School Profile – Dulwich College

What is Free Learning?

Joe: Free Learning is learning freely engaged in by students and teachers and free of the constraints of prescriptive syllabuses and public exams. It feeds intellectual curiosity. It is fostered by our teachers’ passion for their subjects. Through Free Learning we aim to instil a life-long love of independent learning and to build creative and critical thinkers. Teachers and students find time for Free Learning in every lesson, but it is particularly evident that it goes on in clubs and societies, when pupils write prize essays and when they are on trips and expeditions.

Can you provide some examples of Free Learning at Dulwich?

Sue: Free Learning weaves through all aspects of teaching and learning. An art lesson will open the door to the gender equality debate and connect literature, music and history through the lens of artists and art critics. Every year our Free Learning Week takes a different focus centred around a particular discipline. These have included Dulwich Creative, Dulwich Inventive, Dulwich Linguistic and Dulwich Political. Off-timetable, Symposium Days give students an opportunity to listen to keynote speakers and to participate in seminars across a range of subjects that have included Consumption, Uncertainty, Time and Power.

What are the benefits of Free Learning? What’s been your best piece of feedback?

Joe: Free Learning can be seen in how pupils develop over time; intellectual curiosity is piqued and ideas explored without the constraints of the examined curriculum. It’s been heartening to hear, every year, of students whose university plans have been changed or challenged by their Free Learning experiences. I like this because it indicates that there’s often an interdisciplinary aspect to Free Learning: it decompartmentalises pupils’ approach to their studies.

Does spending time on Free Learning impact on your exam results?

Sue: Exam results improve! As Director of Art I have seen a steady increase in grades, especially at the top level, simply because Free Learning is embedded in everything we do.

Could every school introduce Free Learning?

Joe: All good schools have some form of Free Learning. We highlight it as integral to our holistic education.

What are your Free Learning plans coming up this/next year?

Sue: Forthcoming events include Black History Month, with a focus on ancestors and descendants; Eco Week, in conjunction with Target4Green; work with Echo Eternal on their Horizons project, teaching about genocide prevention by eliciting artistic responses to the testimonies of Holocaust survivors, and our Thinking About series, launched in conjunction with the Southwark Schools’ Learning Partnership, with its eclectic mix of speakers on space travel, medicine, human rights, architecture and ‘How to be a unicorn’.