St Dunstan’s College has been named as the Independent Co-educational School of the Year.
The College, located in Catford, south London, was given the award at the prestigious Independent Schools of the Year 2020 Awards.
The winners were announced in a virtual award ceremony on Thursday 8 October. Announcing the winner, David Moncrieff, from Independent School Parent Magazine, explained: ‘St Dunstan’s College for their renaissance education, their pupil voice and their championing of the individual.’
Speaking about the accolade, St Dunstan’s Headmaster, Mr Nicholas Hewlett said: ‘I am so proud and thrilled for our community. It’s such a great achievement, and an endorsement of the journey we have been on as an institution.
‘I want to say thank to everyone who got us to this point, including staff, students and parents. I look forward to celebrating with our community when we are able to come together.’
The award comes at an exciting time for St Dunstan’s College. Next year, a new Junior School, STEM Centre and Sixth Form Centre will open as part of a huge redevelopment of the school site. The development, which is the most significant since the foundation in 1888, will include state-of-the-art classrooms and facilities.
The winners were chosen by a panel of leading professionals from the independent and education sectors and the Independent School Parent’s Advisory Board.
The school recently was also awarded ‘excellent’ by the Independent Schools Inspectorate. The inspectors found that ‘the quality of the pupils’ academic achievement and other achievements is excellent,’ and that ‘pupils of all ages display excellent knowledge, skills and understanding and become resilient in their learning as they move through the school’. The report’s key findings also found that St Dunstan’s pupils of all ages ‘have outstanding attitudes to learning and are effective independent learners and thinkers’ and that they ‘learn effectively by collaborating with their peers’.
‘We will of course not become complacent,’ Nicholas Hewlett added. ‘We see this as endorsement of our direction of travel and not an end point in its own right.’
