TESTIMONIALS
Beyond qualifications
We believe that beyond rankings, scores and grades, the real results of our efforts lie in the impact they have had on our children and adolescents.
They are the protagonists. Their personal and professional success is the most important proof.
“It seems to me that our educational project is much more practical than traditional education. Sitting in front of a blackboard and watching is an obsolete system, it’s something that hasn’t worked for years. It is better to prepare students for university, here they prepare us for the future, for teamwork and collaboration. I have thought about my future and I think I want to study Commercial Engineering in Chile or Business at Auckland University”. Ignacio Rodríguez Poblete, 8 Year student at Dunalastair.
“My experience as a student at Dunalastair is the best of my life, the school is a place where you share with different realities and you get a foundation for life in the future. The bonds that are generated with teachers, staff and the rest of the classmates make you feel comfortable and able to develop in a healthy way during your school life”. Gonzalo Córdova Diemer, Dunalastair 2021 Graduate and Law student at the Universidad de Los Andes.
“My time at Dunalastair School was one of the best experiences of my life, I remember it with great affection and nostalgia and I am always grateful for everything I experienced in the sporting, academic and social spheres. Today my core group of friends comes from the school. I think that Dunalastair gave me the tools to be able to develop myself, for example in the first year of university there were many things that I had already learnt at school, which also made it easier for me to never repeat a subject in my degree. In addition, the rhythm of sports and other extracurricular activities offered by the school, such as the knowledge journey, leadership club and things that were done and to which we had access, were decisive for my development in the workplace. There are tools that are fundamental in the training of everyone who went through Dunalastair to be able to develop in the professional environment. I didn’t get into university because of the results of the university selection test, but because of my school preparation”. Sebastián Salinas Claro, graduate of Dunalastair in 2006, Commercial Engineer from the Universidad Adolfo Ibáñez and Founder of Balloon Latam, a social enterprise driven by action, networking and knowledge management to create a positive impact on local communities.
“My career at the school, from the nineties until today, has a constant in the role of teacher, which has kept me in contact with students, allowing me to understand and accompany their way of learning and experiencing the world. For the last few years I have dedicated more time to pedagogical design and management from the Academic Coordination, starting in 2004 at the Las Condes campus and then having the great opportunity to contribute to the application of the project-based methodology in the three campuses of our school. I value the Educational Project for its vision of the future. We certainly have the mission of educating citizens who can develop in a world that challenges us more and more every day, both personally and socially. The innovation that we are implementing orients and aligns our pedagogical practices from Playgroup to Year 12, generating authentic learning opportunities that empower students from a very young age to investigate, collaborate, reflect and propose solutions through the different programmes that we teach. The most important thing that we give our students is the opportunity to learn to work together towards a common goal, to overcome difficulties creatively and to solve them with empathy and responsibility. In addition, fostering the development of critical thinking allows us to form informed citizens with the open-mindedness necessary to address the challenges of today and tomorrow”.
Paula Molina, History Teacher at Dunalastair since the 1990s
Juan Francisco Powditch Araya, Civil Engineer Pontificia Universidad Católica, MBA Universidad Adolfo Ibáñez. Constanza Marcela Vicente Storme, Dental Surgeon Universidad Mayor, specialising in Oral Reconstruction. Both graduated from Dunalastair in 1998, parents of Tomás from Year 6, Francisca from Year 4 and Isidora from Year 2.
“Every time I think back to school I think only of good things, good times, laughter, even in classes, they were fun classes, where the relationship with the teachers was very close. I love my classmates to this day and we still see each other. I feel that during all that time the school was my home and I remember it very fondly.
The school gave me many tools from an academic point of view, even though it is not the same as in those years, my university classmates found it very difficult to get into the rhythm and discipline of studying, it wasn’t so hard for me, more than the content I learnt at school, it was the way of studying, how, what and when to study, it was the order.
But apart from the academic part, it is also about how you are as a person, you can have very good grades, but if you are a bad boss or a bad classmate, if you are not close to the rest, it is useless. I learned to work in a team and to empathise. That’s what the school teaches together with the family, the value of companionship and respect.
My husband and I are both former students and we always wanted our children to grow up with the same values. Even though the way knowledge is taught is not the same, the friendship, the values, that hasn’t changed. And we want that among all the things they learn, those are the most important.
The educational project surprises me infinitely every day when I talk to my children and they tell me how they learn. I am surprised when they invite us to their presentations, where they show us everything they have learned in the project, I find it impressive. That children so young are able to stand up in front of all the parents and explain in English everything they have learnt in the semester is impressive, it is really opening up a brain that traditional education does not achieve. We are infinitely grateful for this new way of learning.
Our experience as parents has been quite good. As a former pupil I still feel part of the school, I go and meet my teachers, I have a good time with the parents, with the children’s teachers. I feel very confident and I feel very involved. And I love that.”
“I have nothing but good memories of Dunalastair. It was very close and human, being an English school, which has the stigma of being quite tough. I remember that the teachers were very close, at that time it was a smaller school, even the owners went to work. It was a big family, quite diverse and with very strong discipline.
Without a doubt Dunalastair gave me many tools for my university and working life. I was the first National Scorer of the school and I got into Civil Engineering at the Pontificia Universidad Católica thanks to my base. Later you realise that there are schools that prepare students for these types of careers, which was not my case, but I had learned to study in order to achieve my objectives.
In the world of work I emphasise the issue of discipline, both in the hierarchy, in my case, the corporate world, as well as the issue of teamwork thanks to sport. Rugby is a tremendous training tool, it teaches you values and that in life and work there are roles. Some put their feet in the mud, others put their signature, but if they are all aligned in pursuit of a common goal you win the game.
My wife and I are alumni so we share a vision and we are very grateful for that, there was never any doubt and we did not send our children to any other school.
I like the educational project, although it is something new and quite disruptive, the world is moving towards experimentation, research and self-learning, concepts that I also live at work. The changes that we have had to live through in the last 10 years in the world of work coincide with the concepts of school. I believe that they are training children who will adapt very well to the future world of work, generating a curiosity and a habit of investigating and learning that traditional education systems do not achieve. They encourage learning, not being creative and repeating like machines. You can see in the Learning Presentation how the children develop, how they investigate, how they ask for help at home to gather information from 1st and 2nd grade.
My experience as a parent has been very good, I see that there is a trade off between discipline, which is something that I liked very much and is one of the pluses that the school gave me, and that this has been relaxed in secondary aspects, such as uniform, hair length, among others, a fact that makes them gain in autonomy and authenticity. Today, if a person has a piercing, or wants to work with a short dress code, it is allowed, and the school is moving in that direction. We have realised that the big corporations give spaces to find the best talent without taking into account these details, in fact these are things that people value, to be able to have the freedom to be authentic and never meant to fit into anyone’s mold. We are very happy to see how the school is adapting to the changes in society and giving our children the tools to cope with that”.
