New prep schools chairman

1 September 2003

Simon Carder assumes office this month as chairman of the Incorporated Association of Preparatory Schools (IAPS) which represents more than 500 independent junior schools.

Mr Carder, headmaster of Eagle House School, in Berkshire, says: "A Whole New Generation will be the theme of our annual conference and I want to use my year as chairman to emphasise the ‘wholeness' of the education that we can and do provide in prep schools.

"The ability to pass exams is an important skill to teach, and one that independent schools do particularly well, but there are many other skills that the next generation will need, not least the ability to interact with people as well as machines. Prep schools are especially well placed to offer a whole education."

He feels strongly too about the important roles that sport and the arts should play in schools.

Mr Carder was educated at Plymouth College, in Devon, and at Hertford College, Oxford, gaining an MA in Classics. He also has an MBA in educational management awarded by Nottingham University. He taught at Belhaven Hill (Scotland), Dragon School (Oxford), Heatherdown School (Ascot), before becoming headmaster of Beachborough School in Buckinghamshire in 1979. He has been head of Eagle House since 1988.

He is married; he and his wife Christine have two children, Kalathena, a graduate working for a public relations company, and Barnaby who is reading biology at Bristol University.

Eagle House is a co-educational school situated between Sandhurst and Crowthorne in Berkshire, for children aged from three to 13. Many of the older children board (full, weekly and occasional).

Notes:

(1)   The Incorporated Association of Preparatory Schools represents more than 500 junior independent schools and is the largest of the professional associations making up the Independent Schools Council. IAPS schools, which range in size from under 50 to more than 800, educate nearly 132,000  pupils of whom 12,000 are boarders.

The IAPS annual conference takes place between 24 and 26 September 2003 at the Moat House Hotel, York. Details of the programme can be obtained from the ISC press office