Good Schools Guide awards for Exeter School

Exeter School is the recipient of two Good Schools Guide Awards.

The co-educational independent school has been honoured for its excellence in GCSE Spanish and AS Level Physics.

This is the first time Exeter School has received a Good Schools Guide Award for Modern Foreign Languages and the third year in a row for Physics.

Director of Science Dr James Wilson said it was the ninth subsequent year that Exeter School had received a Good Schools Guide Award for Science.

He said the Physics department was delighted to have received this accolade.

"It is always great to see pupils heading off to university to study a Physics-related degree and the extra recognition of an award like this is the icing on the cake!" said Dr Wilson.

"It is a deserved testament to the pupils involved as well as all the efforts of the teachers and technicians within the Physics team."

Mr Michael Latimer, Head of Modern Foreign Languages, said he was delighted that the hard work of his pupils in Spanish had been acknowledged in this way.

"Spanish is relatively new as a full subject in the Exeter School curriculum. It was particularly pleasing to win this award in only the fifth year that the language was available to all pupils at GCSE," he said.

"A key skill leading to our candidates' success is their oral proficiency, which we support through teaching lessons in the target language, and regular contact with our team of language assistants in the senior years. In previous years, we have hosted a number of excellent assistants through the British Council's prestigious long-standing scheme, which some of my team participated in ourselves as undergraduates.

"It is therefore doubly gratifying that, in the same week as receiving the Good Schools Guide accolade, my department's work with foreign language assistants led to the Exeter School securing for the first time Foundation Level of the International School Award, the British Council's globally-recognised accreditation marking schools' achievements in international learning."

Every year, the Good Schools Guide gives awards to schools to celebrate teaching excellence in individual subjects, basing these awards on WOW Factor calculations which are a combination of relative popularity, relative performance, absolute performance and percentage taking.

Exeter School's Physics department regularly collaborates with other local schools and teaching colleagues as the hub school of the Exeter and East Devon Ogden Physics Partnership and serves as a link school for the Institute of Physics' Stimulating Physics Network.