Craighouse, Chile

I was lucky to be able to visit Craighouse School, situated beyond desirable northern surburbs of Santiago in a stunning setting that (almost) rivals Ryde. One felt very much out of the city, but that’s a price worth paying to get playing fields and outdoor space within the School grounds and it was actually only a thirty-minute car ride from the centre. Although the School has only been in its current location for a few years, Craighouse is a veritable Santiago institution and the Head himself has been here for close to forty years. Here they do all three IB programmes but whilst they are bilingual (English and Spanish) until Year 9, the later years, including the Diploma Programme, is in Spanish. Like many British schools overseas (including the two I worked in, Campion in Athens and ECP in Prague) the vast majority of pupils are local but have parents who recognise the value of English proficiency and an international perspective that being in such schools brings. And it should remind us too that out there, all the time, young people across the world are adding English language and critical thinking skills to their native languages and perspectives. 

It’s a reminder, too, for the British Government of just how significant British schools overseas can be in building a critical soft power and understanding for British values and I was interested to hear how in a country like Chile, a conservative place which has had radical, military, social democratic and conservative governments over the last fifty years, schools like Craighouse endure. The Head was clear; it’s about values, being clear what they are, being true to them and being prepared to say goodbye to those, parents, pupils or staff, who don’t share them. He observed that many of the current governors are former pupils, indeed pupils he has taught, which certainly helps, but having explicit values provides constancy as governments come and go. I imagine it is about quality too, but those who want to have access to that quality have to accept the values that come with it.

The Head has also noticed, and I saw this in Prague, an increasing interest from ex-pat families, of whom there are an increasing number as firms move headquarters from less stable South American states. These families, generally present for three to four years, would traditionally have sent their children to an American or explicitly international school where all the teaching was in English and, to be honest, you could pick the school up and drop it anywhere else in the world and it wouldn’t look much different. A number of parents are beginning to realise that they are missing an opportunity here for their children to be not just linguistically bilingual but culturally bilingual too; by being in a school that is in touch with its locality and wants its pupils to have a cultural and historical understanding of home, as well as that important international perspective. Interestingly I have noticed this when talking with Chinese educationalists too, who are very keen to embrace global opportunities but don’t want their children to lose their Chinese identity. 

I think there is a recognition here that the global 21st Century workplace is not, as the 20^thCentury workplace largely was, an Anglo-American construct. That cultural empathy and the ability to embrace and learn from others matters. And those who know this, the business men and women working around the world, the employers, are keen to ensure their own children are educated to succeed in that world.