Mount Kelly

If you like the outdoors, have a sense of adventure and are keen to take
advantage of every opportunity that comes your way then Mount Kelly
is the school for you. Visit our website to find out about our performance
swimming programme, girls’ football academy (in association with Chelsea
FC) and our award-winning chamber choir.

Our spectacular location means that we are well known for our strong
commitment to co-curricular activities and we encourage all pupils to take
part whether it be camping out on the moor, paddling a canoe or riding the
waves on a surfboard. We call it the ‘Mount Kelly Spirit’ an attitude to life
that develops here, one that allows pupils to really experience the lifedefining educational experience that we promise.

The mountaineer Conrad Anker wrote that ‘the summit is what drives us,
but the climb itself is what matters’. Inspired by this, at Mount Kelly we believe
that our achievements lie not only in the outcomes – examinations passed
and races won – but in the long hours of preparation, practice and training that
leave deep and positive impressions, long after the dust has settled.
At Mount Kelly we focus as much on the ‘how’ and the ‘why’, as on the
‘what’; our staff understand that each step they take with a pupil informs
more than the final outcome.

The dual nature of our surroundings – the beautiful and the challenging
– reflects the comfortable bedfellows of warmth, good humour and gritty,
combative determination that exist in our pupils; the Devon bedrock that
anchors a national ambition and global outlook; the desire to conquer the
summit through understanding the unflinching endeavour required to do so.
With a high standard of academic schooling and a proven track record in
public examination results over 85% of our pupils gain places at their top
choices of universities. Every year a number of pupils gain full scholarships to
US universities, an increasingly popular option for our pupils.

The School has an internationally recognised coaching facility for
swimming with a four lane 25m pool and an eight lane 50m pool and
has had alumni at the last five Olympic and Paralympic games. In 2022
Mount Kelly won the prestigious Arena League for the second year in a
row, confirming our place as the top school for swimming in the UK. Our
swimmers board and are taught alongside their contemporaries.

The College Chamber Choir is the flagship ensemble of the School. The
group perform a wide range of challenging music from all periods and in
a huge variety of styles, but mostly a cappella. They won the Barnardo’s
School Choir of the Year Competition in London in 2020, and compete
internationally every year.
The success of our swimmers and singers create a culture in which the
level of commitment and dedication required to excel are not considered out
of the ordinary but are qualities to which everyone can aspire.

Scholarships are available for entry into Year 9: Academic, Music, Choral, Design Technology, Art and Sport.

Sixth Form Scholarships: Academic, Choral and Girls' Football

Swimming Scholarships are available from Year 7 in all years.