College News
How do the College’s partnerships benefit local schools and communities? True partnerships are mutually enriching collaborations and it is in this spirit that we have approached them. We therefore work with our partnership organisations to identify areas in which we can help. In the Academy, for example, as students prepare to make the transition to KS4 in September we have linked up Heads of Faculty to share ideas and best practice, whilst some Upper School boys (and post Year 13 leavers) act as learning mentors as part of their Liberal Studies options. The aim is to provide support for the Academy’s educational work but also to establish links and activities which benefit both schools through shared experience and good practice. In other cases we are able to put in place provision and experience which our partner may not currently be in a position to offer: Science outreach has been particularly pioneering in this regard. With the Saturday School, our scheme provides a ‘taster’ of secondary school life to 85 Year 6 pupils by providing enrichment classes in five different subjects, with the aim of boosting children’s confidence before secondary transfer. Around 20 older students in the Remove and Upper Sixth act as mentors. Our partnerships are also a means of sharing CPD, as with the Southwark Schools’ Teaching Alliance, which supports trainees in both sectors to become outstanding teachers and leaders. In September 2015 we carried out a first survey of teaching staff involved in public benefit activities. This indicated that over the previous academic year some 110 members of staff contributed to various forms of outreach activity benefiting the wider community during term time and holidays, with over 60 doing so in activities of at least three hours a week. I think that’s impressive. But our work in this area is always developing, and we are constantly looking to co- ordinate and evaluate what we do and assess (and communicate) how it is really making a difference. On taking up the Deputy Master Role, I set up an Outreach Committee made up of members of staff already doing considerable work in this area - the Staff Tutor, Directors of Science and MFL, and the SSLP Link Teacher – to look at this question more strategically. How do you and other colleagues at Dulwich College interact with its overseas partnership schools? Simon Yiend and I co-ordinate that interaction: my focus is on the educational links. I therefore work closely with Brian McDouall as Director of Schools and his colleagues in DCI Head Office in Shanghai and we exchange ideas for ongoing educational collaboration. The partnership with Dulwich College International is a real one: Dr. Spence has rightly seen it in terms of a ‘Commonwealth of Schools’, and he and I are also involved in the appointment of new Headmasters. Interest in the overseas schools on the part of boys and staff is greater than ever, partly
because of the Olympiad last year, in which boys over the entire Dulwich network participated, partly because increasing numbers of staff have visited or gone to teach in the schools, and partly out of genuine admiration for what DCI has achieved in this area over the last decade. What is your greatest hope for our external relationships as we approach our 400th Anniversary? Staff and pupil external links with the international schools and with the maintained sector are undoubtedly growing and I hope that they will continue to do so. I hope too that these relationships will be recognised – both within and beyond the College community - as central to what we stand for: a variation of Edward Alleyn’s original vision in the radically different context of the twenty-first century.
On a day-to-day basis, how do DCE and DCEO impact life at the College? DCE is the UK trading arm of the College, raising revenue for bursaries principally from Events, external catering and the Sports Club, as well as the Commissariat and the Outdoor Centre in Brecon. DCE London’s inner city. He joined Menzies Aviation in 2004, a fast-growing global business, delivering ground-handling at airports around the world, with a transformational model of labour relations. A Board member from 2006, he was responsible for the quality standards of operational units at some 260 airports worldwide. Also Chair of Governors for many years of a state school in Camberley, Simon’s two sons went via both state and private education to Oxbridge. He has an MA in Modern History from Oxford University, is a graduate of the Army Staff College and has lived and worked throughout the world. Captivated by the Master’s vision and the Dulwich educational mission and ethos, he came to the College as Chief Operating Officer (COO) in 2011. He is Managing Director of DCE and DCEO. Simon Yiend was an Army officer for 13 years, then a minister in the church for another 14, before setting up and running a charity supporting disadvantaged young people in education in
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