‘Business as usual’ at Cardiff’s scandal-hit showpiece school
ACardiff college once dubbed “Britain’s brainiest school” has a new owner while former trustees remain under police investigation for fraud.
Cardiff Sixth Form College on Newport Road, where 93% of students in 2016 achieved A*-A grades and 99% A*-B at A-level, has been bought by Dukes Education, a London-based education group.
Principal Gareth Collier said it was business as usual and the investigation was now separate from the college.
“Investigations by the Charity Commission and South Wales Police are still ongoing into the activities of former trustees but no longer involve the college or any of the current management,” he said.
“The acquisition by Dukes Education is a clear separation point which allows the college to operate to its high academic standards unencumbered by the investigations.”
When it launched its investigation late last year, South Wales Police said officers were investigating a suspected fraud at the college regarding suspected financial irregularities.
The Charity Commission also appointed an interim manager to take over the administration of the college, which was set up by mother and science tutor Yasmin Sarwar, 33, 10 years after she started giving private lessons in the conservatory of her Cardiff home.
Students pay up to £26,000 a year to attend the college, which topped the independent schools league table last year, earning the nickname “Britain’s brainiest school” as a result.
In the past six years it has also been named Top Private School in the UK, Top Private Co-educational Boarding School and Top Private Sixth Form College, in the Education Advisers’ Awards.
Dukes Education has what it says is an “unmatched application success rate to Oxford and Cambridge universities”, with 52% of its longterm clients worldwide getting places compared to an 11% success rate for international students generally and around 20% for all Oxbridge applicants.
Dukes Education managing director Glenn Hawkins – a former teacher at the now-closed private New College School in Cardiff and a Cardiff University graduate – said: “It is business as usual at Cardiff Sixth Form College, which has found a winning formula combining the rigours and discipline of an Eastern education with a Western approach that values individual creativity.
“We will be investing in the facilities and the excellent teaching staff, who will be supported by Dukes Education and its consultants and tutors.”
The college, which opened in 2004 is a co-educational boarding school with 300 students from more than 30 different nations.
The Independent Schools Inspectorate (ISI) graded it as “exceeding expectations for the quality of education”.
Principal Mr Collier added: “We are extremely fortunate to have the backing of Dukes Education, which is already familiar to us as it has been providing us with the highest-quality educational guidance and support and helping our students gain places at the world’s most prestigious universities since 2010.
“I am enormously proud to be at the helm of Cardiff Sixth Form College at the point in time when we achieve independent school status.
“This is recognition, by the Welsh Government, of the exceptionally high quality of our teaching and learning, pastoral care, governance and leadership plus financial management, appropriate for becoming an independent school in Wales.
“By virtue of being in Cardiff, the capital of Wales, and having the reputation of being the best A-level provider in the UK by results, we are now one of the top independent schools in the whole of the UK.”
Dukes Education runs three other GCSE and A-level colleges in the UK – Fine Arts College in Hampstead, north London; Acorn House College, which specialises in the medical sciences, in West London; and Rochester Independent College in Kent.