The King Alfred School
22 episodes listed below
School memory, patiently brought back to life.
Alfredian Voices is an oral-history series built from reflective interviews with former King Alfred School students. The episodes linger over small remembered details, then let them open into questions about confidence, creativity, belonging, and education.
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Alfredian Voices is a school-memory series with the patience of an archive and the looseness of conversation. Each episode sits with a former King Alfred School student and lets the recollections arrive in their own order. Some memories are vivid at once. Others have to be reached by circling back, correcting a detail, or pausing over the name of a teacher, a room, a path, or a building. That texture matters. The series is not trying to turn education into a clean success story; it is more interested in how school remains in a person, unevenly and often surprisingly, decades later. Wendy Jago's episode moves from informal student-made notices to her father's interest in freedom, community, and the building of the person. Carol Essex remembers hiding at the back of class, struggling with English exams, and still finding lasting nourishment in arts, crafts, pottery, lino prints, woodworking, and physics making sense. Ali Kazimi reflects on language, reading, cultural reference points, and the quiet force of an environment where in-groups and out-groups felt less dominant. Dana Karic recalls the physicality of school life: making a treehouse, getting hurt, going to Hampstead at break, playing sport for enjoyment rather than pure competition. Stephen Brandes brings the conversation into space and structure, talking about Squirrel Hall, open fields, student numbers, and how buildings carry a school's values. Joe Leader remembers music, jam sessions, tennis, friends, and a sense of acceptance that became part of his adult code. Juliet Mitchell's excerpt turns on a simple image of happiness: a friend kicking a stone along North End Road because he was glad to be there. Stephanie Young's return is more emotional, marked by recognition, old teachers, and the pull of memory in the present tense. Across the series, the school is described through people rather than policy. It suits listeners drawn to alumni stories, progressive education, and the small evidence by which a place proves it mattered.
Made for: For listeners interested in educational history, alumni memory, progressive schooling, and intimate interviews where lived detail matters more than polish. It also suits former students, teachers, and parents curious about how school culture echoes into adult life.
What sets it apart: The series stands apart by letting former students think aloud instead of compressing them into neat testimonial arcs. Its strongest moments come from concrete recollections: a treehouse injury, a physics lesson, Squirrel Hall, a pottery room, a stone kicked down North End Road.
Welcome to What I REALLY Learnt at School - Alfredian Voices. We can all remember our school days, the highs, the lows, the achievements, and the challenges, but what we learnt and the experiences that shaped us are different for everyone. In this podcast series, we bring you the voices of Old Alfredians, former students at the King Alfred School in North London, a school that has stood out from the crowd for the past 125 years for delivering a deeper learning experience. Highlighting their stories shows the impact that schools can have when they are bold and innovative and crucially...
Based on 6 episodes we listened to · September 2026
Former students turn one school's educational ideals into concrete memories of freedom, authority, creativity, confidence, and care.
What I REALLY Learnt at School - Alfredian Voices builds an oral history of King Alfred School through guided conversations with former students.
One North London school gets the kind of report card you cannot grade.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A school memory where freedom shows up in paper, brass tacks and trust.
Wendy Jago's school memory works best as a small, tactile picture of educational freedom. Her later interest in bringing NLP ideas and tools to children is linked back to King Alfred, where students made things they found funny for a notice board with pieces of paper, art paper…
Carol Essex traces how creative freedom and one physics breakthrough kept shaping her confidence after school.
Carol Essex's school story turns on a quiet contradiction. English exams left her feeling like the child hiding at the back of the class, yet a school with space for arts, crafts, and an encouraging physics teacher gave her another way to find confidence.
Ali Kazemi links school culture to the language, friendships, and assumptions that stay with people into adult life.
Ali Kazemi's memories of King Alfred School frame education as a matter of cultural fluency: what opens up when students grow beside people whose backgrounds are not their own.
A scar, a treehouse, and a school culture built on trust.
The episode gives Dana Carich's memories a physical shape: the first treehouse, the missed nail, the finger injury scar, and those older-student walks to Hampstead that carried a sense of freedom and trust.
A reflective portrait of how Squirrel Hall, the fields, and later needs reshaped the school.
This episode frames King Alfred School through the lens of buildings and open space, with Stephen Brandes, Class of 1971, tying long memory to practical stewardship.
A memory-led school story where respect and equality keep showing up in adult life.
Nick Nielsen's recollections of King Alfred School give the episode a clear center: a child-centred place that seems to have stayed with him well beyond school years.
A school memory that keeps returning to the gates, the classroom, and the people in between.
Sarah Iles's memory opens at the gates, and that image gives the piece its shape. It moves from Narnia and Harry Potter to a school where pupils chose classes and mostly worked one to one with teachers in a child-centred setting.
Quiet history for curious nights.
Héctor and Beto dissect Mexican grammar, slang, and news in native-speed Spanish conversations.
Asian Efficiency's Tan Pham and Brooks Duncan on time management, habits, and AI tools.
A call-in helpline where listener questions turn into reported science and history investigations.
Wendy Jago, a 1960 King Alfred School alumna, describes how teachers such as Margaret encouraged independent interpretation by allowing her to expand a Henry IV, Part One assignment into a 90-page essay on Shakespeare’s history plays.
Carol Essex, a 1988 King Alfred School alumna and former Coca-Cola communications leader, describes work ranging from HIV-AIDS programmes in Africa to crisis management in Southeast West Asia.
Ali Kazimi, class of 1987 and managing partner at Hansuki Consulting, describes how King Alfred School shaped his independence, confidence, and respect for difference.
Dana, class of 2003, returns to the first treehouse.
Stephen Brandes, Class of 1971, looks back at King Alfred School through its buildings and grounds.
Joe Leder, an award-winning saxophonist and former student of King Alfred School, discusses how the school's progressive and child-centred approach to education nurtured his musical talent and prepared him for his career.
Juliet Mitchell, a professor and former student, shares her fond memories of King Alfred School and its impact on her life.
Stephanie Young, Class of 2010, discusses her role at the Economist Educational Foundation and the impact of her teachers Nora and Dermot at King Alfred School.
Nick Nielsen looks back on King Alfred School and the shape it gave him.
Sarah Iles starts with the school gate.
Esmond Harris MBE, a forester and conservationist, shares how his childhood interest in trees, encouraged by his father and nurtured at King Alfred School, led to his pioneering work in UK woodland conservation.
Old Alfredian Julian Anderson reflects on his education at King Alfred School and his career as a civil servant negotiating Britain's entry into the EEC.
Richard Oblath, class of 1970, shares his school experiences and his career in clean energy investment.
Julie James Bailey, a former student of King Alfred School, shares her experience of starting at the school in 1947 and her later career as a professor and educator in remote communities.
Jordan Schwarzenberger, co-founder of Arcade Media and Forbes 30 Under 30 honoree, shares his journey from joining King Alfred School in year seven to becoming a successful entrepreneur managing top YouTube creators.