Our Governors Ms Corinne Aldridge (Chair) Mrs Alison Siddiqui LLB (Deputy Chair) Mrs Amanda Brown Mr Huw Davies QC Mr Michael Hornsby Mrs Jenny Mackay Mr Neil Newman Mrs Sue Pepper MA (Oxon) NPQH Mr Andy Skinnard Mr David Smith Email the Governors Our Founder, Bevé Hornsby (1915-2004) Our founder, Bevé Hornsby, was educated in this country but despite the opportunity, decided not to go to university but instead attended a finishing school in Switzerland and then gained a diploma for overseas students from the Sorbonne in Paris. Quite the polymath, she was a skilled skier and horsewoman, danced in the corp de ballet of the Vic-Wells Ballet Company under Ninette de Valois and was also a qualified ballroom dancing teacher. As a qualified pilot, she flew solo in a Tiger Moth and served briefly in the Civil Air Guard before the Second World War, although her war service was as an ambulance driver in the First Aid Nursing Yeomanry, having married in the May of 1939 and subsequently having four children. It was not until Bevé was in her early fifties that the career that would ultimately see the foundations of Hornsby House began. She studied speech therapy and graduated as a licentiate of the Royal College of Speech Therapy. It was whilst working in the ‘Word Blind Clinic’ of St Bartholomew’s Hospital in London that she recognised that children whose difficulties were with written language actually had problems processing the speech sounds of language. ‘Word blindness’, of course, was later to be known as ‘dyslexia’. Not satisfied with her training she studied in the United States of America, working with the most eminent clinicians of the time, returning to Bart’s in 1971 to be in charge of the clinic that she had left and adapting her teaching for use in this country. Her book of 1974, ‘Alpha to Omega’ reflected the need for a highly structured, systematic and progressive approach to the teaching of children with specific learning difficulties. It was an essential text for the many therapists who were soon encouraged by Bevé to become involved, many as volunteers, to work at her Dyslexia Clinic. She then gained her Master’s degree. Her clinic at St Bartholomew’s soon became the ‘go to’ facility for children experiencing difficulties with speech and language but her team was very much multi-disciplinary, using teachers, psychologists, occupational therapists and psychotherapists, who were also expected to be involved in the community. Such was the clinic’s reputation and standing, it began offering courses to train teachers and speech therapists. Some alumni from these courses went on to be leading lights in the world of understanding and helping children with dyslexia. Never prepared to stand still, a further Master’s was taken and her dissertation was the first to say that intervention for dyslexia could be effective. Her Doctorate was awarded soon after her retirement from Bart’s. Her “retirement” was actually the birth of Hornsby House. In 1983 Bevé set up the Hornsby International Dyslexia Centre in Wandsworth, which enabled her to fulfil her goal of establishing that dyslexia should not only be ‘overcome’ through intervention, but also prevented by rigorous and systematic teaching. Those with dyslexia should be taught alongside their peers in a ’nurturing and inclusive environment’. That was very much her vision for Hornsby House School which opened in 1988, Bevé having at last been given the recognition she deserved by being awarded a fellowship of the Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists. Bevé was awarded an MBE in 1997 and became an honorary professor of the Cheltenham and Gloucester College of Higher Education in 2003. Her legacy lies not only in the physical presence of the immensely successful and sought-after school that bears her name but also in the fact that her research and methodology remain at the forefront of thinking and practice in the teaching of children with dyslexia. WHERE NEXT? Welcome from the Headmaster WELCOME Meet the staff MEET OUR TEAM About us: continue your journey OUR VALUES DESTINATION SCHOOLS POLICIES INSPECTION REPORTS COVID-19 SELF DECLARATION FORM 020 8673 7573 school@hornsbyhouse.org.uk Hornsby House School Hearnville Road London SW12 8RS © Hornsby House School 2021| Policies Photography by Shoot Bernard|School website design by TWK