2021 Private Education Awards

www.lux-review.com Page 5 LUX 2021 Private Education Awards The King’s School is one of England’s great independent schools, with a history stretching back over more than five centuries and a reputation for delivering outstanding education. It welcomes boys and girls aged 3-18 into its dynamic, stimulating and happy co-educational learning environment on its new £60m campus in Cheshire. The King’s School in Macclesfield Independent Day School of the Year – North West England Apr21420 With learning and personal development at the heart of its community, The King’s School seeks to equip young people with the character and skills necessary to meet the challenges of an ever-changing world. The school believes that education is about what happens in the classroom and beyond and aims to produce courageous and responsible citizens who contribute to society through leadership and service. The school’s aims are to challenge its pupils to aspire, work hard and achieve; to develop lively and enquiring minds; to foster a friendly, polite and caring community; and to support parents in raising ambitious and well-rounded individuals. It is a happy, positive and inclusive environment with a culture that is forward-looking, embraces change, and challenges pupils and staff to be the best that they can be and achieve the best results possible for themselves and others. As a learning environment, The King’s School sees it as pre-requisite that the school itself continues to learn, develop and evolve with changes. It reviews and reflects on its process and outcomes, changing its approach or strategy where necessary. The school invests also heavily in CPD (Continued Personal Development) for all its staff, who each have a personal budget allowance each year for CPD. Last year, the school opened its new campus, situated on 80 acres of the beautiful Cheshire countryside, and while it was under construction, it was the UK’s largest educational construction project. It had identified that its aging estate and “tired- looking” facilities would become a problem and the Headmaster and Governing body took the visionary (and rather controversial) decision to move away from the heritage sites and build a completely new campus on the outskirts of town. Although it is one of the oldest schools in the country, it now boasts the most modern facilities in the UK for all areas of the curriculum, including expansive outdoor and sporting facilities, a sports centre (containing an impressive sports hall and Cheshire’s only indoor cricket centre, plus a 25m swimming pool, gym and dance studio), a huge main hall which seats 950 pupils, a performing arts hall, a music recital hall, a lecture theatre, plus well-equipped classrooms and laboratories. Outdoor education and outdoor pursuits have long been a strength of the school, and the new campus has allowed it to develop new areas on its own site to help teach pupils about the great outdoors. It has developed multiple outdoor classrooms and outdoor learning areas, and it has also planted two orchards: one a heritage orchard (with old, traditional apple varieties local to the area) and a legacy orchard, which over time will become the largest orchard in the region. Each year, the school’s new pupils in reception will each plant a tree bearing their name. It has also introduced beehives onto the campus, along with bat boxes, owl boxes, swift boxes, and a range of other wildlife initiatives. These complement the eco features of the new building, including solar panels (PVs) on the roof and low energy consumption lighting, heating and ventilation systems. Meanwhile, the entire school community has had to be incredibly resilient during the last 18 months of the global pandemic, reflecting on the changes and challenges facing it (school closures, online lessons, remote pastoral support, etc.) and asking itself how best it can adapt and support its pupils. However, it has just completed the admissions/recruitment round for pupils joining the school in 2021 and has seen for the second year running a massive increase in demand in places. This demonstrates that it has reversed the steady decline in the school roll over the last decade – something common to all independent schools in the country. The move to a new campus has shored up the long-term future for this 518-year-old school. Also, the new campus is far more cost effective to run than its two previous sites with heritage buildings, and it is therefore making savings which it can utilise to reduce the increase in fees each year, again helping the long-term sustainability of the school. The King’s School is now looking forward to implementing necessary changes to its forest school and outdoor learning provision, among other areas. There is certainly no sense of wanting to stop now the it has achieved the “unachievable”. It knows that it has the collective capacity, mindset, resilience and appetite to continue to improve all aspects of the school for the benefit of its pupils, parents and staff. Company: The King’s School in Macclesfield Contact: Caroline Johnson, Director of External Relations Website: www.kingsmac.co.uk