FROM THE HEAD

The 2021-2022 academic year at Shebbear College has been an exciting one! Although the pandemic continued to affect our day-to-day life to an extent, with periods of remote or blended learning making an appearance, life certainly seems a lot more normal now than it did twelve months ago when I wrote last year’s introduction to the Shebbearian magazine! This academic year has been absolutely packed full of achievements, experiences, adventure and fun and I feel proud to be leaving the school in such a fantastic place.

During my time as Head at Shebbear College we have faced many challenges together as a school community - not least the dreaded Covid, and let’s not forget about Storm Eunice - but I will truly miss this wonderful school and its incredibly warm and welcoming community. The pupils have made me smile and laugh every single day and the staff are a brilliant team to work alongside. I will certainly be keeping in touch and I am excited to see how the school continues to develop under the leadership of Mr Jenkins.

We started the academic year with a bang when, at the end of September I received the phone call that we had all been expecting, from the Independent Schools Inspectorate (ISI), informing us that they were coming to inspect Shebbear College for both Regulatory Compliance and Educational Quality. We were well prepared for this, but that’s not to say it wasn’t an incredibly demanding four days. In true Shebbear spirit, our community really came together to show our fantastic school off with pride and we were all absolutely thrilled that we achieved the highest possible grading of ‘EXCELLENT’ in both key outcomes for Educational Quality: the pupils’ academic and other achievements and the pupils’ personal development. In addition, we met every single standard set in the Regulatory Compliance part of the inspection. This is a huge achievement and I know that Shebbear will continue to go from strength-to-strength in the future.

It has certainly been a year for awards and this has been down to our terrific staff leading the way: we were finalists in the Independent Schools of the Year Award for Sporting Achievement when we made it to the final six schools in the country from over 700 nominations; we achieved the National Online Safety (NOS) Remote Education Accreditation and the Certified School Status; we were labelled as ‘sector leading’ when we passed with flying colours a rigorous 2 day safeguarding inspection from MIST; and most recently we achieved the Wellbeing Award for Schools for our excellent mental health and emotional wellbeing provision for both pupils and staff.

We have celebrated many pupil achievements over the year, including a number of academic successes. Pupils across the school undertook the UK Mathematics Trust Senior, Intermediate and Junior Maths Challenges with some excellent results. Some of our Form 4 pupils also took part in the AMSP Maths Feast, competing against teams from schools from across Devon and Cornwall and finishing in 4th place. Meanwhile, our A-Level Scientists achieved highly in the British Physics Olympiad Challenge and the UK Chemistry Olympiad this year

2021-22 has been an exciting year for Sport and we have enjoyed many opportunities and celebrated many successes. From the 1st XV Rugby boys competing in the Jonny Wilkinson Cup at Rendcomb College; to an Upper Sixth pupil being selected for the Lambs U18 National Rugby Squad; our U14 team winning the North Devon Cup and our U14 Sevens team competing in the Rosslyn Park National School Sevens and winning the ISA Rugby 7s National Final. Our Hockey, Football, Netball and Cricket teams have also been going from strength to strength after almost two years of little or no competitive matches and our teams have celebrated a number of wins across the age groups. We have also seen some remarkable individual performances in athletics with several pupils competing at the Devon Schools Athletics Championships this term.

We became a member of the Independent Schools Association (ISA) this year which has brought with it many opportunities for our pupils, particularly in the sporting arena, enabling them to compete in national competitions against other ISA schools across the UK. In November some of our swimmers had the amazing chance to compete at the Olympic Pool at the London Aquatics Centre, representing Shebbear College as part of the South West Team at the ISA National Swimming Finals and this term, a team of athletes travelled up to Manchester to compete at the ISA National Athletics Championships with some fantastic results - including one gold and two bronze medals.

Ten Tors and Duke of Edinburgh have also made a welcome return and what a joy it was to be able to compete in the Ten Tors Challenge again this year. After four months of preparation and training, our 35 mile and 45 mile teams completed their routes in fantastic time and were greeted by an audience of very proud parents and staff. We were also delighted to host the Gliddon and Squire Cross Country League in February.

The Performing and Creative Arts have taken off again this year, although this has not been without its challenges with several periods of ‘no singing’, concerts switching from in-person to online at the last minute and several other Covid-related setbacks. However, our pupils have embraced these issues with flexibility and positivity and our Remembrance Service, Winter Performing Arts Showcase and Christmas Carol Concert were all successfully filmed and broadcast remotely in the Michaelmas Term - not forgetting the fabulous version of Elton John and Ed Sheeran’s ‘Merry Christmas’!

In the new year, some degree of normality returned and we were able to host the long-awaited Gig Night, informal music concerts and a wonderful Easter Performing Arts Showcase, where we enjoyed some truly amazing performances. The biggest event in the Performing Arts calendar, however, was our sensational production of ‘Grease’ in March, creating a real buzz around school! Congratulations to the superb cast, the dedicated crew and staff who made it all happen. We also enjoyed ‘Scrooge’ at Christmas, performed by the Forms 3 and 4 Drama Group, and ‘The Importance of Being Earnest’ at the end of this term, a truly memorable open air production by our Sixth Form actors. In Art, the standard of work produced by our pupils has been phenomenal, especially in our GCSE and A-Level art exhibition. In May we had a wide range of pupils’ artwork exhibited at the Annual Schools Exhibition at the Burton Art Gallery in Bideford,and were delighted to find out that five of our pupils had won awards for their entries, judged by The Arts Society.

I am delighted that our social calendar has resumed this year, with events including the Forms 1 and 2 disco, socials, pizza and quiz nights, the formal Sixth Form Rounsefell Dinner and our newly launched House Dinners - all thoroughly enjoyed by everyone! Charity events including our Comic Relief fundraiser and our Spring Fete were also hugely successful as we were finally able to come together as a school again - something we have missed greatly over the last two years.

We have welcomed new pupils from across the world into our boarding community this year, as well as being able to reopen our Summer School over the past few weeks which has been a fantastic programme. In order for the extensive refurbishment of Ruddle Boarding House to take place, we moved to a co-educational boarding house in the Lent Term - complete with a newly redecorated Pollard Common Room which went down extremely well! After Storm Eunice caused some significant damage to the Tower building of Pollard, the seniors relocated to Dartmoor field into new, but temporary, en-suite accommodation which they fondly christened ‘The Village’!

The refurbishment of our two boarding houses forms part of our Strategic Development Plan (2020 to 2025), which incorporates a site development plan to continue to improve and upgrade our facilities. As part of this, we are also working on a second major development project over the summer, the replacement of the flood lit All-Weather Astro-Turf pitch, as well as launching a new digital development strategy to improve the digital infrastructure across the whole school.

At the end of my last academic term at Shebbear College, I can reflect back with pride and happiness. It has been an extraordinary tenure as Head, but as this magazine demonstrates, we have achieved and celebrated so much and we have been reminded, on a daily basis of how resilient we can be - the last three years have reaffirmed that collaboration, creativity, community, people and teamwork are what brings us through the toughest of challenges. Thank you to all the people that have made my time at Shebbear College so enjoyable and I wish you all the very best wishes for the future - continue to ‘do all the good you can, by all the means you can, in all the ways you can… ‘

Caroline Kirby Head