Dwight School London

Dwight School London is an independent co-educational international school providing educational programmes for Lower and Upper School prepared by the International Baccalaureate (IB) Organisation as an alternative to the national curriculum. Alison Cobbin BA, Dip Ed, MBA is the current Head of the school.

The school consists of senior, primary and nursery departments in the North Finchley and Friern Barnet areas of north London, educating children from the ages of 2-18. It supports both the local and the international communities.

The school initially developed from the Holmewood Boys’ preparatory school founded in 1885 at North Finchley, which in 1985 was acquired by the Dwight Franklin Foundation and the family of the then Chancellor of the Dwight School, New York, which remains the sister school of Dwight School London.

In 1988, Holmewood merged with St Alban’s School, becoming co-educational and being renamed Woodside Park Preparatory School, which in 1995 consolidated with the Friern Barnet Grammar School for Boys to form the Woodside Park School (eventually Woodside Park International School - a very discrete change that was not made known to the parents, causing an uproar), for education of pupils from the ages 4 to 18.

In December 1995 the senior department was accredited by the International Baccalaureate Organisation to teach the IB Diploma Programme; in 2003,to teach the IB Middle Years Programme, and the following year the junior department the IB Primary Years Programme. Consequently, the school became one of only a handful of British establishments to deliver the full range of IB teaching programmes for pupils aged 3 to 19.

In May 2006, the school came under sole ownership and was listed as a limited company with an age range of 3 to 18 years old.

The school is now called Dwight School London in recognition of its links with Dwight School New York, Dwight School Canada (on Vancouver Island) and Dwight School Seoul and in 2014 Dwight Qibao School in Shanghai. It is one of the UK's leading International Baccalaureate World Schools and was recently authorised as an IB Open World School able to register students in the UK and around the world who are not presently in IB schools for online IB Diploma courses. The school has a good blend of local and international students who are in London with their families usually on Diplomatic assignments or connected to the international finance and business world.

The school is well known for its inclusive approach to enrolment and the way that the IB curriculum is personalised for each child so that maximum potential is recognised

References

• Independent Schools Inspectorate Inspection Report: 18 to 19 January 2011, 16 to 18 February 2011