SCHOOL VISIT

Wycombe Abbey School Hong Kong

An exclusive look inside the private British prep school. By Cheyelene Fontanilla

Howard Tuckett is the Headmaster at Wycombe Abbey School Hong Kong, a private British preparatory school located in Aberdeen. If the name Wycombe Abbey sounds familiar, it’s because the original institution, founded on the day of Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee in 1896, is a leading independent boarding school in the United Kingdom.

It is consistently ranked number one for academic results at A-Level. For this month’s Education edition, we spoke to Tuckett to get a full picture of the school here in Hong Kong and how it helps students transition to top secondary and boarding schools in the UK and worldwide.

As the Headmaster of Wycombe Abbey School Hong Kong, Tuckett is responsible for connecting students with some of England’s best educational institutions - and thank goodness for that.

With more than 20 years of experience as the head of various British prep schools, Tuckett is in the best possible position to set his students up for success.

“For a few years, I was a deputy head and for the last 22 years now, I’ve been a head of a British prep school. This is now my third prep school and in and amongst all that, I’ve also been an inspector with the Independent Schools Inspectorate.”

During that time, Tuckett has amassed a great network amongst the top schools in the UK, having trained head teachers and worked as a coordinator for 14 different prep schools. When he was appointed Headmaster of Wycombe Abbey School Hong Kong, he was essentially given the opportunity to build the school from the ground up.

“We determined there was a need for a British model of school, private schooling for anyone in Hong Kong,” says Tuckett.

This means the campus, curriculum and extra-curricular activities were all thought out and planned as equally important, functioning parts of a well-oiled machine.

The school uses the British National Curriculum, enriched by the Common Entrance curriculum, which has 14 subjects. This includes English, a second language (Chinese), mathematics, science, geography, art, music, drama and so forth. The school provides an educational experience that would be of the exact same quality of top British prep schools in the UK.

“What we’ve done, in fact, is pick up a British prep school in its entirety, with a curriculum, teachers and everything that the British prep school is doing in Britain and put it here for Hong Kong to benefit from,” explains Tuckett.

“Because our curriculum is geared that way, every child has been prepared as if they’re going whether they choose to or not,” he says.

Tuckett works closely with parents and multiple educational institutions to make the process of transferring as seamless as possible.

While all of its teachers are British-trained and credentialed and the school uses a British curriculum, Chinese is taught for an equal number of periods as English.

“We take the view that our pupils are being prepared for life as Hong Kongers,” says Tuckett.

“Even though they choose to enjoy the benefits of a British-style private education, they shouldn’t feel that they’re necessarily tied into having to go to British boarding school. It’s an option experts are preparing for, right down to me finding registrars, their missions and helping parents select schools. We do all of that as part of the school fees.”

Wycombe Abbey School Hong Kong also took home the Hong Kong Education Award for Best After School Program last month. When asked what the award meant to the school and its students, Tuckett responded with a proud smile.

“Well, it’s always great to win an award. Our extracurricular activity programme was written into the school day as part of the curriculum design. These are not things we do as an afterthought. The extracurricular activity program is a fundamental part of the school. Its philosophy, the thought behind it, the reasons behind it, were all written into the original mandate.”

The school offers Cantonese theatre and opera, as well as calligraphy for traditional characters to support their Chinese teaching. There is also music, drama, rock climbing, fencing among the 42 extracurricular programs available.

“We’re also looking to bring in European languages such as French, Spanish, Italian and Latin.”

As our conversation with Tuckett came to a close, we discussed the role that school plays in preparing students for life beyond graduation–particularly when they’ve grown up in an environment that’s known to challenge its students in order to achieve excellence. Tuckett’s response only further revealed the exemplary thought he puts into taking care of the pupils at Wycombe Abbey.

“What we’ve got to think about is, can they roll with life as it happens? Nobody’s ever going to be good at everything. You’re never going to be the best and brightest in every aspect of life. Children who are agitated, unhappy, disturbed in their own self and psyche are going to struggle.”

Assessment has a lot to do with accurately determining what students’ cognitive abilities are and what they can reasonably expect from a child, and then challenging that child to achieve academically. “Just a bit above that so they are challenged, but not ridiculously so,” Tuckett says.

“We’re a kindly caring environment and we’re looking to produce kindly caring adults who are going to get on well with other people when they grow up. Because schooling is only a phase. It’s not the end of the world. It’s just the beginning of life.”