Our history

Toechter und Soehne
How it all began

Dr. Kulessa founded Toechter und Soehne in 1999 together with his wife Agnes. After completing his studies, he became a consultant for a number of renowned boarding schools in Germany through his professional activity in marketing.

Dr. Kulessa hat Töchter und Söhne 1999 zusammen mit seiner Frau Agnes gegründet.

Nach dem Studium der Pädagogik und Anglistik in Frankfurt, Newcastle und an der Yale University avancierte er durch seine Berufstätigkeit im Marketing zum Berater einer Reihe renommierter Internate in Deutschland.

“When we picked up our then 9-year-old daughter from the 14-day summer camp, she told us:

“We were speechless. What had we done wrong? We thought we were a happy family. Janka at boarding school? Unthinkable! At first, we refused to even acknowledge the request. Slowly, very slowly, we began to understand. With our daughter's persistence, we became more willing to accept the idea and see boarding schools as an opportunity for our child. We finally overcame our own fears and let go. And we have never regretted this step. Janka attended a leading boarding school from the sixth grade onwards. And she made the most of thisr opportunity. Every single day.”
_{Detlef und Agnes Kulessa | IBoarding school parents}

In the beginning, Toechter und Soehne only consulted families about boarding schools in Germany. Satisfied parents then asked us to advise and support them in their search for boarding schools abroad, initially in the UK. So, in 2006 - after an information gathering phase that lasted more than a year - we began consulting parents about British boarding schools.

From then on, it was only a short step to add other English-speaking countries - Canada and the US - to our portfolio, especially as Dr. Kulessa had studied in the US himself. Students often asked us before they went abroad: Is my English good enough? This almost inevitably led to the development of our consultancy service for summer schools.

The next step in the development of Toechter und Soehne was again initiated by a family situation. The academic landscape had become so differentiated and complicated in the meantime - the Bologna Process had just been launched - that some of our daughter's classmates asked us for advice on planning their studies. With the private lecturer Dr. Thomas Nisslmueller, we were able to gain an experienced counsellor who was still teaching and who, together with Dr. Kulessa, set up the student counselling service. Here, too, we allowed ourselves more than a year of intensive preparation time.