Senior Reflections Week 8 November 2024

Dear parents,

Welcome back to the second half of term, the first week of which has flown by! I hope that you all had a restful break and that your children have enjoyed being back in school with their friends.

School trips over half term

We had five successful overseas trips this half term break, and I want to reiterate my thanks to all the staff involved, and particularly the trip leaders, Mr Phil Hyde, Mr Tom Ross, Ms Samantha Wilson, Mrs Delphine Masters and Mr Graham Bone. It is a huge commitment to take pupils away (especially overseas) and to give up one’s holiday to do so shows extra dedication. The pupils were all excellent ambassadors for the school and I thank them too for their good humour, maturity and positive approach whilst exploring and enjoying these enrichment activities. It has been lovely to hear so much positive feedback. To remind you, the geographers were in Iceland, where they witnessed an awe inspiring display of the northern lights, the rugby tour was in Portugal, where they won three of their four games, the German department were developing their language skills on the exchange trip to Hildesheim, the French department explored Nice and practised their French and finally the U6 physicists visited the Great Hadron Collider at CERN, exploring some of the difficult to answer questions in life.

School uniform

We continue to remind pupils about the importance of smart school dress and congratulate the vast majority of pupils whose uniform is very smart and worn very well. We thank you for your support in ensuring that your children are well turned out, particularly with respect to tucking in shirts, wearing skirts at the right length, tying back long hair and ensuring that pupils follow the rules on jewellery. We know that finding replacement items, especially skirts and ties from our current supplier, is challenging and we will work to support you in this if you are still struggling to source the correct items. A note for Upper Fifth parents – we know that there will be demand for the current uniform for those who are in the fifth forms and urge you to consider passing these on to a friend with slightly younger children, or donating your children’s smart second hand garments in June to the second-hand shop when they have finished their GCSE exams. I know that this will be much appreciated.

We have now received samples of the new school uniform and these will be in display in the main reception very soon. Please do pop in and have a look. We hope that you like them and will be sharing with you the process for ordering your new school uniform in due course.

Governance

This week has been one of governor’s meetings. We recently had a review of governance, carried out by AGBIS who support governance in independent schools like ours. This has led to some recommendations and we have changed our committee structure as a result of this. We now have four committees; finance & general purposes, education, welfare & safeguarding and governance & remuneration. These committees all feed into the main board meeting. Each committee meets once a term and is comprised of volunteers who give their time, skills and expertise willingly to support the school. Our board members come from a wide range of backgrounds and most have a link with the school, perhaps a former parent or former pupil for example. We are very grateful for their commitment and support and this week’s meetings have been characteristically productive and thought provoking. With the changes that are happening in the independent sector at the moment, particularly the imposition of VAT, strong governance and clear strategy has never been more important and we are very grateful to our board, chaired by Gillian Hodgetts, for guiding us so well, and providing that crucial critical friendship that we all need in leadership.

Parents’ evening

It was lovely to see so many of the Third Form parents here on Tuesday evening to talk to their children’s teachers and find out a little of how the first half of the term has gone for the boys and girls. We are delighted with how well they have settled in and how well they are doing both in the classroom and in their co-curricular activities, and I hope that parents are too. Please remember to contact your child’s tutor if you have any concerns about how things are going.

Progression to the sixth form

On Tuesday, the Upper Fifth enjoyed their sixth form taster lessons to learn about the curriculum subjects that are only available at sixth form level. This includes BTEC sport, and A Levels in politics, economics, business, psychology and electronics. These sessions were very well received by the pupils and led well into the sixth form open evening on Thursday at which they, and prospective external applicants for the sixth form, discussed their choices with colleagues and considered what it is to be a sixth former at Exeter School. It was a pleasure to welcome so many parents and visitors to the school and to be able to share the benefits of our fabulous sixth form. We know that the decision making is not easy and we continue to advise the pupils of two very simple things – do what you love and what you are good at. If you follow this advice, you will really enjoy the two years of study in our sixth form.

Remembrance

On Monday, we will hold our annual remembrance service as a school. This is always a poignant event and the pupils are exceptional in their behaviour and respect shown. This week we have been practising the music for the service, and have also seen the emergence of a field of remembrance by the Manston Terrace entrance. Junior school pupils have made poppies which have been mounted on canes and planted under the tree by the main entrance. They look fabulous and I hope that over time we will plant more such poppies at remembrance tide each year. Please do pop in and have a look. My grateful thanks go to all those involved in this creative project.

Library

If you’re looking for Christmas presents, our library team have pulled together some great new reads in their recent newsletter which you can find here.

Click here to read the senior library newsletter

Sport

This weekend we have a host of fixtures in hockey and rugby on Saturday afternoon, both at home and away. Best of luck to the teams as they play against King’s and Queen’s Colleges in Taunton.

Have a lovely weekend,