JAGS: Bridging the gap in more ways than one

Written by Hayley Dunlop

Writing the ISC Daily News Summary every day means that I don’t get many opportunities to get out and about. However, having been educated entirely in the state sector I felt it was finally time to step foot inside an independent school.

Living in South West London (albeit sadly not Dulwich!) meant that an afternoon visit to James Allen’s Girls’ School (JAGS) would fit in nicely with my day. I was kindly shown around by the school’s Director of Drama and soon-to-be Communications Director, Alison Venn.

Alison was a tad concerned that the school wasn’t looking its best, since it is currently coming towards the end of an extensive rebuilding programme, which will see a wide range of facilities opening in September. However, it was my view that paying the school a visit at this key moment in its long history was actually very interesting.

Founded in 1741, JAGS is the oldest independent girls’ school in London with a fantastic reputation across the city and beyond. Originally a co-educational school, the educationalist James Allen wanted to open a school for the ‘poor children of Dulwich’ where boys were taught to read and girls were taught to read and sew.

What struck me first as I stepped off the train at North Dulwich was how lovely the area was, yet at the same time the immediate areas surrounding the picturesque village-like suburb are extremely socially and economically diverse.

I was fascinated to learn about the huge amount of work JAGS does with local state schools, having formed a number of strong mutually beneficial partnerships where all pupils can profit from a variety of learning experiences. The school is heavily involved with the Southwark Schools’ Learning Partnership (SSLP) - a community of nine state and independent schools in the London Borough of Southwark which shares good practice. This is certainly not something I was lucky enough to experience during my time at school, despite the fact there were a huge number of independent schools in my area. However, times have certainly changed in the last ten (okay, fifteen!) years and, no matter what has prompted this change, I can only see this as a good thing.

There is no doubt that JAGS is a fantastic school - the school recently underwent an extremely successful ISI inspection with absolutely no recommendations for improvement. It certainly gave me a great first impression of independent schools and how they not only work to help their own pupils to succeed, but how they can also have a huge positive impact on their local communities.

I must admit though, one of my favourite aspects of JAGS is the rather quirky fact that part of school ground is actually a bridge over the London Bridge train line. Walking across it you would never guess, as it is the same level as the school field and is covered in grass. According to Wikipedia, this is the only school in the country that has a railway line passing through its middle!

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 8th, 2008 at 3:35 pm by Hayley Dunlop and is filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.