Best Schools - Felsted School wins ‘prestigious’ international award

Felsted School has been awarded the British Council International School Award for the fourth time.

The school welcomes students of all nationalities, regularly celebrates cultural diversity and is a member of the Round Square organisation, which means it offers exchanges to and from places such as Australia, South America, South Africa and Europe.

Felsted also hosts an International Summer School, which has increased in popularity since it began. It recently gave students from 23 nationalities the opportunity to learn, share cultural experiences and make new friends during a six-week programme.

Sir Ciarán Devane, CEO of the British Council, said: “Felsted’s fantastic international work has rightfully earned this prestigious award. Embedding an international dimension in children’s education ensures that they are truly global citizens and helps prepare them for successful lives and careers in an increasingly global economy.”

One aspect of Felsted’s wider curriculum which impressed judges was the ‘Building Bridges – Crossing Borders’ project which saw pupils connect with a German school, who visited Felsted Prep School for three days earlier in the year.

Another activity the school organised was a wellbeing collaboration with an Indian partner school, where Felsted Prep School pupils shared yoga and mindfulness sessions over Skype.

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Packing a child off to boarding school at the beginning of September and seeing them again at Christmas is a notion now confined to the same generation for whom fagging was part of the lexicon.

“The whole parental attitude is different,” says Douglas Robb, headmaster at Gresham’s School in north Norfolk, which has a mixture of full, weekly and flexi boarders, as well as day pupils.

“What is very clear is that the market for full-on, hardcore boarding is diminishing. We find there are often two professional parents working really hard during the week and so flexi or weekly boarding suits them pretty well. They want to be able to dip in and out as and when they wish.”