Senior Reflections Week 12 2023

Dear parents,

With only a week to go until the end of term, I am sure that you are all looking forward to some rest and relaxation over the holidays.

WaterAid Concert and music next week

On Tuesday, it was a pleasure to see so many of you in the Cathedral, supporting WaterAid with our fabulous annual concert. The quality of the music was exceptional, and there really was something for everyone – from the wonderful haunting Taverner choral pieces, to How to Train Your Dragon from the symphony orchestra. As ever, the all boys barbershop and all girls Belles Canto close harmony groups were absolutely beautiful, as was the enthusiastic singing from the audience for the traditional carols. We are sharing a video link of the event below. On Monday, we are back in the Cathedral for the senior school carol service and we look forward to some enthusiastic singing from the school as we look towards the festive period together. We also have the senior school Christmas concert on Thursday next week and the junior school concert on Tuesday, both here at school. I look forward to welcoming you for those events too. Many thanks go to all who support your children in their music making. Mr Peter Tamblyn and Mr Matt Davies have the support of all the instrumental music teachers and also, of course, our wonderful operations team and Mrs Sally Daldorph, who do so much to make sure that these events are brilliantly organised and run like clockwork. Many thanks to them all.

Parental inclusion forum

On Monday this week, we welcomed members of the parental inclusion forum for a meeting – primarily to look at the data collected in the recent survey. We were very happy to have such strong engagement in the survey (over 150 responses) and some very useful data, not just from the quantitative elements, but also from the thoughtful comments and ideas that you shared. The discussion on Monday was helpful to contextualise some of this and also to bring ideas for our next steps. The group will meet again in January to put together our inclusion strategy. This will be built alongside the pupil and staff questionnaire results, which help bring all three stakeholder groups together. Thank you for your contributions to this.

Blue Boy Awards

Exeter School is one of the ten schools which come under the umbrella of the St John’s Hospital Foundation and one of the five secondary schools in the city (which includes Exeter College) which have the pleasure of awarding a Blue Boy Award each year. The event to make the awards and celebrate the achievements of the five young recipients was on Tuesday evening in the Bishops’ Palace and hosted by the acting Bishop of Exeter, Bishop Jackie, who is a great friend of the school. We were delighted to award our Blue Boy this year to Isabelle Bill, who left us at the end of the U6 in the summer. A great advocate for music, reading, and service to others, Isabelle stood out as a worthy recipient, and it was lovely to celebrate with her and her family, alongside the families of the recipients for the college, The Maynard School, St James and St Peter’s schools, on Tuesday. You can read more about the Foundation and its role in the history of education in Exeter here. Well done Isabelle!

L6 Parents’ Evening

The school was buzzing on Thursday evening for the L6 parents’ evening. As your daughters and sons come to the end of their first term of sixth form, I hope that you found the feedback conversations really helpful and enjoyable. The general view from those I spoke to was that the pupils are loving the more focused opportunity to study four subjects and also the new relationships that they are forming with their teachers in the sixth form. Our new pupils seem to be very well settled too. Please do get in touch with the heads of house or Mr Chu if there are any ongoing concerns after the meeting last night.

Exeter School Family Society

This afternoon we have our first ESFS event – a junior school disco, which we are all very excited about. I extend my thanks to the parents who have so generously given their time and ideas to the family society and to the organisation of this event in particular, and I look forward to watching you all dance the night away this afternoon!

Have a great weekend,