d’Overbroeck’s College is located in the heart of Oxford, a city with a worldwide reputation for academic excellence. A co-educational independent school, it started life providing for sixth form students only, but in 2005 began taking pupils from the age of eleven. It now has four hundred and forty students aged between eleven and eighteen, and a maximum class size of fifteen, reducing to ten in the sixth form. Based on three sites, the school is firmly united by one overriding ethos that places the needs of individual students before institution or tradition.
It is a dynamic approach that sets d’Overbroeck’s apart, explains Sami. “Most other schools in Oxford are hundreds of years old. We are one of the youngest. We are open to innovation, thinking ahead all of the time, rather than saying ‘We have always done it this way’. So, we are much more agile as a result.” This agility and refusal to allow the needs of the system to overshadow the needs of each student is fundamental. “We don’t ever want to say, ‘This is the system, you fit in with it or else.’ We want to say ‘This is a system that interplays with its students and is constantly moulding around them, recognizing that every student is an individual with their own strengths, and areas that can become stronger, and we need to help them all to do well.’”
What this means in practice is that the school offers a much greater degree of flexibility in the subjects that students can take at A-level, continues Sami. “I start with the subjects that are right for the students. We rarely say that they cannot combine physics with history or French with biology, for example. We want them to explore their strengths.”
On the face of it, this may seem a slightly unconventional approach. However, the rationale behind this approach makes perfect sense according to Sami. “The world of employment has changed now; people don’t just stay in one job. They change jobs along the course of a career. The skill set has also changed. We need people who can analyse and evaluate and express themselves.”
d’Overbroeck’s strong A-level results speak for themselves. Last year was the first that A* grade came in at A-level. 27% of all d’Overbroeck’s students achieved this when compared to the national average of 8%. One In three of the upper sixth students are expected to get straight A’s in all of their subjects and 10% go onto Oxford or Cambridge each year. But, Sami is keen to stress that exam results are not the be all and end all.
“They’re not the only way I would measure a successful education, there’s a lot more to it than that. However, at the end of the day, you need strong exam results to go to the next stage. University education is becoming more competitive and is set to become even more so with the rise in tuition fees and cuts in funding, so results matter.”
A dedication to providing a broad education has led to the pioneering of the AQA Baccalaureate, designed to be taken alongside A-levels and consisting of three elements; an A-S level in critical thinking, one hundred hours of activities, such as Duke of Edinburgh, voluntary work, debating or sport and a five thousand word project. “It shows universities breadth, strength and ability to handle bigger workloads, and to work independently – an important quality that we want to develop in our students and that universities want to see developed in their undergraduates.” Explains Sami.
And the innovation extends to the scholarships offered. Alongside fairly regular scholarships, there is a scholarship for environmental awareness and the Julie Bailey scholarship, “designed to go to someone who could never afford independent education but who is an outstanding student who we could give an opportunity to. This year is also the first time we are offering an enterprise award to a student showing strong entrepreneurial qualities. We are always trying to find new and different ways to recognize talent and ability.”
With such a focus on its students’ needs along with the strong partnership between school and parents, combined with a passionate belief in the highest possible quality of teaching and staff, Sami’s aim for the college to make its mark on education, not just in Oxford but on the world, seems eminently achievable..