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Leathersellers’ Review 2024–2025
appealed to parents. “However,” says Richard, “the temptation is to do what everyone else is doing to try to get further up the league tables – but we needed to think about the ethos of the school and who that was going to appeal to – the challenge is to find your place in the market and evolve over time, and for us that meant becoming the school of choice for parents in south- east London.” And while Richard says that he believes that this is now the case, it’s an endeavour that demands continual adaptation, planning, and a very clear sense of self-awareness. “In business,” Richard reflects, “you can join as a CEO and make changes quite quickly around headline-grabbing unique selling points, but in schools it’s more complex: what you do has to derive from a deep understanding of the school and its potential. Above all, you have to earn the trust of a generation of fee-paying parents. That takes time.” Now the first choice out of local independent competitors, a large part of Colfe’s success has been the articulation of an appealing school culture grounded in the fact that when children are happy, they achieve. As Richard confirms, “Children and parents are choosing Colfe’s because of this ethos.” Part of this cultural differentiation is about fostering ambition and encouraging enthusiasm and curiosity, as well as being a welcoming and active partner within the local educational community. “Across the range of independent schools, Colfe’s, by design, is positioned at the more inclusive and less privileged end of the spectrum.”
recognition of the financial pressure on parents. We got the remote learning right and emerged stronger,” says Richard, a not dissimilar outcome from other points of crisis such as the financial crash in 2008. As is still the case today, Richard’s vision for Colfe’s was always to stay within the reach of professionals, and because the majority of Colfe’s parents are dual-working and often employed in the City, the period of the financial crash was particularly difficult, and pupil numbers fell. “But we had to hold our nerve,” says Richard. “We could have become less selective, but the priority was to retain academic credibility.” Pupil numbers recovered and have continued to build, now to a record high, which, on the subject of crises, also includes Ukrainian refugee children. As Richard recounts, “We did far more than other schools three years ago. Within a month we had 12 Ukrainian kids here and three years on they’re still here, still funded by the development office and preparing for GCSE and A-level. You can always justify inaction but, instead, we thought, how can we make this work?” It’s an attitude that continues to resonate with parents and the wider school community. Part of the equation to stay competitive at all levels, including fees – currently £4,000 less than those of the nearest independent – is recruitment both of pupils and of teachers. “We are sticking with the plan of recruiting large numbers of kids from state schools which gives us a much wider pool of talent.” This has been made possible by the groundwork of embedding the school into the local community, through enrichment initiatives and partnerships such as widening access to higher education. It has also been underpinned and sustained in recent years by the transformational Leathersellers’ Sixth Form Scholarship programme which is now funded jointly by The Leathersellers’ Foundation and Colfe’s Charitable Trust. Under Richard’s leadership these programmes have continued to grow, not just increasing social mobility and the life chances of individual pupils but also helping to create a diverse and dynamic student body. This helps to raise intellectual aspirations, provide new perspectives, and contribute to the process of creating an authentic and widely respected school identity. Ensuring that the teaching talent matches that of the pupils is an equally important consideration, and one that could easily become fiscally unviable and at odds with the school’s focus on accessibility. It’s a carefully maintained balance, and to keep finances healthy Richard points not just to the lack of fancy state-of-the-art buildings but also the method of staff recruitment. “We take on top graduates straight from university and train them in-house, deploying existing expertise within the school and sustaining the academic strength of the staffroom.”
Indeed, looking to the future with optimism and confidence is a gift that the educator can give to pupils as well as the wider school community. As part of imagining a place for Colfe’s in the future landscape of education, Richard has never been reticent in his defence of the independent sector, and the place and purpose of independent schools in society, particularly the opportunities that come through partnerships and collaboration. Just as Colfe’s opened its doors to co-education, its ability to project openness has grown in step with its self- awareness; a grounded school in touch with wider sentiment, not least because of a willingness to engage publicly with topics and issues that affect the school and its ability to flourish. After 20 years, the world is still changing but the challenge of remaining distinct and balancing these demands remains the same. Progress affords advantages but not assurances. Being the school of choice isn’t a static award – and despite what we are told about participation, there are no prizes for second place. As Richard’s time at Colfe’s, and his work throughout his career, reminds us, achieving long-term goals demands building resilience and finding opportunity in equal measure, and being consistent, pragmatic, and patient in the application of our talents. After all, as in life and archaeology, if some of the greatest discoveries are only realised with the passing of time, then maybe our best years are yet to come.
Curtis McGlinchey Head of Communications
“We are sticking with the plan of recruiting large numbers of kids from state schools which gives us a much wider pool of talent.”
Also by design is the choice to cultivate a culture of compassion. Whilst in the last few years Colfe’s has secured its place amongst the top 100 schools in the country, the choice was made not to pursue this accolade for its own sake. “If you’re relentlessly chasing others up the league tables then you’re probably not looking after your children well, in a pastoral sense, and that’s something which is deeply embedded in our DNA,” says Richard. This came to the fore during the Covid-19 pandemic, when actually “it was an opportunity – you got defined by your response, and ours was marked by compassion, good communication, keeping in touch, and showing that we cared. Governors were sympathetic in terms of school fees, approving a modest reduction during the lockdown period in
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