Mr. Paul Vanni Mrs. Suzie Longstaff

Mrs. Suzie Longstaff, Principal of London Park Schools from Easter 2023, and the newly appointed Head, Mr. Paul Vanni, speak about the new London Park School Clapham that will run through to GCSEs and is based in two buildings overlooking Clapham Common, with all the benefits and outdoor space this brings. They will also be absorbing Northwood Senior School and are going to open a Sixth Form partner school, London Park Sixth Form, in Belgravia in September 2024/5.

On the London Park School website, it states: ‘London Park School Clapham offers the best of both worlds. The nurturing feel of a small school, with the opportunities, experiences and expertise of a larger one.’ Would you like to expand on this?

Paul: We are a new school, a small school. Within the context of the London Park Schools group, I see it as a family of schools. We are the founding cornerstone of that, but there is more out there. Within the context of our Clapham school, when we are full, we will have a maximum of 260 students (twenty per form). Everyone will know one another, we will very much have that local family, that genuine community feel to us. We will be entirely able to provide a level of support that is entirely commensurate with that. As part of this larger group of schools, we are able to leverage some of the benefits of numbers, of scale. I think that this is particularly relevant when it comes to some of the co-curricular experiences that we will be able to offer our students. For example, we will have our own choir, we will have our own concerts, we will be putting on our own plays and have our own sports fixtures.

There are currently assessments and admissions taking place and you are preparing to begin the first academic intake in September. Can you tell us a little about the sort of qualities that you are looking for in children that will be joining London Park School?

Suzie: Yes, and Paul can talk more about the admissions process, but I just wanted to say that I think that this is such an exciting opportunity in London to have a group of local London schools. There is no particular student that we are looking for at London Park School. We are looking for children who are inquisitive, who want to embrace education and all that a school has got to offer, of which we can offer them loads, because the one thing I am passionate about is that they have access to opportunities, not only through the curriculum, but also through the co-curricular. The admissions process is about finding out more about the types of children who would be interested in coming to London Park School.

Paul: If I can flip the question very briefly to touch upon the process, so that you can get a sense of the type of child that we are looking for here. When we invite students in, rather than getting them to sit down to undertake a number of papers in Maths, Chemistry, Non-Verbal Reasoning etc., we have a really exciting group of tasks that the students work through in small groups. A couple of them are Maths-based, a couple of them are English comprehension-based, a couple of them involve students undertaking science practicals to come to conclusions about the scenario that has been set before them. At the end of the hour and a half of undertaking these tasks, which they do collaboratively, they sit down and hypothesise about who has committed a crime. Here, there is a scenario: a crime has been committed and there has been a series of possible suspects. A student has recently described it as a “Cluedo morning”, which I thought was quite funny. What this means is that we are looking for students who have a can-do approach to problem-solving, who can demonstrate a degree of mental agility, who can work together as a team. For us, it is not so much about whether they have got the right answer or not, it is about how they have reached that answer. We want to know those students who are going to thrive in a small school environment, where there is a strong sense of community, and who are going to be able to work as a team, to be able to apply those problem-solving skills. Those are the kinds of students that we are looking for.

We understand that LPS will be co-curricular and that you will have key areas of focus such as ‘sustainability’ and ‘entrepreneurship’. Your website states that: ‘Sustainability will be at the centre of school life, teaching sustainability in and out of the classroom.’ Can you tell us a little more about this?

Suzie: Yes. We know that the world is changing, and it is really important to families in London and in the wider world (and to us as well) that we are educating students for the future. It is really important to us that our students will be growing up to exist in this changing world, and to play a part in it. Therefore, sustainability and the environment have to play a key part in the education that we offer. We are going to be doing that in ways that are fun and innovative. Yes, it is going to be embedded throughout the curriculum, but also, we are going to send our students on a tour ship in Spain, where they will learn about marine conservation. They will get to learn about the environment up mountains in the UK and wider abroad. They will embrace urban farms. We almost thought about getting an urban farm, but perhaps that is a little bit in the future. Paul is going to be developing a Social Entrepreneurship Programme at the school, where our students will get the chance to play a part in their local community. This is really, really important to us all today - to be inclusive. To understand the community we live in and to play a part in it. This is where entrepreneurship comes in, because we want our students to be changemakers in the future. We want to equip them with the skills to do that, and that will be embedded throughout the curriculum.

I’m imagining that with this focus on sustainability and entrepreneurship, that to some level there is also going to be a focus on not just their academics, and academic success, which is obviously key and paramount, but also, to some extent, preparation and life skills as a whole, taking a whole child approach, looking towards the future through these different focuses?

Suzie: Yes, that is absolutely fundamental to everything we do. That is the purpose of education, that is the stage one most important thing. Paul will be able to explain that a little bit more, that context about Clapham.

Paul: Yes, absolutely. You have hit the nail on the head really. Academic success is important, and results are important, but they just open doorways, and they signal pathways. What we now need to be doing is providing our young learners of today with the skills that they need to walk through those doorways and traverse those pathways. The world around us is changing at such an unbelievably fast rate that what we really need to be doing is equipping them with skills, to enable them to be agile thinkers, to be able to respond quickly to scenarios, to equip them with the resilience that they need. It is important that we give them the opportunities that we are talking about here in terms of entrepreneurship, in terms of understanding the world and issues surrounding sustainability.

We want our students to be powerful agents of change. Changemakers is the word that we use. It is about soft skills, but it is also about real world knowledge and understanding from the curriculum. Financial literacy will come through the curriculum through PSHE. Public speaking will come through elements of the co-curriculum. Debating, for example, problem-solving. What we are looking to do is to draw those different strands together. To enable different students to understand subjects, different disciplines within schools; they’re not just taught in silos. The silos are linked. It’s about that connectivity, which, for them, I think if we get it right, it should open their minds and really enable them to see their potential to make change. Alongside the academic curriculum, we have got the Dukes Young Leadership Programme. This is a Dukes thing that is going to be introduced in 2023. We are talking about a programme which looks to instil dispositions, humility, courage and compassion in our young learners. Learning leadership through service entrepreneurship and adventure, that is what we are really about here.

Can you tell us a little more about the Dukes Young Leadership Programme? Is this something that they take throughout the school, or is it something that is catered towards the older students? Is it your version of a Duke of Edinburgh?

Paul: D of E is a part of the parcel of it. Whereas D of E in most schools is optional and runs for a period of time (my own children have just done it), our leadership programme will be embedded in the school curriculum, and will run through the five years of London Park School Clapham. It is a genuinely meaningful experience, which progressively builds on our learnt experiences and moments to ensure that by the end of that journey, we’ve got students who really feel that they have experienced something worthwhile, and that they are able to be those changemakers that I spoke about a moment ago.

Suzie, just one last question. There is also going to be a partner school, London Park Sixth Form in Belgravia, that opens in September 2024. For those with older children, is London Park Clapham going to feed through to this second part, so that there is a Sixth Form for the parents with children who are going on to do A Levels?

Suzie: Yes, and as I say, you know where my heart lies, Chloe. I love the Sixth Form part of the school. This is where we are helping students to choose the next stage of their lives. It is an absolute privilege and delight to be able to do that. It is so much fun. We’d all like to live our lives again through the destinations where students are going to. Yes, there is going to be a Sixth Form which we will feed the Clapham students into. As you know me, the Sixth Form will be a huge focus, because we want it to be vibrant and spirited. We want it to offer a wide breadth of subjects, opportunities, outstanding teaching and learning, and also huge support for the next stage, whatever that is these days. Who knows, whether it be higher education, going abroad to the US, going to Art College for example, or apprenticeships. The world is changing, and we are going to be there to support the students on their journey. So yes, watch this space, it is going to be amazing. I’m not over-promising either, it really will be!

We would like to thank the future Principal, Mrs. Suzie Longstaff, and Head, Mr. Paul Vanni, at London Park School Clapham for giving up their time to speak to us. www.londonparkschools.com