THE ASHVALE WAY

Ashvale develops schools which nurture confident, creative children, ready to thrive anywhere.

Four shared principles:
The Ashvale Way

Ashvale Schools balances tradition and innovation. Our schools are pioneering new educational brands that resonate with the communities they serve, respecting local and national culture, language, religion and heritage. Underpinning our educational approach is a robust British curriculum framework that provides firm academic foundations for our children, opening doors to world-class senior schools and, later, to renowned universities.

While each school is distinctive, all our schools share four guiding principles:

  • Schools that build character, empathy, and cultural fluency. Helping children become creative, thoughtful citizens of the world, as well as academic performers.

  • Academically ambitious but never joyless. Curriculum designed to spark curiosity, debate, and creative expression.

  • Right-sized schools where every child is known, with small classes, deep teacher-pupil relationships and strong parent trust.

  • Grounded in British educational heritage and 188 years of prep school values, refreshed for a global future. Quietly confident, never stuffy or clichéd.

Human-centred learning

There is no exam syllabus for life. While academic scores are vital, and demonstrate capability in a highly competitive world, the other half of education must not be forgotten; it is an individual’s character that shapes a career and a life. It is often the character qualities – confidence, courage, the ability to communicate effectively with others – that determine a pupil’s admission into a selective school or university.

Ashvale Schools cultivate strength of character, empathy and cultural fluency. Our educational approach helps children become confident, thoughtful citizens of the world, as well as academic performers. It is the quality of human relationships that marks out our educational approach as exceptional. Personal connection, and individual support for every child, is at the heart of all we do.

Character education

Opportunities to find personal fulfilment are embedded into the wider curriculum in our schools, right from the start in the early years. A specialist prep school gives children space and time to enjoy childhood while building confidence for the next stage of education through creative, sporting and leadership opportunities at a young age. Ashvale Schools’ pastoral structures, including houses, form tutors, learning support departments and peer mentoring, ensure that every child has a network of trusted adults and peers on whom they can rely. 

Intellectual joy

Ashvale Schools aim to be at the cutting edge of innovation in primary education worldwide. Teaching in our schools balances traditional academic excellence with progressive, skills-based learning, including independent research, presentation skills and service.

We evaluate pupils’ academic baseline standards on entry and leadership teams carefully monitor all pupils’ ongoing progress against comparative benchmarks. Our ambition for every pupil is academic value-add: helping each child outperform expectations, regardless of starting points, and unlocking the best possible results. 

Assessment is carefully designed to build self-awareness and self-esteem alongside the acquisition of knowledge and skills. World-leading senior schools are looking not only for evidence of academic achievement but also wish to know that candidates will be successful independent learners. Therefore, what are often called ‘soft skills’ are equally important: independence, communication, collaboration, resilience, reflection and leadership. 

Smaller, better schools

While many school operators look at education from the top down, thinking first about 18-year-olds’ exam results and university admissions, we think from the bottom up. We believe emphatically that firm foundations from a young age are the key to academic success and personal fulfilment. 

Ashvale Schools is unique as an international school operator in its specialist focus on establishing premium preparatory schools for younger children, aged 3-13. Each Ashvale school will become a thought leader in primary/middle school education in its region.

Our aim is to work with partners to deliver new schools where they are needed for families – in fast-growing residential areas. Intentionally smaller schools allow for every child to be known as an individual, with relationships of trust between pupils, parents and teachers. We deepen this relationship of trust with each pupil’s individual Future Schools Pathway, which combines academic data and character insight on a child to provide ambitious yet attainable transition options.

Global, modern Britishness

Pupils are prepared to flourish in a world where they will study, work and live across different cultural spheres. Effective language teaching is central to achieving this aim. Drawing on our expertise leading and growing bilingual schools, our teaching methods empower pupils to find their voice, in and out of the classroom.

Each school’s educational approach is ‘localised’ to its host city and country, building school brands that resonate with local, professional families and expatriates alike. We place a strong emphasis on teaching the historical, cultural and spiritual heritage of pupils’ city and nation. Our intention is for every Ashvale School to be accredited as a UNESCO Associated School, in recognition of our commitment to cultural education.

Curriculum is the fundamental building block of an outstanding school: our team’s work in curriculum design has been tested in the highly competitive London independent schools market. McKinsey’s ‘Spark and Sustain’ research shows that London has among the most rapidly improving and high-performing sub-national school systems in the world.