October half-term saw an intrepid group of students from Years 11-13 venturing up to the Lake District to try their hand at a range of mountain-based activities.

This time, we left the tents at home and stayed in luxurious style at a mountain hut, furnished with alpine-style bunks and a huge stove to warm the toes up on when we got back.

Despite the typical Lakes version of wet sunshine, we managed to get up into the mountains each day, making the most of our glorious location at the foot of Coniston Old Man. Activities included scrambling up Pavey Ark, rock climbing on Scout Crag and an ascent of Coniston Old Man. Poor weather provided a fantastic opportunity for students to hone their navigation skills, using pacings and compass bearings to navigate their way along a route.

24 Students visit La vie de Château, France.
The week before half-term was not business as usual for a group of GCSE and A Level French students - it was spent in the luxury of a French chateau, where they immersed themselves in the language and French culture.

We travelled in style, enjoying the comfort of our cabins aboard the Armorique, and were picked up on the French side by the château de la Baudonnière own double-decker bus which took us across Brittany and onto our destination: an elegant chateau set in a 100-acre estate, with lakes, rivers and native woodland.

The fun started: all the activities were run in French by a friendly bunch of animateurs and students got to try their hands at climbing, archery, bread-making, learning at the same time a lot of new language. Meals reserved a few surprises and whilst pomegranate juice proved quite a hit, there were rather mixed feelings about the snails. Older students were invited to a cheese and wine evening, and sampled pancakes at a local creperie.

Gallery coming soon.

Exchange visit to Valencia

Leader of Devon County Council Councillor John Hart visited Kingsbridge Community College on Thursday, 15th October to inaugurate the College’s new English & Literacy Centre.

This £2million flagship building is being funded by Devon County Council, with additional funding from the College.  It will provide 8 specialist English teaching rooms, ICT suite and a suite of small teaching rooms for teaching individuals and small groups who need help with improving their literacy. 

Principal Roger Pope said, “The College has had over £10 million investment over the last 10 years and this project helps us to continue our drive to provide the buildings and facilities that our students need for 21st century learning”.

Rambert Dance Company at KCC

Kingsbridge Community College was in the fortunate position of welcoming Rambert Dance Company into the college for a series of dance workshops lead by animateur Laura Harvey who gave students the opportunity to learn professional repertoire from the current work on tour.

The day began with a highly challenging technique class and repertoire session for the A-level dancers, during which Laura developed some beautiful work with the college’s best dancers. After break it was time for the GCSE year 10 and 11 dance students to be put through their paces, learning repertoire from both ‘A Comedy of Change’ and ‘Linha Curva’. After college, the CORE programme opened its doors to 25 keen students in Key Stage 3 and teachers alike to have fun, be creative and respond to the key work ‘Linha Curva’.

The workshops gave an excellent insight into the role of a dancer within the company, the challenging work they create and perform, and the type of themes explored in the triple bill. A Comedy of Change was most exciting as it previewed at the Theatre Royal, Plymouth that evening; our students were not only the first to see the repertoire but the first to learn it too! It was a proud and exciting moment when students saw the movement they had sweated over in the day being performed on stage.

The triple bill was inspiring and in the last few weeks the workshop and trip have echoed through the clubs and lessons at KCC: The A2 dancers are creating a work based on Christopher Bruce's HUSH for the solo coursework, the GCSE dancers in year 10 are developing ideas from the repertory to create trios and duos and Tanz, the in-house senior dance company, are using repertoire from ‘A Comedy of Change’ to develop a piece based on Darwin for Science Week this year.

South West Music School is part of a national network of Centres of Advanced Training for exceptionally talented young musicians aged between 8 and 18.

Only 20 students are selected from the whole of the South West so to have two KCC students as part of the intake is a major achievement and reflects the strength of our Music Department and the talent of the students.