Mr. Tom Dawson

FROM SUNNINGDALE SCHOOL, BERKSHIRE

Mr. Tom Dawson speaks to us about the ethos, main entry points and highlights of Sunningdale School, and discusses the benefits of single-sex education.

To start with, could you tell us a little bit more about the ethos at Sunningdale and what makes it so unique? Absolutely. So, we are a small school with 110 boys. We are family-owned and run, and there are very few of those schools left, actually. The school is owned by my family and has been since the sixties, and I think one of the things that makes Sunningdale so special is its family atmosphere. It’s actually about much more than the fact that it is owned by a family; it’s about the culture that we create within the school - one of care, trust, support, mutual understanding and a real culture of looking after each other. There’s a really strong togetherness within the school, and I think that’s what sets us apart.

What are your main entry points to Sunningdale?

The main entry point is Year 4, so when the boys are eight, turning nine, although we do have some boys that join us in Year 3. We are very much a boarding school, we’re 90% boarding, and that’s a really important part of the school’s culture. I think Year 4 is probably a better point to start boarding than Year 3, so that’s a better entry point for us. We always have boys joining us later on in the school, a few boys join in Years 5, 6 and a very small number in Year 7. We don’t really offer places in Year 8 because by then there’s a limit to how much difference we can make in just a year, particularly when it comes to senior school choices. But Year 4 is certainly the main entry point.

Single-sex schools have been a hot topic of debate for quite some time now. What, in your view, are the benefits of being an allboys’ school?

You’re right, Chloe, it is a hot topic of debate, I think it always has been and always will be. Particularly at the moment, with a number of quite well-known single-sex schools taking the co-ed route, that is a question I get asked a lot, and so it is something I think about a lot, because I think

“We encourage them to take risks in the classroom, put up their hands, accept that sometimes they’re going to be wrong and that that’s a crucial part of learning. You can create that academic culture of fearlessness if you work hard that when we run schools we need to make sure we’re all considering what is best for the pupils in a particular school.

I think that, particularly at this age, between the ages of eight and thirteen, boys work really well surrounded by other boys. Of course, everything I’m about to say is a generalisation and there are exceptions to every rule, but boys definitely, in general, learn differently to girls. We know that girls mature younger, and are more focused; you only have to look at a boy’s exercise book and a girl’s exercise book to see that they are completely different. We’re able to tailor our education very specifically to boys. Boys worry about losing face in front of their peers, for example, they’re frightened of making mistakes. So, we do a lot of work to debunk that; we encourage them to take risks in the classroom, put up their hands, accept that sometimes they’re going to be wrong and that that’s a crucial part of learning. You can create that academic culture of fearlessness if you work hard enough at it, and that is a really important element of learning.

But also, just having boys avoids certain social stereotypes. For example, we’ve asked the boys this in the past: “What would it be like if we had girls at Sunningdale?” and the boys have come back and said: “Well, I don’t know if I’d sign up for the choir,” or “I’m not sure I’d want to be in the orchestra.” Actually, we don’t have that here: the choir is really popular, and it helps, of course, that you’ve got the football captain in the choir, or whoever it may be. But again, they’re not so conscious of what other people think of them all the time, and that’s quite important, » because as they’re growing up, part of what we’re encouraging them to do is try new things that they’re often not going to be very good at to start with - we want them to just embrace school. Sunningdale is the sort of school that suits a boy that says ‘Yes’ to things, a boy that wants to be involved. That also ties neatly into character development, and being an all-boys’ school allows us to work with them on things like respect, responsibility and leadership. But, alongside all of that, it is important that we educate them about how to be with girls, because a lot of our boys will go on to co-ed senior schools, and I think that the gap between boys and girls, certainly academically, does start to narrow, particularly around GCSEs and post-GCSEs. Boys do need to know how to interact with girls, how to treat girls with respect and understanding. You say that single-sex schools are a hot topic, but so is respect and understanding between both sexes, so it’s really important that we educate them in that way as well.

A very tailored approach to their education, isn’t it?

That’s exactly what we’re trying to provide. I think it doesn’t matter how big or small your school is, you can always end up teaching to the middle and we’re very careful not to do that, we try to make the most of our small classes. Our boys’ journey is very tailored, in fact, because they move through our form system as they develop academically, not simply because of their age. Every individual boy’s journey is plotted as they go through the school, and that means we get the very best out of them.

How do you steer the boys towards what you feel is the best fit option for senior school? Which schools do the boys tend to move on to from Sunningdale?

A huge part of what I do is help parents choose the school that their children go on to after Sunningdale - it’s incredibly important that we work closely with parents to do that. Actually, we’ve just hosted two webinars over the last couple of weeks for parents, one on the ISEB Pre-Test and the subsequent second stage assessments, and the other on the process of choosing a public school. Then what I encourage them to do is to come and have a meeting with me when their sons are in Year 5 to discuss senior school choices. Obviously, it really helps that I know the boys incredibly well. I’ll have had breakfast with them, I’ll have taught them and I’ll know what their strengths are. I won’t be reading off notes from their tutor, it will be my own experience and knowledge of the boys and of the public schools. I’m lucky in that I know the registrars incredibly well, because I deal with them on a weekly basis. I will offer parents three schools that I think would work for their sons, and then they might supplement them with schools they’d like to see. I do recommend limiting it to five, but obviously some parents choose to see more than that. How do I work out which schools would be best? It’s partly an academic decision, thinking about which schools would work for each boy academically. What we’re aiming for is for boys to go in at the middle or top third of a particular school. I’m not a fan of shoehorning a pupil into the bottom end of a school where they’re going to struggle and not be able to enjoy all the fantastic opportunities available, and I’m not a fan of over-tutoring a child so that he can get into a particular school. I want the boys to go to a school where they are going to be stretched academically, but also where they’re going to be comfortable academically, surrounded by people of a similar academic ability to themselves with a few that are probably slightly stronger, because we all improve when we’re with other people who are slightly better than we are. We invest so much into making sure that these boys are happy at school, first and foremost, and that they’re doing well. It really matters to me and to everyone else who works here that they then go on to schools where that will continue. Our boys do incredibly well academically, and so when they sit their common entrance or scholarship exams at the end of Year 8, they are all going into the top or the middle of the schools they have chosen, and that is really important.

In terms of the schools that are the most popular amongst our families, there are probably six, and those would be Eton, Harrow, Winchester, www.sunningdaleschool.co.uk

Charterhouse, Sherborne and Stowe. Although, we’ve recently sent a few more to Radley as well.

And just to tie this lovely interview up, as someone who has grown up at Sunningdale and is now the Headmaster at the school, what’s your favourite thing about waking up each morning and being at Sunningdale? Breakfast! No, I’m joking. We have a very good breakfast, though, it’s too good. What is my favourite thing? Just the fact that it is a really happy school. The boys surprise you every single day, which is great fun! They do incredibly well and that makes me very proud, but the thing that I enjoy most is that they are happy at school because at the end of the day, they’re children, and I think everybody deserves a happy childhood. If we can give them that, then I think our job is done.

We would like to thank Mr. Tom Dawson, Headmaster at Sunningdale School, for giving up his time to speak to us.

EDUCATION CORNER PODCAST INTERVIEW WITH