Trips & Expeditions

The junior school’s busy calendar includes local theatre trips, field work, and residential trips offered to Lower Two and Upper Two (Years 5 and 6). These cultural excursions reinforce and enhance curriculum provision.

We also welcome a variety of visitors to bring the pupils’ learning to life.

Examples of some of the destinations include:

• Coldharbour Mill
• Stover Country Park
• Farmwise
• Lulworth Cove
• Haven Banks
• Eden Project
• Exeter Airport
• Northcott Theatre
• Exeter City
• Centre Exe Estuary
• We the Curious

Pupils join the senior school from diverse backgrounds and a wide range of primary schools as well as our own junior school, so it is important to integrate them as quickly as possible. To help the settling-in process, each new class spends a weekend in September at the Heatree Residential Centre on Dartmoor.

This helps develop the bonding process between the pupils and also with their form tutor and other accompanying staff. The weekend includes rock climbing with trained instructors, a walk on the wild side in the Haytor and Bellever areas, and plenty of fun and games at the centre, where the facilities are very comfortable, the staff welcoming and the food excellent. It is an experience that the children remember fondly and one which can produce new and long-lasting friendships as well as an enduring love of the moor.

A second residential is offered to all pupils in Lower Fifth (Year 9) in the form of a visit to the World War One battlefields in Belgium and northern France. This wonderful adventure not only complements the history curriculum but also, just like the Third Form residential, helps new pupils to integrate, make new friends, and build lasting memories.

The weekend includes visits to both allied and German war cemeteries, man-made defensive cave networks, and other key sites of the First World War. Our experienced team of history staff provide expert commentary and even some re-enactments of major events.

In addition, there are a number of additional cultural opportunities, including a visit to Bruges and a very popular trip to a Belgium chocolate shop. For many pupils this trip is one of their highlights of their time at Exeter School.

As part of their education in modern foreign languages, pupils are offered a number of language visits and exchanges. The benefits of spending time immersed in the language and culture of another country prove not only very popular, but hugely beneficial to the pupils’ development of their own language skills.

Visits include a Third Form (Year 7) residential to Normandy, France, at the end of the year, and pupils studying GCSE French are offered a French exchange, staying with host families and attending lessons in a French school. In recent years the department has run exchanges to Nice, Montpellier and Bordeaux.

Our GCSE Germanists take part in a biennial exchange with the Hildesheim Gymnasium, Germany. This valuable exchange of cultures has been in existence for over 50 years. Participating pupils spend a week with a German family, attend lessons in a German school, and host their exchange partner later in the year. Pupils involved regularly form lifelong friendships as part of this experience.

The GCSE Spanish exchange takes place in the beautiful Spanish city of Granada. Not only do pupils hone their mastery of the language, but they also soak up the sights, sample the tapas, and give flamenco a whirl. Pupils return not only as better Spanish speakers, but also (slightly) better dancers!

Exeter School runs major co-educational expeditions on a biennial basis with the most recent one being to the Indian Himalayas. In addition there are ski trips and diving adventures to look forward to in the near future.

Alongside the language exchanges, major expeditions and sports tours, there are also a number of overseas trips to complement the academic curriculum throughout the year. Visits include:

• Classics to Rome
• Geography to Iceland, Switzerland and Sicily
• History to Ireland
• Politics and History to New York and Washington DC

In years between our biennial expeditions the school offers international sports tours for both boys and girls in the major sports.

Recent travels have taken pupils as far afield as Canada, Argentia, South Africa, Namibia and Sri Lanka. Playing top-level competitive rugby, girls’ hockey and netball overseas provides once-in-a-life time experiences and helps to bond our teams together.