By Suzie Wright | Former DESS Student and Learning Support Assistant, DESS and Salim Hadri-Khoussa | Former DESS Student

Isn’t it funny how one minute you can be discussing last Saturday’s football game and the next you’re talking about the favourite sports you played, back in the day when you were at school? Sports teams you made, or didn’t quite make and the games that filtered through from PE lessons to playtime.

That is exactly what happened over cheese and nibbles with friends one Thursday evening. Conversation evolved and took us on a vivid trip down memory lane, each of us revisiting precious moments of our childhood, whilst gorging on brie and camembert.

It’s these little nuggets of everyday life and school that could almost be considered unimportant and inconsequential (although monumentally important to us at the time) which are the snapshots of our childhood that stand out most, the ones that stir up emotion and open a gateway into what now feels like a million years ago and just yesterday all at the same time.

In a mix of six friends, two of us were lucky enough to have attended DESS many years ago as students (how many years ago, will remain a tightly kept secret). We reminisced over a blue castle, synchronized swimming championships and children being dropped off by drivers and pet falcons.

This connection that we share, is something that we share with many others whom we are still very much in touch with. Ask any of us who attended DESS between 1977 and 1997 ‘What one lesson have you taken away?’ and we guarantee you will hear the same response over and over again.

‘Manners maketh man’

Engrained in us by the wonderful Miss McCarthy (Headteacher at DESS for 20 years), it is a proverb that for many goes hand in hand with DESS as an institution. Something that we have carried through our adult lives, subsequently filtering down into our children and our parenting philosophy, which is now truly embedded, as they too attend this incredible school.

But what makes it incredible? Why do we find ourselves reminiscing over blue castles and proverbs from head teachers? We all have memories from school, we all have funny, little anecdotes from days gone by, but do we all find ourselves in the uniquely privileged position of sending our children to a school that embraces history, appreciates the alumni from almost sixty years ago and still encourages the richness of individual accomplishments from then and now? This may be commonplace if you grew up and continued to live and bring up your own children in a small British village; but to find this level of history and to find a school with such strongly embedded roots in a country that is only fifty years old is truly incredible!

To be privy to how DESS has changed over the years is an honour. Sports and playtime no longer result in shoes full of sand and parents no longer turn pink on the side of the pool and basketball courts (thanks to the shading). Red shoes are no longer hunted for at the beginning of term like rare gems and uniforms (although similar with the same red and white stripes) no longer require a trip down to Beach Road, but merely a visit to the in school uniform shop. Internally the walls may have changed, the flooring may be different but the heart, soul (and Latifa Hall) are all still very much the same as when we were little.

Like all schools, DESSC is not immune to the transient Dubai way of life, however, for us and many of its pupils and families, those of us that have lived in the UAE for decades, with multiple generations of our families attending DESS, Dubai is not just a home for now, but very much just Home!

This is what you get when you send your child to DESSC, something that cannot be quantified, something that cannot be manufactured over a short period of time. It’s blue castles, roots, history and being part of a legacy that will no doubt continue for many generations to come.

This is why we thank you DESS, this is why we chose you as the school to send our children, the school to create the little nuggets of everyday life, that our children will, one day, look back on with joy, love and pride, just as we do.