At Kingswood House, we have always believed that we are more than
just a school; we are a family and once you join the school you are part of that family
for as long as you would like to be. Since 1899, our gates have been open to pupils
who have gone on to make their mark on the world. We are excited to share with you
our new Alumni website which we hope will help you to re-connect with us and also
with your friends from schools.
Whether you left us last year or fifty years ago, the bond remains. We pride
ourselves on the "family feel" that defines life at KHS—a culture where every
individual is known, valued, and nurtured. Our motto, Believe, isn't just for our current
pupils; it is a lifelong values system we hope stays with you forever.

More than a Motto
Our current Head Matthew Bryan started in 2024 and below is an
article he recently wrote for an edition of Schools’ House Magazine
Schools need to demonstrate their values with action, says Matthew Bryan, head of
Kingswood House School

A long time ago, the ancient Greek playwright Aristophanes wrote a comedy called
The Clouds, one of the only contemporaneous portrayals of the philosopher
Socrates. Spoiler alert: I’m afraid that Aristophanes didn’t paint a very flattering
picture. In the play, Socrates is accused of using philosophy as a device to make the
weaker argument defeat a stronger one.-a way to cheat, to get ahead. I am sure
Aristophanes would have had the same scathing thoughts about elite schools. As
C.S. Lewis put it many centuries later: ‘Education without values, as useful as it is,
seems rather to make a man a more clever devil.’
It is an endlessly fascinating task to run a school in our modern soundbite
generation. Not only is it challenging to reduce the complex and endlessly busy
ecosystem of a school into a handful of words, but it’s noticeable how similar the
messages are that come from so many schools. Taken at face value, prospects,
stellar results and smiling faces abound – but I’m not so sure that schools are (as
one prep school parent, looking at the choice of different senior schools in the area,
memorably declared to me) ‘just different shades of white.’
Our vision at Kingswood House is to live our motto of ‘believe’. Believe in yourself
and your potential. Believe in others, and the goodness within them. Believe in the
power and ability of your child, or your student: given the right encouragement, the
right teaching, the right tools and a broad interpretation of ‘success’, children
regularly achieve astounding feats.
Okay, we have a motto. So do many schools, and yet many children do not discover
the amazing depths of their potential. So how to unlock it? Not with clever words, but
with values. Simple words, said with meaning and an intention to live them out. For
me, the watchwords at Kingswood House are opportunity, inclusivity and familiarity.
Inclusivity means running a thoroughly neuro-inclusive and mainstream school. We
celebrate and value diversity of all kinds, and challenge prejudice wherever it raises
its head: that means anything from refusing to run an 11+ examination, to ensuring
that our learning support centre has a wealth of experts supporting the very wide
range of needs that children can have. Some come with official diagnoses, others
are more subtle. We don’t believe that there’s any child who doesn’t have needs, but
equally every child has strengths that can be nurtured and commended.
An area of diversity, and exclusivity by another name, comes in the form of school
fees. Running a small, child-focused and nurturing school that has all the resources
that children need to flourish and thrive, which is able to impress joyful children and
stern school inspectors alike, is not cheap. This is why it matters to have, and live by,
your values.
This year, we chose to advertise ten 100% bursaries to children who might need and
benefit from them; not as an after-thought or a bolt-on, but because inclusivity is
integral to the way we do things. The response rate was heart-warming. We were
also able to help some of our existing families, for whom the shock of taxing
education and adding VAT to school fees would have forced them to withdraw their
children, had we not offered assistance.
We believe that good SEND teaching benefits everyone, neurodivergent or not. We
believe that the Kingswood House School approach to bursary assistance benefits

everyone in our community. This is where principles and beliefs come to life, and form the foundation of our education with values.