The Independent Schools Council is running its annual ‘Partnerships Week’ campaign this month, which presents an important opportunity for the sector to promote meaningful partnership work between independent and state schools.

For us at FHS, Regent’s Park, it is particularly fitting that this week is the Independent Schools Council’s Partnerships Week as we co-hosted a Conference on Building Ethnic Diversity in the Staff Room on Wednesday with three of our state school partners; All Saints Catholic College, King Solomon Academy and St Marylebone CE School, following on from the success of our Widening Access to Selective Universities Conference with the same three partners in February 2020. If you would like to take part in the online conversation, please use #teacherslikeme in social media posts.

We have a particularly strong partnership with St Marylebone, where our Classics Department offers Latin lessons free of charge for girls in Year 8 all the way up to A Level. Kat Pugh at St Marylebone has commented on this:

“Francis Holland’s provision of subject specialist Latin lessons to our students in Key Stages 3 and 4 has been a tremendous success. The teaching is excellent, including the adaptability of the teachers to another school’s ways and means. Not only has this terrific curriculum offer kept alive an otherwise fading subject in state education, it has developed our students’ scholarship, commitment and academic confidence. Our Classics team and students are really grateful for this meaningful collaboration.”

We are so pleased that our programme has been such a success at St Marylebone and passionately believe that partnerships are and always will be a fundamental element of FHS life, not only due to our founder’s mission which is reflected in our charitable status and bursary programme, but because they enrich our community – academically and socially.

We are also hosting a Classics afternoon in January 2022, consisting of lectures from a range of eminent Classicists, to which we are inviting pupils studying Classical subjects at schools in London and the South East. We aim to widen access to expertise in Classical subjects and have also recently opened a new Classics Centre adjacent to the school, in which the afternoon will take place.

#schoolstogether #powerofpartnerships