As we approach the end of another academic year, I wanted to take this opportunity to wish you and your families a very happy and restful break.

It has been a very busy and successful year for the College, which began in the Autumn Term with us once again announcing a very strong set of A Level results across the board with many students achieving their destinations whether that be employment, apprenticeships, university including Oxford.

At GCSE, we saw a big improvement in the progress of our students with every student achieving a quarter of a grade more in every subject they studied. This resulted in some of our best results ever, which was particularly pleasing given the increased difficulties of the new GCSE examinations.

Sport

On the sporting front there were a wide range of fixtures with the undoubted highlight being the achievement of Year 7-9 boys beating 600 schools from across the UK to become National Champions. We are very proud of the whole team and recognised this amazing achievement at last week's Premier Awards ceremony where they received the Principal's Award for Exceptional Achievement.

Concerts, Performances and Trips

In addition there were various concerts and a wide variety of trips including visits to see Othello, Les Misérables and Macbeth, Engineering for girls, visit to Unity 5 for computing students, a History trip to London, a young chef competition and a visit to Paris for our Post-16 students.

Highlights of the Spring term included our amazing Blend Dance show with students across a range of ages producing the choreography and dancing across a wide range of topics including plastic pollution. This term also saw our awesome Les Misérables production with a cast of over 70 students. Their performance earned the Rotary Clubs Team of the Year Award at Premier Awards so very well done to them and everyone involved in this amazing event.

A huge range of sporting fixtures continued throughout the term with many teams achieving fantastic wins. Student visits included going to Sandy Park to see the Exeter Chiefs, attending the Science and Technology Fair at Plymouth University, Maths masterclasses at Plymouth University and a Medical Physics day at the Royal Devon and Exeter Hospital. Further afield, our History students visited the battlefields of France and Belgium and our Post-16 students visited Berlin.

In the Summer Term the Music team have been particularly busy after successfully holding a Rotary Club concert in November followed up by performing all the music for Les Misérables and our amazing musicians have also held a vocal concert, quad concert and concert in the Manor Gardens over the past few weeks. Music students also went to London to see a performance in the Royal Opera House.

In addition, along with our Dance and Drama departments, they produced an outstanding Summer Showtime concert at Exmouth Pavillion. This term also saw visits to the Velodrome in Newport, a residential visit to Château Baudonnière in France, a visit to see Somerset play cricket, a Business Studies trip to Cadbury's World, a visit to London, students taking part in the Big Bang South West Science Festival, our Textiles students visiting the Eden Project and finally taking students to New York.

Other major events included two absolutely amazing Proms at Ocean and Exmouth Pavillion for Post-16 and Year 11 students respectively for which the weather was perfect and the students and their transport in Year 11 looked truly incredible!

The end of the Summer term also saw Don Armand from Exeter Chiefs as our guest of honour at our brilliant Sports Awards which was closely followed by our Premier Awards evening which celebrates the amazing successes of our students across a wide range of areas.

Finally, as part of our Activities Week, our students have been taking part in a huge range of activities, both on and off site, from visiting Harry Potter World to building model railways, visiting Plymouth Aquarium to playing sports to baking through to going to Crealy and Woodlands.

At the same time, Year 10 spent the week thinking about their futures through a variety of lectures and in-depth subject based lessons to extend their knowledge.

I hope that this gives you a flavour of the many activities our students have had the opportunity to take part in. It also underlines our core belief that as a college we wish to deliver a curriculum where students receive consistently great teaching, every day and in every lesson, in a really well supported environment while at the same time experiencing activities which broaden their horizons, help students to develop as a person and give them great memories which last a lifetime.

This would not be possible without the support of you as parents, carers and family members and so may I take this opportunity to thank you for all your support throughout the year. In addition, I would like to thank our amazing staff, both support and teaching colleagues, we are fortunate to have at the college who continually amaze me in the lengths they are willing to go to support students and provide these amazing experiences.

Finally though, and most importantly, I would like to thank our brilliant students for a fantastic year and to wish them a very happy and safe summer holiday. We look forward to seeing all year groups on Wednesday, September 4, 2019.

A J Davis

Principal