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Every mother I speak to in this region carries the same quiet question. Not "will my child pass?" but "will my child be alright?"

We move countries for our children. We leave grandparents, and cousins, and the streets we grew up on, and we do it because we believe that somewhere out here is a school that will see our child properly. And then we arrive, and we are handed a list of ninety schools, a WhatsApp group full of opinions, and a deadline.

My guest this week has spent his whole career on the other side of that decision.

Dan Clark is the Founding Principal of Queen Elizabeth's School, Dubai Sports City, the first campus ever opened overseas by an English school with more than four hundred and fifty years of history behind it. Before Dubai, he taught in a comprehensive in Derby, spent a decade at Repton, and ten years at Marlborough College as Deputy Head. He was born in Edinburgh, educated in Scotland, and has now brought all of it to a plot of land in Dubai that opens its doors this month.

What I loved about this conversation is that he did not lead with league tables. He talked about character. About reading being the last real superpower in an age of artificial intelligence. About measuring a child from their own starting point rather than against the child sitting next to them. And about why, when you go and look at a school, you should ask to see an ordinary Tuesday.

If you are choosing a school this year, or quietly worrying that you chose the wrong one, stay with us.

This is Let Them Fly.

https://www.heatherharries.com