With a heritage of more than 600 years, Durham School Dubai has set itself the lofty aim to be an authentic representation of Durham School in the UK with the standards, ethos and expectations one would expect of one of England’s great schools.
Principal Mark Atkins explains, “Durham School follows an unashamedly traditional approach to teaching founded on the belief that a strong, structured, organised curriculum delivered by teachers of great quality and character will provide the best education for every child. This appeals to parents of all nationalities. Every parent can remember a teacher who truly inspired them, and my aim is to fill the school with such people so that, year on year, the pupils have an experience that will remember forever.”
Durham is a school where buzzwords and educational jargon are replaced by straightforward, common sense teaching aimed at providing children with a strong academic base complemented by excellent pastoral care and expansive extra-curricular opportunity.
This traditional approach extends to the use of screens in class. Use of screens in classrooms. is closely monitored. Durham is a school that believes the steady infiltration of iPads, YouTube clips and educational games has not improved education, but instead, has begun to erode quality interaction between the pupil and the teacher and the pupil and their classmates.
Durham is a school that believes in teachers teaching, of work in books that is marked and can be shared with parents, of neat handwriting, polite conversation, good manners, accomplished social skills and an interest in the people that surround us. In a world that shouts ‘Look at me!’ through selfies and self-absorbed social media posts, Durham sets out to produce rounded, grounded, informed and outward looking young men and women whose eyes are open to the needs of others and not fixed to their phone.
