Roger Fry (educationist)

Sir Roger Fry CBE, BD Hons (London), Hon D Litt (Portsmouth), PGCE (London), AKC, FRSA, F Inst D.

Sir Roger Fry was born in Portsmouth in 1943 during World War Two and he has memories of the conflict and its effects on the city and his family. One of his earliest memories was the funeral of his uncle, a bomber pilot, killed in 1945.

He chose education as a career and contributed to the expansion of British education internationally. He has also contributed to Anglo Spanish cultural and educational relations.

Early life

He was born on 10 January 1943 at his parents’ home on Portsdown Hill. His parents were civil servants who had met in Portsmouth Dockyard where they worked. He attended the local Primary School and later a Grammar School in Portsmouth that had once educated James Callaghan, a British Prime Minister. He continued his studies at King’s College London and the London University Institute of Education.

As a university student he was privileged to travel abroad and on one long summer vacation he drove with a group of sixteen fellow students in three vehicles to Jerusalem and back on a seven-week trip that cost in total the princely sum of £70 per person. He also spent other long vacations with friends exploring northern Spain, a country he came to know well.

Career

His early experience as a teacher was at a Secondary Modern School in Portsmouth and at a Grammar School in Watford. His taste for travel took him to Spain in the late sixties as a teacher and as a lecturer at Comillas Pontifical University Madrid where he taught about Anglicanism to ordinands in the Roman Catholic Church. While in Spain he was encouraged to establish a British curriculum school which he did in 1969 and named it after his Alma Mater.

The school in Madrid grew rapidly and in ten years it had a thousand students and a purpose-built campus. The quality of the school soon merited its overseas membership of the UK´s prestigious HMC (Headmasters and Headmistresses Conference). Quality in education and high academic standards were fundamental characteristics that Fry had established for this school and all his subsequent schools. During the following years he founded similar schools in other cities in Spain and in other countries and by 2019, the fiftieth anniversary of the establishment of the first school, the Group had 10 member schools, 10,000 students and 1,000 employees. At that point he concluded that after half a century creating and developing British schools overseas it was a good moment to play a less active role. His group of schools merged with the larger Inspired Group in 2019 and Fry became the Senior Education adviser to the enlarged Group.

Fry has always taken a wider interest in educational, cultural, commercial, and religious issues and he is active in all these spheres. For forty years he was a Reader in the Church of England and for several years a lay member of the General Synod of the Church of England, serving on its Central Board of Finance and supporting the movement for the ordination of women to the priesthood and to the episcopate.

In Spain he founded the British Hispanic Foundation with the objective of enabling civil society to participate in developing cultural understanding between both nations. Under his chairmanship of the Foundation an exhibition was held in Madrid about Wellington and the Peninsular War which was opened by HM Queen Elizabeth II. The Foundation established a visiting professorship for British academics at Madrid’s Complutense University and holds regular cultural and social events that have been attended by Prince Charles, the former Prince of Wales, Queen Sofia of Spain and the Prince of Asturias, now King Philip VI of Spain. HRH the Infanta Margarita, sister of the former King of Spain, is the Foundation’s Patron. Fry has also been active in the British Chamber of Commerce in Spain and has been its National President.

In the education world he has played a leading role internationally and in 1996 was elected Chair of the London-based Council of British Independent Schools in the European Communities, now the Council of British International Schools (COBIS). During his tenure of office until 2011 he established a close relationship with the UK associations of independent schools such as HMC, GSA (the Girls Schools Association), IAPS (the preparatory schools association), SHMIS (the Society of Heads of independent schools), and AGBIS (the Governing Bodies Association of Independent Schools). When these associations created the Independent Schools Council (ISC) he succeeded in obtaining their agreement that COBIS should become a constituent member also and so he became a director of the new Council for a period of three years.

The premise upon which this agreement was based was that all member schools of COBIS would meet the standards required of independent schools in the UK, measured by a Government approved inspection scheme such as ISI (the Independent Schools Inspectorate). Fry reached an agreement with ISI for COBIS member schools abroad to be inspected and the process was initiated. However, it was soon discovered that because of a technicality the British Government could not recognise ISI inspections conducted abroad as they were not monitored by OFSTED (the Office for Santdards in Education) as are inspections carried out in the UK. OFSTED could not monitor inspections carried out abroad without Government approval and relevant funding. Fry therefore initiated a lobbying process at the DfE (Department for Education) to remedy the situation. This was a tedious process as it involved both legal and financial implications. However, finally when Lord (Andrew) Adonis was Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Schools and Learners in the period 2005–2008, it was agreed to undertake a review that would lead to inspections of British Schools overseas being recognised by the British Government. The process culminated successfully in 2010.

Having succeeded in this significant achievement for British Schools overseas, and having developed COBIS into a thriving and world-renowned association, with a Royal Patron, HRH Princess Alexandra, Fry decided that after 15 years as chair it was time to hand on the responsibility and at the 2011 annual general meeting he announced his resignation. He was appointed honorary president for a period of 10 years and in 2012 he was Knighted at Windsor Castle for services to British education internationally and for promoting Anglo Spanish cultural relations.

A sequel to this was that COBIS abandoned the Government’s overseas inspection and accreditation scheme which led to the formation of a new Association of British Schools Overseas (AoBSO), exclusively for schools that, via the overseas inspection scheme, have obtained British Government accreditation. Fry was invited to become its chair, a post he held until 2023 when he became its first president.

In 2014 Fry founded in the UK the King’s Group Academies, a multi academy trust registered in Portsmouth and running schools in Hampshire, Sussex and Berkshire. The Trust has been successful in improving failing schools by reorganising the management, setting objectives and monitoring standards. It has also been successful in creating new schools in areas of demand. The unique objective of the Trust is to provide its schools in the UK with tangible links with British schools abroad thus enabling students and teachers in the UK to enrich their education with international educational and cultural links.

Fry was a governor of the Royal Grammar School Worcester for 25 years and is now its patron. He is a member of the Council of the Imperial Society of Knights Bachelor.

Private life

Fry has been married twice and has three sons (one deceased) and three daughters with currently seven grandchildren. His interests include, apart from education, travel, world religions and cultures, current affairs, gastronomy and classic cars.

Honours

He was appointed an Officer of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire in 1992 and raised to Commander in 2002.

He was Knighted in 2012

The University of Portsmouth conferred on him an Honorary Doctorate of Letters in 2004

He was elected a Sir Thomas Pope Honorary Fellow of Trinity College Oxford in 2008

In Spain he was appointed a Commander of the Order of Civil Merit in 1994 and a Commander of the Order of King Alfonso X The Wise in 2015

He received the International Medal of the Complutense University of Madrid in 2009

He was appointed a Patron of the Royal Grammar School Worcester in 2021