EDUCATIONAL PHILOSOPHY – THE ASHVALE WAY

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

Five shared principles:
The Ashvale Way

Ashvale Schools creates 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 foundations for our children, enabling world-class academic outcomes and, later, opening doors to renowned universities, employment or entrepreneurial opportunities.

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

  • With a particular focus on languages and creativity, equipping children with the cultural fluency to live and work between East and West as confident thinkers, inventors and leaders.

  • Wildly ambitious but never joyless. Encouraging every child to exceed expectations, regardless of starting point. Developing academic curricula designed to spark curiosity, debate, and creative expression.

  • Cultivating academic performers, as well as thinkers, inventors and leaders of the future, through careful teaching of logic, debating and philosophy.

  • Developing pupils’ personal capabilities with character education and co-curricular opportunities embedded into the school day.

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

Global fluency

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.

Academic value-add

Ashvale Schools are wildly ambitious for pupils. Our main metric of success is academic value-add, evaluating each pupil’s progress, whatever their starting point.

We aim to cultivate a mindset where pupils stretch themselves two years beyond where they currently are academically, supported by inspirational teaching that encourages pupils to ask questions, to take intellectual risks, to share their ideas with others.

We evaluate pupils’ academic baseline standards on entry and leadership teams carefully monitor all pupils’ ongoing progress against comparative benchmarks.

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

Critical thinking; compassionate listening

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.

Our Perspectives programme offered across age ranges, alongside opportunities for debating, Model United Nations or creative writing for example, equip our pupils with the human intelligence to listen compassionately and think critically.

We believe in every pupil being offered opportunities to participate, which informs our approach of having a diverse range of pupil-led committees rather than one chosen group of prefects, validated at The Roche School in London under the headship of Vania Georgeson.

The other half…

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, or that clinches the all-important job interview.

This is an empowering message for children and their families: life chances are not determined purely by an academic transcript. Character is not inherent; it is born of positive experiences and it can be taught. Accordingly, we view the co-curriculum as a vital part of our provision, not just as ‘extra curricular activities’ that are bolted on to the end of a school day and outsourced.

Smaller, better schools

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. 

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.