Top of the Class
One of the newest private schools in the UK has scooped two major awards at the independent education sector’s ‘Oscars’
Head of English Alan Biles-Liddell; Senior Housemaster Ian Chan; Girls PE Teacher Susanna James and Mike Pearson; Head of Physical Education and Sport.
Myddelton College, Denbigh, which was only founded five years ago, was the only school in Wales to be honoured at the Independent Schools Association awards. Headmaster Andrew Allman and his team came away with two prestigious prizes, for Outstanding International Involvement and for Outstanding Sport in a Small School. It has been a meteoric rise for Myddelton, the UK’s newest independent school when it opened in 2016 on the former Howell’s School campus on Denbigh’s Park Street.
Andrew Allman said: “It’s a huge honour for us to be recognised with two major awards at such a prestigious event and it is a tribute to the staff and students that we’ve been recognised at a national level.
“We believe that a school shouldn’t just be an exam factory and that it is also important that our students receive a well-rounded education.
“We want to give all our pupils a breadth of opportunities, indoors and outdoors including the chance to work with and form bonds with people and countries all over the world.”
The International Involvement award paid tribute to the Myddelton College’s pioneering role in reaching out to schools in the USA, Russia and France to form a shared learning network.
In the depths of the pandemic lockdown Myddelton’s English department used Microsoft’s Flipgrid platform to contact Morton East High School, in Cicero, Illinois, in 2020 and the two schools began working together.
That success encouraged them to extend their links to Gymnasium S.V Baymenova in Pokhvistnevo, over 750 miles east of Moscow, in the Samara Oblast region of Russia and then to Lycée St Paul, in Cambrai, in Northern France, and most recently with a secondary school in Turn, in Italy.
Their initiative culminated on UNESCO’s World Poetry Day when the three schools shared poems in Russian, Welsh, English, French and Spanish and then when Head of English Alan Biles-Liddell took a class with pupils from Russia while a Transatlantic Book Club has also been set up with the school in Illinois.
Headmaster Andrew Allman with Head Boy and Girl Gareth Stott, and Ffion Lloyd.
The American, Russian and French schools are now also working with each other while the Italian school is due to join soon and Myddelton College Head of English Alan Biles-Liddell said: “It has just been so successful and now we are going to include the project on the curriculum and grow it.
“For World Poetry Day we had students from each school reading poems that were special to them and a student from Illinois from a Hispanic background actually chose Dylan Thomas’s ‘Do not go gentle into that good night’ which was great for us here in Wales.”
The judges were impressed at the diversity of Myddelton’s sporting provision for a school whose numbers are below 300 with football, rugby, netball, gymnastics, basketball, hockey, badminton, tennis, rounders, athletics, equestrian, climbing and orienteering all on offer.
Students have competed at international level at tennis, sailing, wheelchair basketball, fly-fishing and showjumping while their regular outdoor learning days involve walking, scrambling and climbing, canoeing, kayaking and orienteering.
Director of Sport and Assistant Headmaster Mike Pearson said: “I think what helped was the sheer variety of opportunities we offer and the number of competitions we enter, and we encourage students to take part in sport and be active when they’re out of school as well.
Myddelton College, a co-educational day and boarding school, was the UK’s newest independent school when it opened in the autumn of 2016 and is the only school in North Wales with a 5G network.
For more information about Myddelton College go to www.myddeltoncollege.com
Myddelton College, Denbigh, celebrate double success at the prestigious Independent Schools Association awards, pictured, from left, are Senior Boarding Housemaster Ian Chan, Assistant Headmaster Mike Pearson, Head of Sport; Head of English Alan Biles-Liddell; Head Boy Gareth Stott, Headmaster Andrew Allman, Head Girl Ffion Lloyd, Girls PE Teacher Susanna James, Deputy Headmistress Alicia Vogler, Senior Deputy Headmaster Ian Lloyd.
Pictures by Mandy Jones Photography
Myddelton College, Peakes Lane, Denbigh, North Wales, LL16 3EN
e: office@myddeltoncollege.com | admissions@myddeltoncollege.com
t: +44 174 547 2201 | Admissions: +44 174 547 2204
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