Holistic Learning Anywhere

The Dulwich Difference: Holistic and Flexible Learning in the Digital Age

The COVID-19 outbreak challenged schools worldwide to shift online in a short time. At Dulwich, we embraced this as an opportunity to uncover different ways of delivering the Dulwich Difference in any learning environment:

On-campus
In hybrid environments
On digital platforms

Watch the video below where Lesley Meyer, Chief Education Officer, explains how we're redefining learning at Dulwich.

What is the Dulwich Difference?

The Dulwich Difference is our unique ability to provide holistic, experiential learning, whether students are in the classroom or learning remotely. Our approach blends academic excellence, well-being, and character development.

The Dulwich Difference

Holistic, Flexible Learning Online and On-Campus

We designed our learning environments to be holistic, experiential and flexible, both online and on campus. Teachers emphasise a balanced approach that supports student wellbeing, character growth, and academic success across all formats.

Holistic Development: Wellbeing, Character, and Academic Success

At Dulwich, Wellbeing and character development are essential to unlocking each student’s full potential. In the digital space, they require even more careful planning, innovative teaching strategies, and thoughtful teacher engagement.

We intentionally embed the values of respect, resilience, ambition, and healthy competition into the digital environment through our lesson design, student interaction, and choice of educational tools.

Online learning at Dulwich goes beyond screen time. We promote a holistic blend of technology use, physical movement, reflective learning, and varied tasks to ensure learning remains dynamic, personal, and student-centred.

Experiential learning in different environments

We teach our students how to use what is around them to learn. That means each lesson is designed to meet the needs of students. At times, students will learn from their immediate environment, and at others, they are challenged to develop conceptual thinking. This approach encourages experiential learning and supports both academic and personal development.

The Benefits of Experiential Learning

Experiential learning helps students actively apply knowledge to real-world contexts. At Dulwich, this approach improves engagement, deepens conceptual understanding, and builds transferable skills like problem-solving and collaboration. Whether online or on campus, students gain lasting value from each hands-on experience.

Bringing Real-World Relevance to Digital Learning

In the digital classroom, our teachers use innovative teaching strategies to guide students in utilising their current surroundings to make lessons meaningful and personally relevant. By creating a holistic, experiential learning experience that extends beyond the screen, we ensure students can apply their learning to the real world, nurturing both cognitive and emotional development.

Holistic Education Through STEAM, Arts, Sports, and Digital Literacy

At Dulwich, we provide a holistic education by offering students opportunities in the different areas of STEAM, sports, performing arts and music and Mandarin, both online and on campus. These experiential learning programmes are designed to help students push their boundaries and fully develop their talents.

Each area offers depth and challenge, supporting a holistic learning journey where students engage in hands-on, real-world experiences, helping them apply concepts across disciplines. Our curriculum intentionally includes digital skills, digital literacy and cultivating digital citizenship as part of a future-ready education. These areas are embedded through innovative teaching strategies to ensure they are meaningful and relevant in any context.

Students Come First in a Holistic, Student-Centred Approach

‘Students come first’ is at the heart of everything that we do at Dulwich. Whether it is in the online or on-campus environment, each learning environment and all our learning experiences are designed with the needs, talents and capabilities of our students as the focus. We empower them to develop their VOICE and CHOICE in the way they learn, and enabling them to become mature learners who can take ownership of their learning is a big part of life at Dulwich.

This focus on agency nurtures independent, mature learners and is vital for long-term academic success, including at university and beyond. Through innovative teaching strategies and the integration of digital tools, our flexible learning model supports students in mastering content at their own pace. Importantly, our students learn to demonstrate what they have learnt to a broader audience using different digital tools, from as early as three until they are 18.

One Family of Schools

One of the unique elements of the Dulwich experience is being a part of a family of schools. We connect our students across campuses and beyond borders for an education that prepares each of them to Graduate Worldwise.

Our flexible learning model enables students to collaborate in real-time with our global Dulwich family through experiential learning programs, from international projects to events like our Student Leadership Conference throughout the year.

Connecting with Parent Communities

Our global connections extend beyond students. By linking our parent communities across schools, we foster a broader, more supportive network for families. Likewise, our educators regularly collaborate across the group, sharing innovative teaching strategies and best practices to continually enhance learning.

This interconnected approach ensures every student benefits from the depth and diversity of a holistic education, shaped not only by their local campus but by the collective expertise and creativity of our entire Dulwich community.

How We Make it Happen: Innovation at Dulwich

Innovation at Dulwich is collaborative and continuous. As part of a large family of schools, our teachers can quickly find, share, and reapply the most effective examples of teaching and learning strategies across campuses.

We invest in high-quality professional learning delivered in-time and on-time from both internal expertise and partnerships with international education leaders.

Led by the DCI Education Team, we have developed clear, research-informed guidelines that capture and scale best practices, ensuring every student benefits from innovative teaching strategies and a consistently high standard of holistic education.