor, a popular stopping point, through ancient pines trees and mossy dells where

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were could almost hear the whoop of the Lost Boys. The track then sweeps down by the loch where at low tide we picked barnacle-covered mussels for the pot. And just as small legs were beginning to tire, the track sweeps around a big corner and there, hidden in the hills is the Old School House, entirely alone and facing its own private bay.

There is little chance for boredom on the island. We walked, scrambled and climbed up and down heather and bracken covered hills; swam and snorkeled in the freezing but glorious water; went kayaking in the loch and took the speedboat to Shoe Bay; caught endless crabs, collected shells, sunbathed on huge granite rocks, beach-combed and discovered endless exciting rock pools.

And living in the school house was an education in itself for the children. When you have to light a fire for hot water and boil a kettle on a gas hob for a hot chocolate, you learn about energy consumption very quickly. And no electricity meant no screens so imagination and creativity got to work instead and in the evenings we read and played epic games of Monopoly.

The lack of digital connection was bliss.

My phone had no service anywhere on the island, apart from on one random rock in the loch when it suddenly connected with the world and pinged at me demonically. We felt much further away from the world than we have when camping in France or staying in villas in Greece.

On our last evening, driven to distraction by three children play fighting I shouted at them to get outside and defy the midges.

The next thing I knew they were scaling the rockface near to the house- led by our five year old, like a nimble mountain goat, shrieking with excitement.

Do not visit Eilean Shona if you like your entertainment organized. If you want cocktails brought to you on a sun lounger and your kids in kids club. This is a place for doing nothing in the best possible way, for exploration and discovery away from the modern world. It is rugged, wild and free.

We hope to return to Neverland many, many times.

ROCK CLIMBING, S PA I N

A week in the Old School House on Eilean Shona costs £1,250

If your kids love the climbing wall back home, try them on the real thing on the sunny Costa Blanca, where the limestone sea cliffs and mountain crags provide a perfect and varied learning setting. Rock and Sun tailors holidays to level and age – for younger children one morning session a day is often enough. • From £699pp a week self-catering, including transfers and guidance for adults and children aged 7+. rockandsun.com

For more information or to make a booking visit:

eileanshona.com Absolutely Education travelled courtesy of

THE CALEDONIAN SLEEPER Tickets (one way) are from £40 (seated) £80 per person (second class) and £150 per person (first class) Call 0330 0600500 for information or visit:

sleeper.scot 2016

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BACK TO LIFE Villa Pia in Umbria is a family-friendly hotel with a crucial difference: you actually get a holiday.

Absolutely Education finds it enchanting

By A M A N D A C O N S T A N C E

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SCHOOL’S OU T / ITA LY

T he mere mention of ‘family-friendly hotels’ normally sends a small shiver down my spine.

I fancy myself an intrepid traveller, a wild adventurer. Not for me the all-inclusive ease of a baby-friendly bolthole. Silly me – if only I’d known about Villa Pia I might have avoided ten years of stressful, scratchy experiences with wailing toddlers on uncomfortable hot beaches.

When I told a friend I was going to ‘some kiddie-friendly place’ in Umbria, she said, “You’re not going to Villa Pia are you?” in the sort of hushed reverential tones normally reserved for religious idolatry. This is the effect

“Villa Pia is discussed in reverential tones by in-the-know breeders” that the hotel has on in-the-know breeders. Its online testimonials heave with grateful parents proclaiming: “I actually had a holiday!”

Celebrating its 20th anniversary this year, Villa Pia has grown from small beginnings into a 25-room hotel in the hilltop village of Lippiano on the Tuscan-Umbrian border. The main building is a 15th-century country manor house flanked by two converted barns, located on a steep hillside directly below an 11th-century castle. The views of farmland and rolling hills, cypress trees and hazy purple mountains go on forever. The house is as beautiful as you would 2016

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PROMOTION

Be the best

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Strathallan School gives every young person the chance to shine

t Strathallan School every young person is given a tremendous breadth of opportunities to develop their individual strengths and achieve their very best. Some play for their country, others excel academically or artistically, and still more are good all-rounders; each success is celebrated, encouraging all to thrive. Ultimately, their pupils grow into emotionally mature and capable young men and women who are ready to make the most of the challenges and opportunities of life.

The school’s home is a beautiful 153-acre country estate in Perthshire. In this idyllic and safe environment, children enjoy a sense of freedom and space. With a lake including

“Our children enjoy a sense of freedom and space” canoe slalom training area, nine-hole golf course, clay pigeon shooting range, theatre, swimming pool, dance and drama studio, fitness suite, climbing wall and indoor multisports hall, the facilities are exceptional.

Strathallan offers A-Levels and Scottish Highers, achieving results far stronger than the national average, with many pupils advancing to the best universities; Oxford, Cambridge and other Russell Group universities are all popular choices for those leaving the school.

Sporting results are exceptional, and there are a number of talented athlete programmes for teams and individuals, some of whom represent their country.

The school has an excellent reputation creatively too, with superb musical theatre, drama, multiple ensembles (including a pipe band) and a choral scholar programme.

A full boarding school, around 16% of pupils are international Ω from over 30 countries Ω and all are welcomed into a community with strong family values and a real pride in pastoral care. The majority of staff live on site, getting to know pupils not just in the classroom but also in different contexts throughout the day, creating a unique relationship and mutual respect.

Strathallan also offers Easter and Summer multi-activity and sports camps

At Strathallan we provide outstanding opportunities for all pupils to excel, in sports, the arts and academically.

Registered in Scotland as a charity (SC008903)

We warmly welcome you to visit and see for yourself.

Scholarships Junior Assessment & Scholarship (Entry age 9 – 12) Saturday 23rd January 2017 Third Form Scholarship (Entry age 13+) Monday 22nd – Thursday 25th February 2017

Boarding and day for pupils aged 9 to 18 Forgandenny, Perth, PH2 9EG, Scotland, UK / T: +44 (0)1738 812 546 / admissions@strathallan.co.uk STRATHALLAN.indd 1

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Open Morning General (Entry age 9+) Saturday 4th March 2017, 10am – 1pm To register email admissions@strathallan.co.uk

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SCHOOL’S OU T / ITA LY

Above Villa Pia is surrounded by medieval villages Right Taking a nap on the terrace

imagine: cool, dark rooms, wrought iron railings, painted shutters and wisteria-covered terraces. But there’s more to it than this. Many hotels look good but they don’t have the slavish following of Villa Pia. We met guests there who have been four, five, even eight times, their children growing up with annual trips to the hotel.

From the moment we descended the drive into the main courtyard, we knew we had arrived somewhere quite different. It was like arriving at a brilliant house party that was already in full swing. Mums and dads were lolling in deckchairs while little ones took over the play equipment in the courtyard and crowds of older children dashed around playing imaginary games.

The bell then rang for lunch and everyone helped themselves to a resplendent buffet before grabbing a seat and chatting to whoever was next to them.

Our first experience was much like the rest of our week. Villa Pia has all the fancy trimmings of a five-star experience but

none of the formality. This makes for a lovely atmosphere, but the serious secret of Villa Pia’s success is that it is the very definition of ‘family-friendly’. Morag and Kevin, who bought the property in 1997, raised their three children here. They perfectly understand the needs of children and, more importantly, their pie-eyed parents.

Everything at Villa Pia has been developed to keep children happy and occupied, and to provide their parents with a proper break.

Children need space, and Villa Pia has five acres of it. There is endless room for the kids to play freely in complete safety. The swimming pools are cut into the hillside; lying on a lounger there feels surreal. Someone cleverer than me described it as “like swimming in a picture, as if someone has imposed a Hockney on a Piero della Francesca landscape painting.”

The pool for the little ones is blood-warm and deep enough to be both safe and fun.

Our five-year-old barely left it all week.

And just when you really want to be left

“It was like arriving at a house party that was already in full swing”

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B O A R D I N G & D AY S C H O O L F O R G I R L S A G E D 1 1 T O 1 8

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Mayfield”

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07/09/2016 14:36 13:47

SCHOOL’S OU T / ITA LY

Pia has guests returning again and again because it is the staff that make it. Paola, Aniko and Alessandro make each and every person feel like they are at home. Children’s names (and yours) are learnt in a jiffy and the staff work quietly and constantly to make sure you feel at home. A note of caution, though: guests are governed by the school timetable so during term time expect pre-schoolers.

We were there in half term Above and the dominant ages were Views across Umbria six to nine. Our 12-year-old Right

Lunchtime at Villa Pia Below The sitting room in the main house

“As the second glass of wine kicks in, your little darlings skip off to make pizza”

alone to read, Villa Pia comes up trumps. It runs cooking and art classes for children, craftily timed for after lunch, so as that second glass of wine kicks in, your little darlings skip off to make pizza or cardboard guitars, leaving you with the blissful chance to snooze for a couple of hours in the sun.

Then there is the glorious food for which Villa Pia is rightfully lauded. Meals are served by a prodigious army of ladies from the village in chef’s whites and cloche hats. Breakfast is a buffet, served in the converted barn. Lunch is a grander buffet spread; if you like lots of different, delicious salads, from roast vegetables to lentils, melanzane parmigana and pasta in every conceivable form then you will understand why I still miss the Villa Pia lunches.

Dinner is in two parts. Children are fed at 6pm on friendly fare such as cheesy pasta, sausages and pizza. Parents reconvene at 8pm for drinks followed by a decadent fourcourse meal. If your baby monitor doesn’t reach, Villa Pia will provide a babysitter so you can have a grown-up evening. For some of the newer mothers, this was the first taste of freedom in months.

And here we get to the crux of it. Villa

was slightly adrift – apparently the older children are there in July and August (along with 30°C-plus temperatures). So plan accordingly. And if you are an anti-social sort not given to chatting, Villa Pia is not for you.

If you do want to drag yourself away from the drinks room, there is loads to do in the surrounding area. As my observant fellow guest was no doubt aware, this is Piero della Francesca country, and his Madonna del Parto hangs in nearby Monterchi while his Legend of the True Cross – considered one of the Renaissance’s finest works – is in Arezzo. But unless your five-year-old is alive to the charms of an early Renaissance master (ours most certainly wasn’t) I suggest you stay put at Villa Pia and do very little. The kids were brilliantly entertained, which meant we could do what most exhausted parents really want on holiday... precisely nothing. I highly recommend it.

There is still availability at Villa Pia for September and October. Prices for adults from £ 5 5 0 per person per week; for children between the ages of two and 12 years from £ 2 40 per week.

V I L L A PI A

Lippiano, 06010 MSM Tiberina (PG), Umbria, Italy, +39 075 850 2027, v i l l a p i a @ v i l l a p i a . c o m; villapia.com 2016

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SCHOOL'S OU T / SK IING

SLOPING OFF

Catching the Highland Sleeper for a weekend of skiing in Scotland is less faff and more fun than it sounds, even with three children in tow

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By A M A N D A C O N S T A N C E

f I told you that you could catch a train on a Friday night from central London and be skiing in the sunshine in Scotland by 10am the next morning, you wouldn’t believe me, would you? But that’s what we did. With three children. For the weekend.

I know, it sounds like a schlepp, but actually it couldn’t have been easier and was certainly less of a pain than hiking out to Gatwick or Heathrow and catching a plane.

We trundled out of the house, wheelie cases in tow, and 15 minutes later (courtesy of the Overground) we were on the Highland Sleeper at Euston, ready for the 9.15am departure to Aviemore.

We were met on the platform by David, our liveried steward for the journey. He showed us to our quarters: two interconnecting berths and one separate cabin.

The interconnecting cabins make life a little easier with children, even three stupendously overexcited ones. There isn’t really room to swing a cat but with a little jostling and organization we all managed to get bed ready.

The sleeper still has some of the romance of a bygone age; the rolling stock might have seen better days but the staff are formal to a tee and the dining car carries a whiff of whisky and memories of cigars.

Tweedy gents have long used it to get to the grouse moors, and they are now joined by more modern MAMILs (Middle-Aged Men In Lycra) off for a weekend of mountain biking or climbing. Its very slowness – it takes 11 hours to trundle from London to the Highlands – is utterly at odds with our rushed modern lives. You are unaware of the shift, rocked to sleep as the train lurches towards our island's fringes.

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• Ski 60 resorts in 8 countries • Fly from 17 regional airports – choose your flight times • Ski for as long as you want… weekends, mid-weeks, weeks • Choose from hundreds of places to stay - catered chalets, apartments, 2* to the best 5* hotels • We make it easy and focus on maximising your ski time

Be Happy, Ski More.

It’s your ski holiday so it’s your choice…

So for extensive choice, ease and unparalleled flexibility visit skiweekends.com or call one of our friendly ski experts today on 023 8020 6971

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SCHOOL'S OU T / SK IING

Left The Ptarmigan Restaurant at the Top Station on the Cairngorm mountain

We were woken just after 7am with tea and juice. The thrill of rolling up the blind in our cabin to reveal snow-covered mountains was a wonder we will never forget.

The train pulled into Aviemore, we took a taxi to the Hilton in Coylumbridge and were tucking into porridge and a fry-up by 9am.

Skiing in Scotland is obviously very different to somewhere like the Alps. There are fewer mountains for a start. The Hilton in Coylumbridge sits in a pine forest far from any snowy slopes, but what Scotland does have it makes great use of, even if it means another journey to get there.

After our breakfast we marched onto the road in our ski gear, where we hailed the bus to CairnGorm Mountain. Our fellow travellers included many quite weathered, elderly skiers who looked far more ready for the slopes than me. These hardy Scottish types take to the slopes regularly, we were told, and feel very protective of ‘their’ mountain.

The bus climbed to the base of CairnGorm Mountain – widely considered the most beautiful and most challenging place to ski in Scotland. Natural Retreats, who manage it, have recently introduced their own in-house ski school, and within minutes we were booted, matched with skis and heading to the top of the mountain on the funicular railway (the highest in the UK) with Alison and Phil, our ski instructors.

Most skiing in on CairnGorm is based around the Top Station, which boasts both the highest restaurant and highest postbox in the UK. There is also a viewing station with extraordinary panoramic views across the Highlands.

When we reached the top it felt more like the school run rather than a ski mountain.

Everyone knows each other here; skiing is a very local thing in Aviemore. The school children all ski, often as ‘shredders’ – groups of youngsters who zip over the mountain with their ski instructors. There is none of the ooh la la of being in, say Val d’Isere. It is all far more functional than that, but I loved the sense of community, of Scottishness, of the skiers on the mountain.

As I went up one T-bar lift with Phil, he

called out to a small blonde girl whizzing down the mountain. She raised a pole in cheery greeting: “Ah, that’s my neighbour’s wee girl,” he said by way of explanation.

Alison, an ex-RAF pilot and top snow jumper took charge of our five-year-old. He wore a vest with a handle which meant she could hold him between her legs, and before long he was flying over moguls and mounds with her having the time of his life. I stayed

T R AV E L D E T A I L S CALEDONIAN SLEEPER

with them whilst the other three had a lesson with Phil, a local and dedicated mountain man.

Our biggest issue was getting too hot. The sun was blazing on a warm March day, which didn’t match our expectations, so we cooked in thermals.

The mountain has a wide range of routes on offer, including plenty of challenging off-piste routes. There are a total of 12 lifts, including the funicular at the resort, and in terms of runs there are seven greens, six blues, eight reds and one black, the longest of these stretching for an impressive 3.3km.

More than enough for a weekend.

We had such a good time that we missed the bus back to Coylumbridge. No problem, Phil gave us a lift in his battered Land Rover. Now that's something you don't get in the Alps!

The next day was far more Scottish; it was freezing on the mountain and a virtual white-out. I am definitely a fairweather skier these days and found not knowing my way around unnerving, but the children were oblivious and loved it. When most of us gave up at lunchtime, too cold to go on, our eldest skied the whole way down the mountain with Phil, an achievement that left him glowing with pride.

Catching the train back at 9pm on Sunday night was possibly even more exciting than our first journey. Waiting in the pitch black for the sleeper to arrive from Aberdeen, we all felt a bit Railway Children. Then it was a mad scramble to get everything on board and into the cabins before the train pulled off. Not surprisingly, everyone was fast asleep soon afterwards

The Highland service runs in both directions Sundays to Fridays (not Saturdays) and serves more than 40 Scottish stations. There is also a Lowland Sleeper between Euston, Edinburgh and Glasgow. Tickets (one way) are from £40 (seated), £80 per person (standard class) and £150 per person (first class).

Call 0330 0600500 for information. w w w.sleeper.scot

“Rolling up the blind to reveal snowcovered mountains was a wonder we’ll never forget”

The Hilton costs from £149 per night for a family of 4 (2 x double beds in the same room). w w w.hiltonaviemore.com

For ski pass prices and equipment hire on CairnGorm Mountain visit: w w w.cairngormmountain .org / wintersnowsports

CAIRNGORMS NATIONAL PARK The Cairngorms National Park is the largest National Park in the UK, twice the size of the Lake District, and is home to three of Scotland’s five ski areas: CairnGorm Mountain, the Lecht and Glenshee. It has be voted among the top 20 places to visit in the world

by National Geographic Traveller. w w w.visitcairngorms.com

and before we knew it we were waking up as the train drew into Euston, just before 8am. We emerged tousled, bleary-eyed amongst the dash of the city’s commuters, an assault on our senses after feeling a world away from London. We got home within the hour and all three kids made it to their desks at school, albeit half an hour or so late.

The sleeper isn’t cheap – you could fly for less – but it is far less faff and far more fun, especially if you are under 12. We are already planning another ski trip and possibly mountain biking in the Cairngorms next summer, just so we can take the sleeper again to the glorious Highlands.

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WINTERWOOD TUTORS

OUR TUTORS GO A B OV E + BEYOND Winterwood Tutors is a private tuition agency based in London.

With around 50 tutors, we specialise in preparing students for the 7+, 11+ & 13+ entrance exams, as well as the ISEB pretests and Common Entrance. We also provide support for all GCSE and A Level subjects, as well as offering mentoring and guidance to undergraduate and postgraduate students.

We have an enviable success rate, guiding students to target schools such as Eton, Westminster, NLCS, St Paul’s, City of London, Highgate, Haberdashers, Latymer Upper, Dulwich College, Wycombe Abbey, Sevenoaks, Harrow, Wellington, and many more.

To find out more, please contact us: E: tom.parkinson@winterwoodtutors.co.uk T: 07821 334 903

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right Star provides the very best tutoring to children of all ages. They have achieved an impressive 100 per cent pass rate over the years and 90 per cent of their work is through recommendation.

All their tutors have years of professional teaching experience with exceptional success rates at gaining entry into some of the most sought-after schools in the country.

They select their tutors through a rigorous training and assessment procedure and choose only the absolute finest. The tutors not only have extremely impressive credentials, but also an ability to stimulate, educate, inspire and communicate. brightstartutoring.co.uk

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ounded by Marie Duffy, a teacher with over 40 years’ experience in preparing children for entrance exams, 11 Plus London offers a range of 7+, 8+, 10+, 11+ and 13+ tuition services.

In addition, 11 Plus London can provide comprehensive consultation sessions and wideranging educational support With a wealth of learning materials available too, all designed to assist students attempting entrance tests to the most prestigious private and grammar schools, 11 Plus London is a powerful tool for passing exams.

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11 Plus London www.11pluslondon.co.uk The Key to Passing Exams – what we do:  11 Plus, 7 Plus, 8 Plus, 10 Plus & 13 Plus levels catered for  Maths, English, verbal & non-verbal reasoning covered  Private one-to-one tuition  Online tuition (11 Plus, 13 Plus, GCSE & A Level)  Class-based courses  Holiday & travel tutors  Mock tests  Study materials & homework personalised to each child’s needs  Over 90% success rate for long-term students  More than 10 years’ experience and program development  Educational consultancy  Assessments for dyslexia/dyspraxia  Advice on extra-curricular activities and choices

How to find us We are just a phone call away: 020 7384 2792 Much more information can be found on our website: www.11pluslondon.co.uk

2016

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HUNTLEY TUTORS Recent experience aiding preparation and communication

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any tutors today are out of touch with students and have little first-hand experience of the exams they will sit. Student tutors offer a fresh solution to this issue, as they have recently sat these exams and are able to identify more closely with their students.

With this in mind, Huntley Tutors was founded. They draw on the expertise of an experienced team of student tutors recruited from UCL ℌ one of the world’s top universities. Their tutors have an exceptional track record of success, and use their own experience to help students achieve their potential. huntleytutors.co.uk

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SPIRES Oxbridge expertise with greater ease and online fees

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pires is the UK leader in online tutoring, connecting students with the best and most trusted tutors from Oxford and Cambridge.

Online tutoring is convenient, on demand and incredibly safe. Using an online platform gives you access to expert tutors from the comfort of your home, while it also allows Spires to offer rates that are more affordable than what you might pay for more conventional tuition.

The demand for online tuition is increasing, especially in the lead-up to the new academic year, and Spires is offering all readers a free 20-minute trial lesson. spires.co

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WENTWORTH TUTORS US specialists teaching syllabuses from both sides of the pond

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entworth Tutors are currently offering tuition in a full range of subjects for all ages in the UK, US, and IB syllabuses.

An elite international private tutoring agency based in Central London, Wentworth specializes in the US system.

They help numerous families with the PSAT, SAT I, SAT II, ACT, SSAT and ISEE, as well as with college counselling, providing wideranging support with the US application processes.

Wentworth’s highly experienced private tutors come from the best institutions in the UK and the US directly to your home. wentworthtutors.com

THE TUTORESS Intensive courses offering training and confidence for 11+ exams

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“Simply put, there are certain things that a great one-on-one tutor can detect about a child's learning needs that a parent or classroom

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“Thus, when asking yourself whether it’s worth hiring a tutor, consider the plethora of benefits that a tutor can bring not just to your child’s academic progress, but to their social and personal development as a whole.” Victoria Olubi

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11+ Half-Term & Christmas Courses 24th - 28th October 2016 19th - 30th December 2016 10% off for Absolutely Education readers Limited spaces available Call 0208 242 4270 to book now www.TheTutoress.com T: 0208 242 4270 E: thetutoress@hotmail.com London, W5 2ES

2016

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PRIVATE TUITION ACADEMIC ASSESSMENTS EDUCATIONAL CONSULTANCY With more than 200 years’ collective experience at some of the UK’s top educational institutions ... ...we are able to utilise our expertise to deliver a service of the highest quality in West London.

Alastair Delafield Managing Director

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PROMOTION

A perfect gem Consider an education at one of the Ireland’s top boarding schools for boys

G

lenstal Abbey School stands out as one of the leading boarding schools in Ireland for boys aged 12-18.

Situated in County Limerick, in the heart of Munster, Glenstal Abbey is only 40 minutes' drive from Shannon Airport and just over two hours' drive from Dublin Airport.

Glenstal is a small school with small classes; there are approximately 250 students divided into groups mostly of 12 to 16 pupils, in line with the clear policy and academic vision of the school.

A Catholic school, Glenstal welcomes students from all traditions and sees itself as a partner with parents in the formation and nurturing of its students in a climate of learning.

Each student at Glenstal is encouraged to fulfill his potential. The school’s ethos is grounded in the values of reverence, respect and responsibility drawn from a long monastic tradition.

“Academia, pastoral care, sport, art and music are seamlessly woven into the educational fabric”

The Irish Department of Education and Skills recently completed a Whole School Evaluation on the management, leadership and learning at Glenstal Abbey School.

The report warmly endorsed the school’s academic, pastoral, sporting, art and music programmes: “All these aspects of the students’ experience appear to be woven into a fabric of care, support and pedagogy to nurture the academic, social and personal development of the students while in the care of the school.”

Glenstal has regularly topped The Sunday Times ‘Parent Power’ survey over the last 10 years. These tables are based on the percentage of students progressing to universities in Ireland and the UK. There is no better way for parents to discover what life is like for a students here than to explore the school and its grounds for themselves.

Above

Year 11 pupils at Glenstal Abbey

The annual boarding fee is in the order of €20,000 For further information about Glenstal Abbey School see www.glenstal.com email admissions@glenstal.com or telephone +35361621044 2016

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Celebrating

Academic Success

#likeaKCgirl

At Kent College, we prepare our girls for a bright future and to lead amongst their contemporaries.

With a 100% A-Level pass rate and success in gaining places at top Russell Group universities and competitive placements in Sydney, Boston and New York, KC girls are leading the way.

To find out about our ‘excellent’ academic education and the outstanding enrichment opportunities at Kent College, visit us this academic year:

Open Mornings 2016: 1st & 18th October Sixth Form Information Evening: 13th October Book online at www.kent-college.co.uk

Awarded ‘Excellent in all areas’ 2016

Kent College is a leading independent day & boarding school for girls aged 3-18.

Established in 1886 by the Methodist Independent Schools Trust. Pembury, Tunbridge Wells, TN2 4AX 01892 820218

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ISI

Independent Schools Inspectorate

08/09/2016 15:23

PROMOTION

Support For Success

C

Whether learning to type or getting extra tailored support, children flourish at the McLeod Centre for Learning

hildren who struggle with reading and writing often compare their own achievement with those of their peers. They feel less intelligent, isolated and have low self-esteem. At The McLeod Centre for Learning, which has CReSteD typing/handwriting (dyspraxia) lessons. accreditation (Council for the Registration Groups are no larger than three and often of Schools Teaching Dyslexic Pupils), individual. Dependent on needs, children children address their learning needs within usually attend one to five mornings a week a nurturing environment, and find their way for usually one to three terms. in the academic world again – or even for the The McLeod centre for Learning runs first time. after-school sessions for 5-18 years. A wide Before starting, children are assessed range of subjects to A-Level is offered as

by Specialist Teachers and an individual well as remedial handwriting, touch-typing programme is designed. Children enrolled and tutoring for 4+, 7+, 8+, 11+ and 13+ entry in the Morning School receive English Absolutely Education.qxp_Layout 1 08/09/2016 Page 1Specialist support for dyslexia, (dyslexia), math (dyscalculia) and touch- 14:30 exams.

“At McLeod children address their learning needs within a nurturing environment”

dyspraxia and dyscalculia is also available.

Their teachers, experienced in selection processes, provide interview practice for independent preparatory and senior schools.

The McLeod Centre for Learning’s touch typing classes are after school and at weekends during term time. Intensive courses are run during holidays. Many children, who have already learned during a course, choose to continue to work in spelling whilst building typing speeds.

Amanda McLeod is the author and series editor of the Scholastic Handwriting series (Reception to Year 6). She’s a committee member of the National Handwriting Association, one of their trainers and also their representative in the media.

74 Lupus Street, SW1V 3EL, 020 7630 6970, amandamcleod.org

Becoming the best we can be…

ORWELL PARK SCHOOL

Leading Independent Prep School Co-educational Boarding and Day 2½ to 13 t: 01473 659225 admissions@orwellpark.org www.orwellpark.co.uk Orwell Park, Nacton, Ipswich, Suffolk IP10 0ER

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2016

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London’s leading day school for specific learning difficulties

...and all of a sudden, nothing is impossible.

020 7976 5456 fairleyhouse.org.uk

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Open Evening: Wednesday, 5th October from 4.00pm – 7.00pm

Catholic Day and Boarding School for girls aged 11 to 18 • Experience teaching the IB Diploma for over 35 years • Exclusive pre-IB Middle Years Programme • Nurture and support: girls gain excellent results • Places achieved at top Universities worldwide

• Scholarships and bursaries available • Multilingualism: up to 9 languages taught • Internationalism: over 40 nationalities, yet one shared mission • All faiths welcome

Please contact: admissions@marymountlondon.com www.marymountlondon.com Tel: 020 8949 0571 George Road, Kingston upon Thames, Surrey KT2 7PE. MARY MOUNT SCHOOL.indd 1

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08/09/2016 21:32

Visit our website for Open Event information www.kgs.org.uk

#workwellandbehappy

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OPEN MORNINGS SAT 12 NOV ’16 SAT 25 FEB ’17

Cambridge’s boarding and day school for boys and girls aged 11-18 CALL OUR REGISTRAR ON 01223 508 904 THE LEYS.indd 1

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EMAIL ADMISSIONS@THELEYS.NET OR VISIT THELEYS.NET 02/09/2016 16:08

08/09/2016 21:32

A co-ed prep school for children aged 3-13 020 7720 4091 www.newtonprepschool.co.uk

“Newton combines knowledge of families with great space themselves. All the teachers understand my children, the management is open to fresh ideas and the school is big enough to accommodate variety.”

Current parent

OPEN DAY: Sat 8th October 2016: 9.30am-12.30pm HEADMISTRESS’S TOURS: Friday mornings term-

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Education for life Scholars and bursahips r availableies

At Bethany we inspire, encourage and challenge our pupils to achieve more than they ever thought possible.

Open Mornings: Saturday 24th September and Wednesday 5th October

Come and see what Bethany can do for your child.

Entrance Assessments for 2017: Year 7 Saturday 5th November 2016 Year 9 Saturday 14th January 2017

“

The teachers at Bethany are great and the sports facilities are amazing. Sport is very important to me – I have been selected for the Kent Athletics squad and Bethany supports me in that.

I also really enjoy Drama and love being involved in the School productions.

Contact Us:

Libby Donegan, Year 11 Bethany pupil since 2014. Sport and Drama Scholar.

Co-educational day and boarding school for ages 11-18.

”

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01580 211273 or registrar@bethanyschool.org.uk www.bethanyschool.org.uk Goudhurst, Kent TN17 1LB

24/08/2016 13:49

08/09/2016 21:33

Saturday 24th September 2016, 09.00 – 12.00 A leading independent co-educational day and boarding school offering high academic standards, excellent pastoral care and a wide extra-curricular programme within a supportive Christian environment.

Co-education Juniors 3 – 11, Seniors 11 – 16, Sixth Form 16 - 18

www.farringtons.org.uk

Perry Street, Chislehurst, Kent BR7 6LR T: 020 8467 0256

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Queen Anne’s Independent boarding and day school for girls 11 - 18

Open Mornings Saturday 17 September Friday 18 November Tours 9.30am - 11.00am Day, full, weekly & flexi-boarding places available Transport available throughout London and the South East

www.qas.org.uk/bookonline Queen Anne’s School, Caversham, Berkshire RG4 6DX 0118 918 7333 Registered Charity

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08/09/2016 21:33

financier

academic entrepreneur

artist

editor

composer

teacher

scientist

director

architect

musician

journalist

economist

engineer

athlete surgeon

designer

author

Creating bright futures at Stowe is an independent co-educational boarding and day school inspiring pupils aged between 13 and 18.

e | admissions@stowe.co.uk t | 01280 818205 w | www.stowe.co.uk STOWE.indd 1

An outstanding school for boys and girls aged 3-18 Where excellence is a habit!

Find out more at KENTCOLLEGE.COM KENT COLLEGE.indd 1

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Set in an idyllic campus, Kent College provides an individual approach to education accompanied by excellent pastoral care.

Come and see for yourself Senior School Open Morning: 1st October 9.00am – 12.30pm Sixth Form Open Evening 4th October 6.00pm – 8.00pm Call us on 01227 763231 12/08/2016 10:04

08/09/2016 21:33

Cranmore School Independent Preparatory School for girls and boys 2 ½ - 13

Scholarships for Year 3 entry

music

sport

& academic

Cranmore is extending its provision for girls by introducing full co-education in stages from September 2016 www.cranmoreprep.co.uk 01483 280340 admissions@cranmoreprep.co.uk West Horsley, Surrey KT24 6AT CRANMORE PREP.indd 1

24/08/2016 14:32

Outstanding boarding in the heart of York Open Mornings

St Peter’s Saturday 8 October St Olave’s Saturday 15 October 01904 527300 Clifton St Olave’s St Peter’s www.stpetersyork.org.uk 3–8 8–13 13–18 Registered Charity Number: 1141329

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Speak the Truth • Live Generously • Aim for the Best

Open Events 2016 Sixth Form Open Evening Open Morning Open Evening School in Action

Wednesday 5th October Saturday 8th October Thursday 13th October Thursday 3rd November

5.15pm – 7.30pm 9.30am – 12.15pm 4.30pm – 6.30pm 9.00am – 10.45am

To book: 020 7348 1748 | admissions@sjsg.org.uk www.stjamesgirls.co.uk Earsby Street | London W14 8SH

ST JAMES

Registered Charity No. 270156

Senior Girls’ School

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Co-educational, day & boarding school for 3-18 years in South East England

Boarding from 7 to 18 years Warm and supportive ethos Full weekend programme for boarders Strong academic results at 11+, GCSE and A Level Outstanding modern and traditional facilities Fast, Direct Rail Link to London

Autumn 2016 Open Days Junior: Friday 30 September Senior: Saturday 1 October T: 01843 572931 E: admissions@slcuk.com College Road, Ramsgate, Kent CT11 7AE

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DISCOVER THE MAGIC OF LAPLAND THIS WINTER

OUR FAMILIES LOVE IT, YOURS WILL TOO. In 2002 we pioneered specialist family holidays; by going on them ourselves. From multi-activity holidays, to authentic Father Christmas trips for younger children, to reindeer and husky safaris and Northern Lights experiences, we tested these holidays on our own families first. So when we say we know you will love our family holidays, we really do know you will.

To find out more call 01670 333 091 or visit activitiesabroad.com

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BER K HA MST E D The School that grows with you

B ER K HA M S T ED

PREP

BERK HAMSTED

B OY S

B E R KH A M ST E D

B E R K H A M S T E D

GIRLS

S IXT H

Open Days 2016: Thursday 29 September to Saturday 1 October Call 01442 358001 or visit our website to book a place www.berkhamstedschool.org

School Registered Charity No. 310630 BERCKHAMSTED.indd 1

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BDN Company No. 07610890 02/09/2016 11:12

08/09/2016 21:33

T S APIENTIA EA

R F

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WYMONDHAM COLLEGE

ONE OF THE TOP 20 STATE SCHOOLS IN ENGLAND

OPEN DAYS BOARDER TASTER EVENING 30 SEPTEMBER 2016 | FROM 5.45PM

REGISTER FOR THIS EVENT ON OUR WEBSITE

MAIN SCHOOL OPEN MORNING 1 OCTOBER 2016 | 9.00-11.00AM

SIXTH FORM OPEN EVENING 12 OCTOBER 2016 | FROM 5.00PM

enquiries@wymondhamcollege.org | 01953 609000 | www.wymondhamcollege.org

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“A very special place to grow up in” Good Schools Guide

Snapshot Mornings

23 September, 30 September, 14 October, 4 November, 25 November & 9 December 2016

FRANC

HA LEAL

ETO GE

www.godolphin.org

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Luckle HOUSE SCHOOL

Excellent Coeducational Day & Boarding School for Pupils Aged 11-18

Open Morning for Years 3-6 (ages 7-10) Saturday 1 October 9.30 – 12 noon

(entry via Hunts Slip Road)

Parents and boys will tour the College with our current pupils, meet staff and hear the Master, Dr Joe Spence, talk about Dulwich College and Dr Toby Griffiths about the Junior School.

No appointment is necessary.

The offer of a place in the Junior School is the offer of a place at Dulwich College to age 18.

Ideal location for weekly boarders, with transport available from the West London area from Sept 16

Mid-week visits are also available by appointment. Please call Junior Admissions on 0208 299 8432 or visit dulwich.org.uk/junior-school

OPEN MORNING SATURDAY 8 OCTOBER 2016 Book online at:

www.luckleyhouseschool.org

Open Morning for entry into Year 7 Saturday 8 October 9.30 – 12 noon Tour the College with boys, meet staff and hear the Master, Dr Joe Spence, talk about Dulwich College. No appointment is necessary.

SCHOLARSHIPS & BURSARIES AVAILABLE Luckley House School, Wokingham, Berkshire T: 0118 978 4175 E: Registrar@luckleyhouseschool.org

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Other opportunities are available to visit the College during the school day. Dates can be found on the Admissions section of our website, www.dulwich.org.uk, or please telephone the Registrar’s Office on 020 8299 9263.

15/08/2016 09:42 COLLEGE.indd 1 DULWICH

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07/09/2016 16:53

08/09/2016 21:33

Be all you can be St Ed’s is a school where every pupil is connected by a love of learning, the pursuit of possibility and the challenge of being the very best they can be.

01227 475601 | www.stedmunds.org.uk

Open Day | Saturday 1st October

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Senior School (11 - 18) Boarding and Day I NDEPENDENT C O -E DUCATIONAL S CHOOL

First-class education in a fantastic rural location, easily accessible by road, rail and air

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Prep School (2½ - 11) Day

Please ring 01884 252543 to arrange an individual visit Tiverton • Devon • EX16 4DN

www.blundells.org

02/09/2016 11:41

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“One school, two buildings, great teaching, and tip top facilities.”

The Good Schools Guide

The Study is a leading prep school situated in the heart of Wimbledon Village. We identify and nurture each girl’s unique academic, creative and sporting skills in a caring and supportive community.

For further details and to book a school visit, contact Jane Davis on 020 8947 6969 www.thestudyprep.co.uk Registered Charity No. 271012

Preparatory School for girls aged four to eleven

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St Catherine’s Bramley

Day, full & weekly boarding | 900 girls 4-18 years | Founded 1885

Guildford GU5 0DF

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St Catherine’s, Bramley offers the definitive education for girls, under an hour from London.

Space and time to learn and grow.

OPEN MORNINGS Friday 16th September Wednesday 5th October Tuesday 8th November

01483 899609 | admissions@stcatherines.info

www.stcatherines.info 24/08/2016 16:59

08/09/2016 21:34

A level Scholarships

APPLY NOW FOR 2017 SCHOLARSHIPS

One of London’s best private college for A levels offers full or partial scholarships for: • maths • science • economics • humanities • art • performing arts • Emphasis on study skills, independent thinking and individual attention has produced excellent exam results and university destinations • Informal, university-style approach and wide range of cultural activities

Telephone: 0207 937 3858 admissions@ashbournecollege.co.uk

ashbournecollege.co.uk

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CIFE A-Level scholarships C

IFE (the Council of Independent Education) is an association of 20 private A level colleges in the UK which has sent over 50% of its graduates to Russell Group universities over the past two years.The quality of its education is in further evidence from the list of this year's CIFE academic award winners shown here.

GRADES A* A* A* A* A A* A* A* A* A* A* A B A* A* A* A A* A* A* A A* A* A* A* A* A A A A A* A* A* A (AS) A* A A A* A A A* A* A* A B A* A* A A* A* A* A A* A* A A A* B B A* A A A* A* A A A* A* A* A*

ERSITY DESTINATION UNIV – mb Ca s, St Edmund UCL ford Ox , ge lle University Co mbs Ca , ge lle Co x Sydney Susse rsity ive Un ng Ko ng Ho Ox New College, ford LSE ty rsi ive Un h Edinburg ty rsi ive Un s ed Le City University l UCL, Kings and Bristo UCL LSE am B'H of ty rsi Unive a gli An st Ea of ty Universi LSE mbridge Robinson College, Ca

DEGREE COURSE Medicine Engineering Economics Maths Economics Economics English Law & English Phil English & Soc s die Stu Media French & Russian Economics Law Biology Acc & Finance Management Psychology

To promote this vibrant sector many of Cife's colleges offer very generous scholarships.

For details call 020 8767 8666 or visit www.cife.org.uk WWW.CIFE.ORG.UK CIFE.indd 1

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06/09/2016 14:43

08/09/2016 21:34

The Sussex Prep School 40mins from Central London

OPEN MORNING 1st October 10am - 12pm

01293 520648 cottesmoreschool.com

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Open Days 8th October & 12th November

ST MARY’S CALNE A Top Independent Boarding & Day School For Girls Aged 11-18

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stmaryscalne.org 01249 857200 admissions@stmaryscalne.org

07/09/2016 09:30

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LEADING THE WAY Allow us to introduce Mr Mortimer, our Headmaster. His passion for education is only matched by his love of sport – a keen rower, he’s twice rowed the Atlantic.

At Warminster we don’t only choose the best teachers to educate our pupils – we choose the most interesting ones. From Special Constables to mountaineers, our diverse interests and passions spur us on to do things a little differently.

Individually, we are diverse in our interests, driven in our passions and determined to work together to do things a little differently. If you are too, then get in touch. www.warminsterschool.org.uk admissions@warminsterschool.org.uk 01985 210160

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07/09/2016 13:01 16:14 06/09/2016

A FAMILY-RUN BOARDING AND DAY SCHOOL FOR BOYS AGED 7–13

Recently more and more London families are choosing Woodcote House for their son.

We asked them why and these are the reasons they gave: • The average class size is 10 • Outstanding academic results • Sport played every day in our 30 acres • Daily bus service to the top of the A3 • Our unique ‘graduated’ approach to boarding

where boys can still be boys!

• All homework, sport and clubs done at school – home time is home time!

• No charge for tutoring • Boys flourish being a big fish in a small pond If you would like to find out more, or to discuss how we can work with you and your son, then please give our Registrar, Wendy, a call on 01276 472 115 or email info@woodcotehouseschool.co.uk

SAT 26

TH

OPEN DAY

NOV 2016 · 9.30 - 11.30AM

Snows Ride, Windlesham, Surrey GU20 6PF Tel: 01276 472115 www.woodcotehouseschool.co.uk WOODCOTE HOUSE.indd 1

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07/09/2016 10:23

08/09/2016 21:34

Independent Day School for boys aged 11-18 years

Open Mornings 11+ & 13+ Entry Saturday 24 September 2016 10.00am - 1.00pm (no booking required - see website for details)

Sixth Form Entry Thursday 29 September 2016 9.30am - 11.00am (by appointment - see website for details)

• Scholarships and Bursaries available • 22 route coach service • 27 acre campus

020 8979 9273 www.hamptonschool.org.uk admissions@hamptonschool.org.uk

Hampton School, Hanworth Road, Hampton, Middlesex, TW12 3HD HAMPTON SCHOOL.indd 1

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Country Prep Excellence for children aged 3-13 Nursery - Pre-Prep - Prep School

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07/09/2016 16:07

08/09/2016 21:34

ST GEORGE’S ASCOT WINNER OF THE

BEST SCHOOL FOOD AWARD

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07/09/2016 16:26

08/09/2016 21:34

Winchester House

Gaining the confidence for life Daily minibus from Chipping Norton and Banbury Area Brackley 01280 702483 office@winchester-house.org www.winchester-house.org Pre-prep and preparatory school on the Northamptonshire, Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire borders WINCHESTER HOUSE.indd 1

07/09/2016 14:20

‘ Come and See’ John 1:39 Open Day Saturday 8th October 2016

A compass for life

A

A

ST MARTIN’S AMPLEFORTH

The prep school for Ampleforth College 3-13

AMPLEFORTH COLLEGE

Co-educational boarding and day school for 13-18 www.ampleforth.org.uk 01439 766863

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07/09/2016 18:58

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We are curious We are authors We are scientists We are active thinkers We are historians We are courageous We are academic We are musicians We are sporting We are future-smart We are independent We are creative We are mathematicians We are innovative

#WeAreFSM

What do you want to be?

We are having Open Mornings on 17th September & 5th November We are also going to be at the Independent Schools Show, Battersea An independent boarding and day school for boys and girls aged 3-13 Fordingbridge, Hants, SP6 1NS~01425 653181~www.fsmschool.com 2016 Absolutely Ed.indd 1 1 FORRES SANDLE.indd

9/8/2016 12:14:53 PM 08/09/2016 12:32

‘‘Bringing out the best in boys’’

A day in the life of Aldro... come and see for yourself If you would like to attend an Open Morning, to request a prospectus, or to arrange an individual tour, please contact the Admissions Office on 01483 813535 or email: admissions@aldro.org Aldro, Lombard Street, Shackleford, Godalming, Surrey GU8 6AS www.aldro.org ALDRO.indd 1

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07/09/2016 19:07

08/09/2016 21:34

Founded 1642

New Hall School

A Catholic independent ‘diamond model’ school, city of Chelmsford Day (3-18 years) • Boarding (7-18 years) Preparatory • Girls’ Division • Boys’ Division • Sixth Form

“Best for Horsey Types” The Week 2016

Open Morning – Saturday 5th November Please call to book your place.

Open Mornings:

The boarding provision is “excellent” ISI and Ofsted

Saturday 24 September 2016 & 29 April 2017, 9.00am - 12.00noon (online booking recommended) Contact the Admissions Department on 01245 236098 or registrar@newhallschool.co.uk for more details.

newhallschool.co.uk The Avenue, Boreham, Chelmsford, CM3 3HS “A Catholic foundation and ethos, welcoming all”

A Co-Ed Boarding and Day School for children aged 3-13 Situated on the Dorset and Wiltshire border, just 25 minutes from Salisbury

Tel: 01725 516264 • www.sandroyd.org

“Excellent” In every category - ISI Inspection A Sunday Times Top 100 Prep School celebrating 125 years in 2017

Register by 1st December Middleton Hall Lane, Brentwood, Essex, CM15 8EQ Tel 01277 243 291 www.brentwoodschool.co.uk/admissions

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08/09/2016 21:36

B P REPARATORY CHOOL B CHOOL BLACKHEATH LACKHEATHP PREPARATORY REPARATORY S SS CHOOL BLACKHEATH LACKHEATH P REPARATORY S CHOOL IAPS co-educational school for 3-11 years IAPS co-educational school for 3-11 years B BLACKHEATH LACKHEATH P PREPARATORY REPARATORY S SCHOOL CHOOL IAPS co-educational school for 3-11 years

Overlooking Blackheath and set in five acres of Overlooking Blackheath and set in five acres of beautiful grounds, this leading prep school beautiful grounds, this leading prep school offersBlackheath an outstanding Overlooking and education. set in five acres of offersBlackheath an outstanding education.

Overlooking andset setininfive fiveacres acres Overlooking Blackheath and of of Overlooking Blackheath and set in prep five acres of beautiful grounds, this leading school beautiful grounds, this are leading school Regular open mornings heldprep throughout beautiful grounds, this leading prep school beautiful grounds, this leading prep school Regular open mornings are held throughout an education. offerswhen anoutstanding outstanding education. theoffers term you can come and join us an education. offerswhen anoutstanding outstanding education. theoffers term you can come and join us on a normal working day. on amornings normal working day.

Regular open areheld held throughout Regular open mornings are Regular areheld heldthroughout throughout Regularopen openmornings mornings are throughout 4 St.Germans Place, Blackheath, London.

SE3join 0NJ us us theterm term when you can come and the when you can come and join 4 St.Germans Place, Blackheath, London.

SE3join 0NJ us us the term when you can come and Tel: 020 8858 the 0692 Email: info@blackheathprepschool.com www.blackheathprepschool.com term when you can come and join Tel: 020 8858 0692 Email:on info@blackheathprepschool.com www.blackheathprepschool.com onaanormal normal working day. working day. on anormal normal working day.

Company limited bya guarantee No. 672569 Charitable Status No. 312732 on working day.

Company limited by guarantee No. 672569 Charitable Status No. 312732

4 St.Germans Place, Blackheath, London. SE3 0NJ St.Germans Place, London.

SE3 0NJ 4 St.Germans Place, Blackheath, Blackheath, London.

SE3 0NJ Tel: 020 8858 06924 info@blackheathprepschool.com www.blackheathprepschool.com 4 Email: St.Germans Place, Blackheath, London.

SE3 0NJ Tel: 020 8858 0692 Email: info@blackheathprepschool.com www.blackheathprepschool.com Tel: 020 8858 0692 Email: info@blackheathprepschool.com www.blackheathprepschool.com

Tel: 020 8858 0692 Email: info@blackheathprepschool.com Company limited by guarantee No. 672569 Charitablewww.blackheathprepschool.com Status No. 312732 Company limitedbybyguarantee guarantee No. No. 672569 Status No.No. 312732 Company limited 672569Charitable Charitable Status 312732 Company limited by guarantee No. 672569 Charitable Status No. 312732

ORLEY FARM SCHOOL.indd 1

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Boarding and Day School . Girls 11-18

“Pupils’ achievements are excellent in all aspects of school life”

A HOT HOUSE AT HANFORD

Independent Schools Inspectorate

Open Morning

Saturday 1st October 2016 @ 10am

HANFORD

Contact admissions to arrange a visit.

E: admissions@tudorhallschool.com T: 01295 756259

traditionally modern

www.tudorhallschool.com @TudorHallSchool /TudorHallSchool

www.hanfordschool.co.uk or call Karen on 01258 860219

A registered charity reg no 1042783

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OPEN MORNING 15TH OCTOBER

01/07/2016 14:04 14:37 24/08/2016

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The Pilgrims’ School, Winchester Day and boarding for boys aged 4 to 13

A fine school in which the musical, the sporty and the clever boy will positively flourish The Good Schools Guide

Open Mornings Saturday, 15 October | Thursday, 3 November Be a Chorister for a Day Saturday, 8 October Please contact the Registrar for more details or to arrange a visit of the school www.thepilgrims-school.co.uk | admissions@pilgrims-school.co.uk | 01962 854189 Incorporating the Winchester Cathedral Choristers and the Winchester College Quiristers

Discover more, come for a personal tour or attend our Open Morning in the Pre-Prep Thursday 13th October 2016 9.30-10.45am

A thriving independent day, weekly and flexi-boarding co-ed prep school for children aged 3 - 13

A Cotswold childhood Open Morning Friday 21st October 9.30 - 12.00 noon

Watch your child thrive in our happy, caring school Independent Day School in Hampton for girls aged 4-11 & boys aged 4-13 Please visit www.twickenhamprep.co.uk or call 020 8979 6216 Beveree, 43 High Street, Hampton TW12 2SA

TPS_Absolutely_Ad_90x134_June16_AW.indd 2 TPS.indd 1 _ADVERTS_QP.indd 3

Minchinhampton, Gloucestershire t: 01453 832072 e: office@bps.school w: www.beaudesert.gloucs.sch.uk

05/07/2016 19:38 24/08/2016 BEAUDESERT.indd 17:29 1

25/08/2016 20:24 08/09/2016 21:36

Voted in the top 5 boarding schools for girls in the UK*

Your daughter is unique,

Outstanding independent education for girls 4 to 18

her education will be.

Open Afternoon/Evening Fri 7th October 2016 6th Form Open Eve, Weds 12th Oct

Open Days Reception & Junior

Senior & Sixth Form

Saturday 24 Sept 10am Wednesday 5 Oct 9.30am Wednesday 2 Nov 9.30am

Saturday 17 Sept 10am Tuesday 27 Sept 9.30am Tuesday 1 Nov 9.30am

www.sydenhamhighschool.gdst.net

020 8557 7004

admissions@syd.gdst.net

19 Westwood Hill, SE26 6BL

Talbot Heath Independent School for Girls aged 3-18

Rothesay Rd | Bournemouth | Dorset Tel: 01202 761881 | talbotheath.org Get social with us, search @TalbotHeathSch

• Superb achievements in Music, Drama and STEM subjects • iPad Centre of Excellence • Forest School in our own wooded campus • National finalists in sixteen sports • UK No.1 Tennis School for Girls • Private minibuses for outlying areas/London • Voted in the top 5 boarding schools for girls in the UK by Study International, Oct 2015 Full boarding £3428 per term, Weekly £3059 per term, Flexi £61 per night/£150 for 3 nights inc weekends.

Senior tuition £4444 per term.

Building confidence & character since 1886

Royal Ad 125 x 85_Layout 1 19/07/2016 15:29 Page 1

Excellent”

“

ISI Inspection December 2015

in every category

FREE SCHOOL

Open Mornings Sat 24 Sept Thu 13 Oct

OPENING 2016

10am 10am

T register, please call To our admissions team on 01428 686735 or book online at www.kesw.org

Co-educational Boarding and Day School Independent Education without fees after Free School opening Affordable Boarding

An independent boarding and day school for girls and boys aged 11-18

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The Royal School

Godalming, Surrey GU8 5SG

Wo lverhampto n

Penn Road, Wolverhampton, West Midlands WV3 OEG Tel: 01902 349 109

mo@royal.wolverhampton.sch.uk www.theroyalschool.co.uk

08/09/2016 21:37

INCLUSIVE • INDIVIDUAL • INSPIRATIONAL Thriving and friendly independent HMC school Boarding (full, weekly, flexi) and day 450 boys aged 11-18 and girls aged 16-18 Overlooking the river near Henley-on-Thames Weekly bus route to and from West London

Open Mornings

Saturday 1 October, 10.00am (Sixth Form) Saturday 8 October, 9.30am (Whole School) Book your attendance at

www.shiplake.org.uk/opendays

inspiring independent minds A top 100 day and boarding school for girls aged 9 to 18

• Dynamic curriculum sitting alongside an excellent co-curricular programme.

020 8440 8586 ENGLISH, MATHS, 11+, SCIENCE & MANDARIN TUITION FOR 4-18 YEARS.

• Academic success in a beautiful environment, with room to explore and grow.

• Outstanding pastoral care.

• Daily transport, attractive bursaries and scholarships available.

Open Mornings on 7th October & 4th November or telephone to make an appointment.

T: 01747 852416 or visit www.stmarys.eu

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www.afterschoollearning.com

08/09/2016 21:37

60

L A ST WOR D

seconds with

DR STEPHEN SPURR The previous Headmaster of Westminster School on his new role for the Inspired education group

Tell us about your new role with the Inspired education group A On leaving Westminster in 2014, I was approached by a number of organisations and found the international vision of Inspired the one closest to my own.

As globalisation becomes more entrenched, it is important that education is not left behind. My new role involves a lot of travel!

At each stage and each level of ability, there is a Challenge and Extension programme (CHEX), which, rather than streaming pupils into subjects, ensures both the brightest and least confident progress to the best of their ability in each class through tailored exercises. Unlike many other schools of this calibre, this approach recognises that children develop at different ages and ensures that students continually progress as opposed to being pigeon-holed after one early exam.

Q

Q Tell us some of the background to Inspired and the Reddam House schools.

A Inspired is the newest and fastestgrowing international group of highperforming schools. The Inspired vision is to select only premium schools, market leaders in their own communities, and then link them with Inspired’s education philosophy.

The group has a substantial presence on four continents and is led by top educationalists. Schools offer a fresh and contemporary approach to education, reevaluating traditional teaching methods and curriculums and providing a dynamic form of education, both global and local, that is fitting for the 21st century.

The UK schools in the Inspired group are Reddam House in Berkshire and Fulham Prep School in London.

What is Reddam House Berkshire?

Reddam House Berkshire (formerly Bearwood College) is the UK flagship of Reddam House, whose schools top the league tables in Australia and South Africa. It is set within 120 acres of stunning parkland and occupies a magnificent Victorian mansion, 35 miles west of London.

In contrast to many British schools of this calibre, it is a ‘through-school’,

educating children from three months to 18 years across three age divisions. Under the Reddam House management team the school was delighted to achieve ‘Outstanding’ and ‘Good’ in all categories of its first ISI report after just one term – a remarkable achievement.

Above

Reddam House School in Berkshire

Q

A

What have been the challenges of opening a new school?

A Bearwood College had a proud history but had fallen on very hard times. Its potential in this prime location was obvious, so the challenge was to bring that out as quickly as possible – with new leadership, management, hand-picked teaching staff and investment.

Q

What is the school ethos?

Defining principles include a ‘global mindset’ driven by the belief that this generation will compete globally rather than nationally, and subjects such as music, dance and drama being set firmly within the main curriculum.

Q What further plans are there for Reddam House schools in the UK? A Inspired is interested in the premium school market and is continuously evaluating schools that wish to join the group.

Q How will your previous experience as head of both Westminster and Clifton College and housemaster at Eton help?

A Being both a head of department and housemaster at Eton could not have been better training for headship. At Clifton it was a question of bringing out the potential of a through-school, both boarding and day, and raising its profile, while at Westminster, the most academically successful school in the country, it was a question of continually matching the best global standards and ensuring that pupils were prepared for the top-ranked universities worldwide

Q

“Reddam House is all about providing a dynamic, global education” 194

|

A B S O L U T E LY E D U C A T I O N

AE_Stephen Spurr,.indd 194

|

A

DR STEPHEN SPURR Managing Director Reddam House Europe

Will you do things differently at Reddam House?

A The best independent education is now international.

Belonging to a dynamically evolving network of schools, each rooted in their own community but with a global vision, is the best way to ensure continual improvement and opportunity for all.

Q

2016

09/09/2016 12:37

HABERDASHERS’ MONMOUTH SCHOOLS

A life-changing education is closer than you think - just 2½ hours from London Visit our stand at the Independent Schools Show, Battersea

www.habs-monmouth.org MONMOUTH SCHOOL & THE GRANGE

HABERDASHERS’ MONMOUTH SCHOOL FOR GIRLS & INGLEFIELD HOUSE

HABERDASHERS’ AGINCOURT SCHOOL & NURSERY

BOYS 7 - 18 boarding from 9

GIRLS 7 - 18 boarding from 7

BOYS AND GIRLS 3 - 7

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05/09/2016 10:35 02/09/2016 11:14:11

DISCOVERMORE

Embracing an innovative, modern approach whilst keeping traditional values at its core, Kew House School takes an exciting stance on 21st century education. With state-of-the-art facilities,

Open Days September 20th (9.30am)

a broad curriculum and excellent pastoral care, Kew House is

October 12th/18th (9.30am/7pm)

a place where you would want to be – a place of learning and

November 3rd/11th (9.30am/9.30am)

discovery, laughter and friendship.

November 16th/24th (9.30am/7pm)

T: 0208 742 2038 E: info@kewhouseschool.com W: www.kewhouseschool.com

An independent co-educational senior school for students aged 11-18 in West London KHS.indd 1

@kewhouseschool

31/05/2016 09:23