King Edward VI Community College


King Edward VI Community College is a state comprehensive school in Totnes, Devon, England. It is located in the Dart Valley on the A385 Ashburton Road and serves Totnes and the surrounding area. It has a large campus with around 1000 students, 400 of whom are at the Kennicott Sixth Form centre adjoining the main site.

History

The school was founded in 1966 as the King Edward VI Comprehensive School, an amalgamation of the King Edward VI Grammar School for boys, the Redworth Secondary Modern School and the Totnes High School for Girls. The new school was located on the sites of the Redworth Secondary Modern and the neighbouring Totnes High School for Girls. The grammar school had been on a different site, which was too small to accommodate the new comprehensive school.

College houses

The school currently has five houses: Babbage, Davis, Gyles, Scott and Snape.
These took over from the previous four-school house system of Rea, Smythe, Jeffrey and Scott in 2001.

School uniforms

In 2003, the governors of the school abolished the school uniform policy. Kate Mason, the principal, stated that the administration believed that too much teaching time was spent on correcting dress code violations. She also believed that insisting on uniforms while also praising diversity is sending mixed messages.
The school reintroduced a school uniform in 2012, having abolished any uniform for pupils in 2003. The school stated that a consultation found that the majority were in favour of a uniform, however some disputed the validity of this consultation. Students protested, and some were punished for what the school described as truancy, leading to concerns from some parents that communication with the school had broken down. The head teacher was quoted as saying that students who refused to wear the new uniform could be expelled. Kate Mason is no longer the principal of this school.

Notable former teachers

Pupils of the Boy's Grammar school