ECF Directors who were in Prague for the Governors’ meeting in March were able to attend the Havel Concert. This is an annual event which is organised by current ECP scholarship students, and is one element of their fund-raising for the Havel Scholarship.

The Havel Scholarship was initiated by a group of IB students, Dora Robinson, Marie Smetánková, Chhavi Maggu and Courtney Kaye, in 2009. It funds a student from the Roma community in the Czech Republic, a disadvantaged group who experience discrimination. The late President kindly agreed to the use of his name for the Scholarship.

The first beneficiary of the Havel Scholarship, Marek Horvath, graduated in 2018 and gained a BA from Charles University in The History and Culture of Islamic Lands and is now an IT recruitment specialist with Hays.  There are currently two further Havel Scholars, in Years 2 and 4. One of them is not only Roma but disabled as well and both are thriving in the College’s unique environment of academic aspiration and supportive care. 

The concert, held at the Emmaus Monastery, was a very enjoyable occasion, with contributions from talented ECP students and a few guests, including an extremely lively Roma band. 

Photos: Uma Doddova and Room 113

A number of ECF directors and ECP graduates had the pleasure of attending the Czech British Chamber of Commerce and British Czech & Slovak Association Annual Dinner, held at the May Fair Hotel on 22 November 2024. 

It was a great evening with several inspirational guest speakers. ECP Headmaster Dr Nigel Brown spoke about the ECP and its mission to provide an English-medium academic education to young people in Prague and to develop every individual’s potential to the full to prepare them for the challenges of today’s globalised society. We were pleased to see support for the ECP from the attendees and hope to stay in touch with them in the future. 

Photographs by Erik Weisenpacher from @doubleyoubrothers

On Tuesday 5 November we celebrated the ECP’s 30th anniversary and Founders’ Day at Pražská křižovatka (Prague Crossroads), a spectacular meeting place in a former church founded by St Vaclav that is one of the projects of the Dagmar and Václav Havel Foundation.

It was particularly welcome to be able to celebrate this year following the news that HM King Charles III has kindly agreed to continue as Royal Patron following his accession to the throne – the King was a Founder Patron of the College alongside President Vaclav Havel. 

We were joined by two Founder Governors, Ann Lewis and Martyn Bond, as well as by Vanessa Ward, the daughter of Hubert Ward, the Founding Headmaster of the College, who died recently. Vanessa Ward spoke movingly about her memories of her father and the adventure of starting a new school in Prague. She presented a scrapbook of press cuttings from those days which will form part of the College’s archives.

As ever, it was the students who set the tone of the evening, with prize-winners, musical and dramatic performers and the stories of our Talent Award winners all demonstrating the imagination and creativity of ECP – staff, students and parents. 

There was also a very impressive display of artwork. The highlight was an amazing model of the reconstructed and extended school building. It was built by Year 3 student and aspiring architect, Ariya Man, and was complete with the roof and lower floors lifting up automatically to reveal classrooms filled with 3-D printed plastic furniture. 

The alumni drinks party hosted by the English College Foundation in October has become a regular feature of our calendar going back many years. Recently, the ever-popular venue has been the Savoy Tap pub in Savoy Street just off the Strand. We have the upper room all to ourselves, complete with our own bar and barman, and the event gives newly-arrived students an early taste of a historic London pub.

The aim of the event is to enable new graduates of the English College recently arrived to study in the UK an opportunity to meet alumni of earlier vintages. Those present this time included an early ECP student who had left Prague for Bristol to take her IB, but now decided she wanted to get back in touch with her fellow-students in Prague all these years later. At the other end of the spectrum, we were delighted to welcome seven of the ECP 2024 graduates studying at various universities and colleges in London (plus one from Edinburgh!).

Four of the eight Directors of the Foundation are now ECP alumni, having graduated between 2002 to 2014. All ECP alumni are welcome at our events, so if you are not already known to us, please contact info@englishcollegefoundation.co.uk to be put on our mailing list.

Her Excellency Marie Chatardova, Ambassador of the Czech Republic, kindly hosted a Reception in support of the English College Foundation at her Residence in Hampstead on 26 September 2024. Such Receptions have been held every year since before the English College opened in 1994, barring the covid period.

Despite the rain, this was a lively and convivial evening, with music from a jazz duo, a delicious supper prepared by the Ambassador’s top chef, and a raffle with myriad prizes.

As always, this was also a fund-raising event, and raised more than £2000 for the English College Foundation Scholarship Fund, which sponsors a student at the College.

Among the speakers that night was Devid Jehlicka, a former holder of a scholarship at the English College. He was raised in a children’s home, but thanks to his scholarship was able to enjoy the school’s exceptional teaching and warm relationships. With excellent IB results he was accepted for LSE, from which he recently graduated. Throughout his studies he volunteered to work with young people at Arsenal. He is now coaching at Arsenal while contemplating his next career move.

The English College’s scholarship programme enables many bright children from families of limited means or difficult circumstances to flourish. So fund-raising will continue both here and in Prague. If you would like to contribute, you can do so here.