Runnymede College – Former Pupil Questionnaire

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Section 1: Personal & School Background

1. What years did you attend Runnymede College. What age were you when you started?

2. What brought your family to Madrid and to Runnymede College in particular?

3. Were you aware at the time of the school being a British independent school in Spain? How did you understand that identity?

4. How would you describe your first impressions of the school—its atmosphere, building, pupils, and staff?

5. What subjects or classes stood out to you. Why?

Section 2: Daily Life & Experience of Place

6. Where in Madrid did you live while at Runnymede? What are your strongest memories of that area?

7. How did you get to school—by car, school bus, public transport, walking? What was the journey like?

8. Were there particular sights, routines or feelings you associate with that journey?

9. At which of the school's sites were you based? What do you remember most vividly about the building itself and its surroundings?

10. How would you describe the classrooms, corridors, playgrounds, or other facilities? Where did you spend your breaks and lunch?

Section 3: Identity, Culture & Uniform

11. What did it feel like to wear a school uniform in Madrid? Did it make you feel proud, selfconscious, different?

12. Did you feel different from other Spanish children your age? In what ways—language, values, behaviour, appearance?

13. Were you aware of how others in Madrid perceived you as a Runnymede pupil?

14. Did the school feel like a “British” space within Spain or more like an international one? Or something else entirely?

15. Were there particular school customs, events or expectations that felt especially British—or simply different within a Spanish context?

Section 4: Politics, Society & Awareness

16. Were you aware of the political situation in Spain at the time? (e.g. end of the Franco regime, ETA, the transition to democracy, entry into Europe and Nato, for example)

17. Did those events ever affect the school directly? Were they spoken about by staff, students or parents?

18. Do you recall how the school defined its relationship with Spain society and culture?

19. How did these national events—if you were aware of them—affect your own sense of identity?

20. Were you ever made to feel “different” or “other” by Spanish friends or neighbours because you went to Runnymede?

Section 5: Reflection, Memory & Legacy

21. What do you remember most fondly about your time at Runnymede?

22. Were there particular teachers, lessons, or classmates that made a lasting impression on you?

23. Looking back, how do you think your experience of a British education in Spain shaped who you are today?

24. How do you think Runnymede fit into Spanish society at the time—was it an outsider, a bridge or something else?

25. If you could describe your Runnymede experience in a sentence or two to someone who never knew the school, what would you say?