Our History
Round Square owes much to the heritage of Kurt Hahn, who founded two of our original member schools, Schule Schloss Salem in Germany, with Prince Max of Baden, and Gordonstoun in Scotland.
Both schools committed to equipping youth for leadership and service in a democracy by helping them to prepare for life despite hardships, dangers, and emotion of the moment.
A pupil of both schools, Jocelin Winthrop Young, later headmaster of Anavryta school, had an idea to found a permanent association of schools that shared in these beliefs, and whose students were prepared to provide practical support to communities in need, as Salem’s pupils had done after the earthquake at Argostoli in the Ionian Islands in 1954.
In 1966, King Constantine of the Hellenes, a former pupil of Anavryta, chaired a meeting of the first seven schools that would form the association, later named after the Round Square building at Gordonstoun, where the first conference took place in 1967.
Since then, countless students have taken part in conferences, service projects and exchanges and continue to carry the spirit of Round Square in them.