Our Story

"In a time of drastic change it is the learners who inherit the future. The learned usually find themselves perfectly equipped to live in a world that no longer exists"
-- Eric Hoffer

From our Founders:

The Clarke family moved to Uganda in 1988. I originally came here as a missionary doctor, and founded Kiwoko Hospital, still thriving today. Following this season, I became involved in business, and started International Hospital Kampala, and the International Medical Group. Later I would become Mayor of Makindye, and most recently, my energies are focused on my 1,500 acre coffee farm in Kyenjojo.
My main motivation for these entrepreneurial activities is to drive development for Uganda. Healthcare is clearly important for development. So is agribusiness, especially for a nation considered the breadbasket of East Africa. But no sector has the potential and capacity to transform a nation like Education.
When a person is equipped with an education that provides the skills for a role, or the innovation for entrepreneurship, or the capacity to keep on learning, that individual will transform their communities, create jobs, and drive economic growth.
The transformative effect can be exponential - but only if education goes beyond preparation for the next exam, and is focused on preparing our children, teenagers and young adults for the real world - and inspiring them to never stop learning.
And so, with the help of my son, Sean, and our founding Head Teacher, Katherine Tucker, we established Clarke Junior School. We are all very proud of this achievement.

Dr Ian Clarke
Chairman of Clarke Group
Having the opportunity to build Clarke Junior School seemed in many ways like the culmination of all of my experiences and passions over the course of my life up until that point. I grew up in Uganda, and it is my home. My first profession was as a teacher; I have an MBA qualification, and gained experience in
business in Uganda. I felt these qualifications and experiences, and the right partners to work with, had given me the tools to create a world class Ugandan curriculum school, using a financially sustainable model that was still affordable for our families.

As an employer I had noticed that, more often than not, qualifications do not equate to competencies. I often found that the best employees were not the most well qualified. Actually the best employees are those who have a growth mindset - one that gives them the capacity to learn, to adapt to new challenges, expand their skill set, and innovate solutions.
But nearly all schools in our education system are not equipping children and young adults in this regard. Instead they are fixated on whatever the next exams are. This is understandable as the results the school achieves in PLE, O’level or A’level reflect on the school, as well as the student. However, this results in students graduating ‘well’, when that is really only a measure of how good they are at passing exams. As an employer, the ability for prospective employees to
pass exams is not particularly useful. As an entrepreneur, it is almost entirely useless, the reason that so many successful entrepreneurs abandon schooling.
So we considered how we could create a school that moulds inquiring minds in children that are destined to become life-long learners - children that will encounter new technologies and challenges in an ever changing world, and know how to acquire the skills and competencies that make them successful in it. We are excited by what we have achieved with this goal. Not only do we constantly hear from visitors how impressed they are by the intelligent questions from the classes they visit, and the innovative teaching approaches they see there, but we also have had great success in exams as well, both in tests used for international benchmarking, as well as PLE.

Mr Sean Clarke
CEO Clarke Group Education
Upon finishing their primary schooling at Clarke Junior School, we believe your child will be in a unique position of having the personal and academic skills (as well as the necessary qualifications) to continue their learning journey, either through the Ugandan or any other system. We want your child to have developed skills of inquiry, questioning the world around them and not just blindly accepting what they are told. We want your child to relish the joy of discovery and to embark on a lifetime of learning that is both rigorous and fun.
We believe Clarke Junior School will provide your child with the opportunity to acquire the knowledge, practise the skills and develop the understanding they need to become future leaders in a globalised world. In setting up Clarke Junior School, we have carefully considered the future world and the attributes and qualifications our students will need to succeed. We then considered the type of learning our children will require to prepare them for that world, and we will continuously be considering what that will look like in our school. We want our students to be able to compete equally in both the local and the global market.
Enrolling in our school is like joining a like-minded family. We still believe in understanding the heritage of our culture and learning and what has made us who we are with the timeless lessons of nature. But we also look forward as we accept the world is fast-changing, and we accept the challenge of making the best judgements we can about what the world will look like so that we can best prepare our children.
Our school has been created with love to provide our young learners with the very best opportunities. We feel a wonderful sense of excitement and promise as we welcome each new student to our school.

Ms Katherine Tucker
Founding Head Teacher