Senior Reflections Week 36 July 2025
Dear parents,
The last full week of this school year draws to a close, and your children have continued to show great energy and commitment to all that they do on a daily basis.
Aspire conference
On Monday we welcomed about eighty Year 10 pupils from local schools to our first Aspire to Excellence conference. This was an opportunity to work collaboratively with a range of schools and bring ambitious young people together to look ahead at possible university destinations and how to plan their route to get there. We were lucky in having special guests from Cambridge University and the University of Exeter to talk through the practicalities of making a competitive application, and also two alumni, Adam and Vedang, who reflected on their journey to university and how things are going for them in their studies. I am very grateful to Mr Luigi Chu who masterminded the conference, working closely with the head of sixth form at The Maynard School in this joint venture. Dr Elinor Keane and Mrs Melanie Szender also made a big contribution to the organisation and workshops. If your Middle Fifth child was present, I hope that they enjoyed this new opportunity, and that it has helped them to think about their next steps in the years ahead.
Music events
The chamber concert in St Luke’s Chapel on Tuesday evening included stunning performances form a range of vocal and choral groups and soloists. The atmosphere was close and the heat made it really challenging for the pupils, but they remained cool, calm and collected throughout. Special congratulations to Rebecca for her saxophone solo and her duet with Emma, Henry for his saxophone solo, Lucia and Rose for their vocal piece, Joshua for his piano solo, Grace for both her solo and duet piece with Toby, and Darcy Beau for her vocal solo. What a stunning evening of entertainment. My grateful thanks as ever go to Mr Peter Tamblyn and all of the music team who support the pupils so brilliantly. It was particularly good to see our leaving Upper Sixth formers playing on Tuesday. We will miss them all very much and we are very grateful to them for bringing such colourful music into our lives in their time with us.
On Thursday, we were in the school hall for the annual jazz supper, kindly sponsored by Charles Stanley Wealth Management. Another festival of wonderful playing, showing just how versatile the music department is, with pupils of all ages showing great depth and breadth of skill in their performances on a range of instruments. We could have been in Ronnie Scott’s in London! Well done to Jazz Band 2, 5th Wheel, Swunk, Uptown Band, Swunkette, Last Minute, Jazz Band 1 and Shrunk for a fabulous programme of musical entertainment. Huge thanks to all colleagues who supported the event, particularly Mr Peter Tamblyn and Mr Dave Bowen, who compered the evening with energy and charisma!
Click here to see the Flickr album
Young Entrepreneurs
Monday evening also saw us celebrating the great entrepreneurship that is present in the sixth form, with two Lower Sixth teams battling it out for awards in our Young Entrepreneurs programme. The teams made very different products: scented candles for one team and rings from recycled spoons for the other. It was fascinating to hear not just about their profit and loss accounts, but also about their drives to be sustainable, their marketing and sales strategies, and the people skills that they had learned along the way. Teamwork and collaboration were top of the list, it seems, when it comes to manufacturing sufficient products and making crucial decisions about the way their respective companies might develop. I congratulate all those involved and thank Mr Stuart Mackintosh for his inspirational leadership of this scheme, which certainly sends our pupils off on a route into the business world with some real-life commercial experience behind them.
New pupils
On Wednesday afternoon we welcomed new families as the next stage in their transition journey to join the school in September. It is always to a pleasure to meet with parents and children at these touchpoints as they move through the admissions process, and it was a pleasure to see so many new, and also familiar, faces. Please, if you are the parent of a pupil who will be new to the senior school in September, and you have any questions, do reach out and ask. We would be delighted to help.
Excellent Exonians
Today is a busy day – with a whole school barbeque lunch today, the Lower Fifth exploring a planetarium in the sports hall, some CCF cadets off flying at St Athan, and the LAMDA showcase event in the drama studio this evening. In addition, the Upper Sixth gold DofE expedition has been trekking in the Brecon Beacons completing their qualifying journey this week, the naval section are out on the water at Haven Banks, and over at the pre-prep, it is sports day this afternoon. Of course, there are plenty of lessons going on too! This week I have been interviewed for a short video by two members of the heads of school team, Emma and Sophia. They asked me what I enjoyed most at Exeter School and I think today just about sums it up; excellent Exonians! Hundreds of young people doing excellent things, at a high standard, with great energy and commitment, and supported by our fabulous staff team. If only I could have my school days again, I would certainly choose to spend them here!
This last weekend of term has no fixture programme, but the CCF navy and army camp groups head off for their summer activities on Sunday and we wish them all a great time – developing leadership, team working and practical skills and making memories together which will last a lifetime. Next week we have house day on Tuesday, with our sports day event at Exeter Arena in the afternoon and house dance in the morning. We also welcome Dr Adrian Rainbow at school on Monday for a visit, as a chance to start to get to know him and help him to plan for his move to Devon in the summer of 2026.
Many of you with junior school children will be here for the junior school speech day event on Monday afternoon, and I look forward to seeing you then.
Have a lovely weekend,
