Headmaster's Welcome - Runnymede College | British International School Madrid

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Headmaster’s
Welcome

When my father, Arthur Powell OBE, founded Runnymede College more than half a century ago, his aim was simple, yet profound: to offer British education in Madrid. He knew the value of liberal, humanistic learning. He understood the power of British teaching to challenge and indeed change young people’s minds and lives for the better. That was his vision, and it remains his legacy.

As my father’s successor, I have been Headmaster of Runnymede since 1988, and I am immensely proud to have seen the school continue to grow in size and success over that time. I am also proud to have seen my own children become integral to the running of the school, as well as taking great pleasure in watching my grandchildren blossom as they embark on their own educational journeys in the Runnymede Junior School.

For Runnymede College is not just a school which is, now almost uniquely in Spain, still under the careful aegis of its founder’s family, but a family in a much broader sense. The pupils, parents and staff are connected by close bonds of mutual respect, affection and appreciation.

Our pupils know that at Runnymede they will have access to superb facilities, on a campus designed to support excellence — not only academically, but also in the vital fields of sport, music, art, and drama.

More importantly, they know they will have access to the very best teachers. Our staff have not only been educated at some of the world’s best universities, but they are exceptionally dedicated; determined to ensure that their students all fulfil their potential. Brilliant teachers enable excellent learners, and we are justly proud of the superlative university offers we receive from world-beating institutions in the UK, USA, Spain and the rest of Europe — including Oxbridge and the Ivy League. We are also delighted by our results at IGCSE and A-level, which year on year confirm us as the leading British school in Spain.

Beyond this, our parents know that by entrusting us with their children’s education, they will also be welcomed into the Runnymede community. They know that we will all do our utmost to produce individuals who are well-rounded, well-mannered, intellectually curious, kind and respectful, whether they join us in Pre-Nursery or Year 12.

Key to my father’s vision, and mine, is the importance of the English language. In a world in a state of seemingly endless flux, one constant remains: the significance of English as a global language; as the twenty-first century’s great facilitator of communication. Our pupils leave Runnymede with a level of English that will open doors for them across the world, in whatever professional sphere they choose to explore.

Frank M Powell, BSc (Econ.) (Hons.), PGCE

The School Today

Runnymede College is a leading private non-denominational British school in Spain offering a British education to boys and girls of all nationalities from the age of two to eighteen. The School regards its task as being to provide its pupils an academically excellent, all-round liberal humanistic education and the necessary basis to succeed in the adult world, and above all, to help them to acquire a moral sense as members of the international, world-wide community.

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Ethos & Aims

ETHOS

Runnymede is committed to academic excellence and sets the highest standards of behaviour and social conduct, fostering the development of mutual respect and responsibility. Above all we want our children to develop a love of learning and to become independent learners.

Fair play is also encouraged – learning to win without gloating and to lose with good grace, to accept the decision of the appropriate authority, be that of the referee in sport or the teacher in class, and to derive satisfaction from having done one’s best even when others have done better.

Teachers are encouraged to stimulate thinking and discussion about absolutely any subject, always bearing in mind the sensitivity of youth but without indoctrinating children in their personal attitudes.

Runnymede’s Values provides a framework within which pupils and all members of the School community can work together to achieve our common aims. The Values defines what we expect from every pupil and aim to promote a sense of pride and belonging to the School.

A necessary background to our rich variety of activity is discipline, conceived as respect for oneself, for others and for the School. We believe that children flourish best when their personal, social and emotional needs are met and where there are clear, developmentally appropriate expectations for their behaviour. Pupils are rewarded for effort, behaviour and achievement and sanctioned in cases of misbehaviour pursuant to the terms of the applicable Discipline System implemented in the Pre-Prep, Prep, and Senior Schools.

AIMS

The Founder

Runnymede College was founded by Arthur F Powell and his wife Julia in 1967.

Arthur Powell became Founder Chairman of the National Association of British Schools in Spain in 1978, from which organisation he resigned in October 1991. Mr Powell and his wife Julia managed the School until their retirement in 1998. In recognition for his services to the community, in the New Year’s Honours List on December 31st, 1993, Arthur F Powell was created an Officer of the Order of the British Empire.

Mr Powell died on January 26th, 2009.

Prior to founding Runnymede College Mr Powell volunteered for the Royal Air Force (RAF) and the Royal Navy’s Fleet Air Arm during World War Ⅱ. He then moved on to study Russian at the School of Slavonic and East European Studies, London University and economics at the London School of Economics. After graduating Mr Powell went on to teach English at an academy in Madrid where he met his wife Julia and discovered his passion for education. This eventually led him to Italy where he became assistant director of studies at the British Council in Milan and a lecturer in English at the Universitá Cattolica del Sacro Cuore where he revolutionised the teaching of English at that university by teaching English in English instead of in Italian and published a series of textbooks and a manual of linguistic pedagogy for Italian teachers.

He also won a national competition for the contract to teach English on Radiotelevisione Italiana (RAI). He and Julia returned to Madrid in the 1960s, and Arthur went back to the Instituto Garrett y Powell where he prepared candidates for the Spanish diplomatic corps and for the Ministry of Commerce entrance examination.

Arthur Powell

Since 1967

The first Runnymede College was established in a red house in Calle José Rodríguez Pinilla 13. Whilst the dining room and bedrooms were classrooms, there was a sumptuous wooden-panelled drawing room which did service as a music-room, place of assembly and library, but was a shocking waste of space. There was also a swimming pool, but as it had no filter it served mainly as a source of supply of insects and the like for the science teachers, who had to try to use the garage as a make-do laboratory.

There were 40 pupils in the first year from various countries and a total of four full time teachers. The number of pupils rose to 70 in 1968 and by the summer of 1969 the house at José Rodríguez Pinilla was too small and impracticable. After frantic searching, Arthur found rented premises at Calle Arga 13 in the quiet residential area of El Viso at the top end of Calle Serrano, and Runnymede 2 opened in the September. The number of pupils grew fast as did the size of Runnymede’s different premises. In 1987, Mr Powell’s son (Frank) and his wife Cristina had founded the Junior School and, since then, have been co-responsible for the School’s expansion, for maintaining Runnymede’s academic excellence and for fostering the alumni pursuit of higher-level education. Runnymede is now based in Calle Salvia, La Moraleja and has 1090 pupils.

Students at the front door of the first Runnymede College house.

Why call it
Runnymede?

The choice of name very much reflected Arthur’s belief in the secular liberal English tradition. He was not really thinking of a soggy meadow, or about King John and his barons, but the spirit of the Magna Carta and, in particular, “the inherent dignity and the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family” mentioned by the UN Declaration of Human Rights.

More specifically, he had in mind Article 1 of that document, which solemnly states that everyone is entitled to those rights “without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status.” In the words of Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936): “At Runnymede, at Runnymede/Your rights were won at Runnymede.

The School’s name, its motto (“Delight, Ornament, Ability”, emblazoned on the Runnymede badge), taken from Of Studies, a well known essay by Francis Bacon (1561-1616), and Arthur’s decision to divide students into three competing houses – Newton, Locke and Arthur’s favourite Keynes, after, respectively the physicist and mathematician Sir Isaac Newton (1642-1726), the philosopher and physician John Locke (1632-1704) and the economist John Maynard Keynes (1883-1946) – were a declaration of principles.