Tavistock College is a mixed gender state-funded school in Tavistock, Devon, England, with students aged 11–18. There were approximately 1800 students attending. The schools draws students from a catchment area of about radius. The college has links with Japan, Uganda, Spain, Swaziland, Peru, France and India where staff exchanges and student visits and projects take place.
Success
In 2013, a Japanese teacher won the so-called "teachers' Oscar" for secondary school teacher of the year.
In early 2010, the school received a "notice to improve" from Ofsted, the national school inspection agency. After a failure to improve, the following year Tavistock College was placed under special measures. The school was placed into special measures in September 2011 and underwent a change in head teacher fairly soon after. The result of the changes made by school leadership led to an improvement in grades in the next years GCSE’s. Following the success in 2012 and 2013, the school came out of special measures and has been progressing well.
History
Tavistock grammar school was founded in 1552. In the 1930s it stood "on the Plymouth road, a modern block with splendid playing fields" but was later moved to the current site to allow for expansion as Tavistock and surrounding areas grew in population. The college motto was traditionally “Crescit sub pondere virtus” ; this is also the motto of the Earl of Denbigh. However, the school motto was changed to “Together: we care, we challenge, we excel”
Other activities
Since 2006, the college has organised concerts locally under the name of ParkLife; a ParkLife festival was held in 2007 and 2008. Tavistock College regularly takes students to remote regions of the world on expeditions with companies such as Camps International The college has also participated in fundraising activities and community tasks such as dog shows, the school sports day, local athletics competitions hosted on the extensive track and PE facilities.
Sports
Over £1.1m has been invested in new sporting facilities - an all-weather pitch, competition standard athletics track, and a football pitch development comprising seven pitches over the past years. The college Rugby and Football teams all extensively utilise these facilities as well as allowing local clubs such as Tavistock FC to train on the Astro on a regular basis. The track and other athletics facilities are regularly used for athletics clubs and for hosting competitions. Most years the college engages in school “Sports Tours” with the Rugby, Football and netball teams to foreign destinations such as France, Italy or America where the teams compete over multiple tournaments during the trip.
