By Isabel Ovalle
Almost two decades have passed since Heather Brennan decided to open her own school. This project was conceived in 1994 and it started out with 27 students. With the name of Park House English School, this “little school” has grown into a 1,000 student center.
Brennan, a passionate and vocational teacher, first moved to Doha in 1990 with her husband and, after working in local schools, decided to open one. From the start she had the support of her family, at first especially her husband’s, who after retiring from a career in the Oil and Gas industry became her right hand in Park House. Later on two of her sons, Michael and Niall, joined as director and financial director, respectively.
After familiarising with the country and its schools, Brennan felt that she could do it differently. “We wanted to provide the same educational excellence but in a warm and caring family environment. We wanted to care for, and develop Park House, which is more than a school, it’s a family”.
This teacher, originally from the UK, explained to The Peninsula that “Qatar has always been well developed with regard to the provision of quality education. When we first arrived, it was one of the few countries in the region to provide a quality British curriculum”, she added.
Nevertheless, this British teacher approached the Ministry of Education and the British embassy – “which were very helpful and very interested” – to obtain the British curriculum to teach in her new school.
The next step was finding the premises, which at first was a 14 room villa, surrounded by trees, with space for children to play, it was really lovely,” explained the Park House School founder.
During this process, she found that honesty, transparency, hard work and forming excellent deep relationships had given her a good reputation and this made dealing with all challenges possible.
To get people involved, Brennan, always with the support of her family, put notices in local newspapers like The Peninsula, to announce the upcoming opening of the school and to invite parents to a meeting to let them know what the project was all about. Around 75 people turned up for the initial meeting and the first school year began with 27 students and five staff.
After a somewhat “hairy-scary start’, this family project became a reality and they began teaching the basics under the Government guidelines. Brennan admitted that “it was difficult to take the commitment, but once you take it, there’s absolutely no turning back because you have the responsibility of offering a proper education and continue striving to make it better.”
Back then there were about 1,500 British nationals, and now there are over 15,000. This growth in numbers somehow applies to the increase in the number of students at Park House English School, which now has over 1,000 students from 67 different nationalities (10 percent are Qataris), with hundreds in waiting list.
Before moving to the new location, which was inaugurated in 2004, the school was situated for some time at the former Russian Embassy, across the street from the first villa. That second year, there was around 200 students and Heather Brennan holds enduring memories of that chapter in a “fantastic house, which had chandeliers in the class rooms”.
A decade went by and the founder of Park House realised it was time to move to a new location. Construction of the new building began in Abu Hamour, an area which ten years ago was in the outskirts of the city and now has been absorbed by Doha’s growing urban core.
The building was designed by renowned Italian architect Domenico Negri in a piece of land that belonged to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. James Brennan, husband of Heather, explained that the construction was finished in 10 months, “which is amazing, we had to visit the site every day to achieve it. We were supposed to open on the 6th of September, but due to problems with the electricity supply, the school opened on September 10 of 2004”.
Brennan insisted that she couldn’t have taken this enterprise forward without her husband’s help. She added that during her many years of experience she has worked hard to instruct students in good behaviour, and give them an education that goes beyond the conventional subjects, offering strong sports, music and art programmes. Science is also very important for this family, as well as educational trips.
The former headmistress of Park House explained that a few years back, she and her husband decided to retire and go back to the UK. At that point, their son Niall (former soldier) had been working in the school for four years and took over as director with the support of longtime friend Dougie Smith as headmaster.
The family is currently evaluating all options to open a small branch somewhere else. To this end, this week they are meeting to look at future plans and Brennan is “sure that Park House will remain at the forefront of education in Qatar”.
However, the current director of Park House, Niall Brennan, stated that “one of the biggest challenges we face is the control of our school fees where every school, regardless of type, is controlled at a different level. We would like to see either this being given to market forces or a level playing field introduced so that some schools do not have advantage over others”.
In this context, Michael Brennan, also son of Heather and James and involved in the family business as finance adviser, added that “being a family owned school we’re different from others which are always looking for return on investment”, whilst his mother joked adding that “People wonder why it’s so cheap here”. About this issue, Niall Brennan stated that “we provide identical education to other schools that are 45 percent more expensive. Everything else is fantastic”.
The Peninsula
