Round Square is an international network of schools, based on the educational concepts of

Kurt Hahn Kurt Matthias Robert Martin Hahn (5 June 1886, Berlin – 14 December 1974, Hermannsberg) was a German educator. He was decisive in founding, among other organizations and initiatives, Stiftung Louisenlund, Schule Schloss Salem, Gordonsto ...

, and named after a distinctive building at Gordonstoun. Founded by a group of seven schools in the late 1960s, by 1996 it had grown to 20 member schools worldwide, and has since expanded to over 200 schools. Round Square is incorporated in England as a Company Limited by Guarantee, and is a registered charity.

History

Between 1962 and 1963

Jocelin Winthrop Young Jocelin Slingsby Winthrop Young (25 October 1919 — 8 February 2012) was a British educator, headmaster and Royal Navy officer who co-founded the Greek independent boarding school Anavryta and founded the Round Square association of schools. H ...

and

Roy McComish Roy is a masculine given name and a family surname with varied origin. In Anglo-Norman England, the name derived from the Norman ''roy'', meaning "king", while its Old French cognate, ''rey'' or ''roy'' (modern ''roi''), likewise gave rise t ...

listed all the schools which they considered to have adopted the educational ideas of

or had included them at their foundation. These schools were: in Scotland, Rannoch School and Dunrobin School; in England,

Abbotsholme School Abbotsholme School is a co-educational independent boarding and day school. The school is situated on a 140-acre campus on the banks of the River Dove in Derbyshire, England near the county border and the village of Rocester in Staffordshire. I ...

, Battisborough and

Milton Abbey Milton Abbey school is an independent school for day and boarding pupils in the village of Milton Abbas, near Blandford Forum in Dorset, in South West England. It has 224 pupils , in five houses: Athelstan, Damer, Hambro, Hodgkinson and Tregonw ...

; in Germany Louisenlund; in Switzerland Aiglon College, in Ghana

Achimota School Achimota School ( /ɑːtʃimoʊtɑː/ ), formerly Prince of Wales College and School at Achimota, later Achimota College, now nicknamed Motown, is a co-educational boarding school located at Achimota in Accra, Greater Accra, Ghana. The school w ...

; in India

The Doon School The Doon School (informally Doon School or Doon) is a selective all-boys boarding school in Dehradun, Uttarakhand, India, which was established in 1935. It was envisioned by Satish Ranjan Das, a lawyer from Calcutta, who prevised a school mod ...

; and the soon to open Athenian School in California. Salem,

Gordonstoun Gordonstoun School is a co-educational independent school for boarding and day pupils in Moray, Scotland. It is named after the estate owned by Sir Robert Gordon in the 17th century; the school now uses this estate as its campus. It is locate ...

, Anavryta and Box Hill were 'taken for granted' as the already established and pre-eminent Hahnian schools. On 5 June 1966, Kurt Hahn’s 80th birthday was celebrated at Schule Schloss Salem, and as the headmaster of the school Winthrop Young invited the headmasters of Box Hill School, Gordonstoun, Louisenlund, Anavryta, Battisborough, the Athenian School and the Atlantic College to discuss the establishment of a Hahn schools conference. This meeting was chaired by King Constantine and during its course an agreement was reached on naming the conference "The Hahn Schools", it was then decided that the first conference would be held at Gordonstoun in 1967. At this first conference at Hahn's insistence the name "The Hahn Schools" was dropped in favour of a new name "The Round Square" after an iconic building at Gordounstoun. Six of the schools that attended this first conference and were the founding members of the Round Square: Box Hill School,

Anavryta Experimental Lyceum The Anavryta Model Lyceum ( el, Πρότυπο Λύκειο Αναβρύτων), colloquially referred to simply as Anavryta, is a model, experimental, co-educational, public lyceum (students aged 16–18), located in the northern suburb of Marouss ...

, Schule Schloss Salem, Aiglon College and

. At the 2nd Round Square conference held at Box Hill the principles of the association were established and

co-education Mixed-sex education, also known as mixed-gender education, co-education, or coeducation (abbreviated to co-ed or coed), is a system of education where males and females are educated together. Whereas single-sex education was more common up to ...

was the first of the sequence of conference themes that were discussed. At a later conference held at Box Hill in 1980 the R.S.I.S. (Round Square International Service) was created to promote and organise overseas voluntary service projects in much the same way as the project in Cephalonia. Winthrop Young retired as headmaster of Salem in 1974 but continued to run the Round Square association as Honorary Secretary and later as Director until he retired from that position in 1992.

Activities

Round Square schools encourage students to take part in a range of community service activities both locally and internationally. Many projects are run through the school and further opportunities are available via the Round Square Region, Network and Worldwide Organisation. The philosophy of Round Square is centered on the 6 IDEALS, namely the Spirit of Internationalism, the Spirit of Democracy, the Spirit of Environment, the Spirit of Adventure, the Spirit of Leadership, and finally, the Spirit of Service. The goal is to develop a sense of responsible leadership and deeper understanding of democratic practice.

Member schools

References

{{Member Schools of Round Square Educational institutions established in 1966 Associations of schools