Brighton College will aim high

BRIGHTON COLLEGE, one of the United Kingdom’s top 20 schools, is preparing to launch its first outlet in Thailand next year. 

The chosen location is the Thai capital itself. 

Studies show there are 147 international schools in Thailand but more than 90 are outside Bangkok.

In addition, Brighton College is confident that by positioning itself as a premium international school, it will be able to attract its target group. 

“What strikes me about Bangkok is that there is a huge demand for a school where children are genuinely inspired to be the best that they possibly can be,” the college’s headmaster Richard Cairns said.

He said children who attended the soon-to-be established school would study the same curriculum as in the UK. Tuition fees will start from Bt400,000 per year.

Brighton operations here will officially start in 2016, opening first as a pre-prep school. Located in Bangkok’s Krungthep Kreetha area, the facility will be well equipped to take 250 pre-nursery to Year 3 students.

Then in 2017, the school will expand further to welcome Year 4 to Year 13 students too. At its full-scale operation, it should be able to teach up to 1,500 students.

Brighton College has a long history and its reputation has been solid. Founded in 1845, the institution won the UK Independent School of the Year award last year and was named in a recent league table as England’s top performing major private school when it comes to exam results. 

Citing the school’s eminence in academic success – Brighton’s 30 students go onto Cambridge University each year.

With such impressive records, Cairns said that the Brighton school in Bangkok could be ‘genially really high performance’ and was one of the best schools in the world. He also affirmed the selection process of headmaster and teachers – who would be interviewed in the UK – would ensure they were of really high quality. “What we want is the people who move to teach at our school because they care about teaching and they want to work for one of the best schools in the world,” he said.

“The reason why we got the most forward looking school is because we try to have a curriculum that is rigid in traditional subjects but also prepares children for real life. For example, we have a course in public speaking and presentation that they would use in setting up business and also we have a Mandarin Chinese course,” Cairns said during a recent media visit to the UK-based Brighton College.

The UK college offers boarding, with children starting from a prep level up to higher school. In one classroom, young students were told to read books and draw something about the stories they just read. 

In the playground, students did not shy away from visiting journalists. Rather, they came close and staged a dance on their own before cameras. 

In Brighton, south of London, there are five to six Thai students at the moment and all doing quite well, he said, suggesting it may be good to later have an exchange programme with Thai students in the UK school for a year and vice versa.

At a recent press conference in Thailand, Hands Management Company said it was investing Bt1.8 billion setting up the Brighton School in Bangkok. 

Nusara Banyatpiyaphod, chairwoman of the school’s management firm and an executive of Hands Management, said the Bangkok-based outlet would also highlight the Mandarin language. 

“Our new international school will have Chinese in its main curriculum because at present Chinese is the most spoken language in the world,” she said. 

This strategic focus reflects that children attending the Brighton School in Bangkok will be fluent not just in English but also Mandarin. 

Brighton College disclosed that it has already carefully selected its headmaster for its school here. 

Cairns said Brighton had a strict appraisal system which included a 24-question computerised survey for students’ input on teacher’s performance, which would be reviewed by the headmaster to decide whether to keep a particular teacher. 

“One of the good things was, as most students’ feedback was positive and the teachers felt good about themselves and thus wanted to be more involved, engaged and inspirational,” he said.