It is always a pleasure to look back on the year at the many successes of our superb school community.
We are delighted that our new Year 7s have settled in so well to our traditional ways of working – apprehension about starting a new school having long given way to engagement in their lessons, sports teams and our excellent wider extra-curricular provision.
It has indeed been an exciting end to the year. Our traditional, bespoke and independent ways of working enable students to succeed and thrive as young people. Academic success is vastly important, but statistics alone cannot fully reflect the intangible aspects of success at Matravers; our culture extends far beyond the growing provision of exceptional academic education.
From our students’ first day with us in Year 7 to their last in Year 13, the broad range of “outstanding” extracurricular opportunity that exists here is a fundamental part of our development of resilient, ambitious and successful individuals; this is unmatched by others. From the outset, this culture is fostered on an everyday basis, in tandem with and supporting the exceptional academic education.
2017 has seen some truly memorable experiences across our community. We have delivered two outstanding productions: “Oliver” in February and “Beauty and the Beast” in December. Both productions perfectly reflected a huge number of individuals contributing positively to their community. If you were one of the lucky 1000+ people who managed to secure a ticket for each of the sell-out performances you were treated to theatre of the highest quality. Nothing less than a huge amount of hard work by everybody concerned realised this fantastic event.
We have been delighted with the wider commitment to the community of Westbury that has been evident. We have seen our community-spirited “Leos” group engage positively and vibrantly with many events across Westbury. Likewise we have supported the excellent Rotary Club across many events and welcomed their input into the school.
2017 has seen the introduction of our superb Combined Cadet Force, which has rapidly progressed to stand-alone status. This thriving air-cadet unit has grown and now benefits from access to superb facilities and activities across the year. Our annual “mess-dinner” is a welcome end to the year for all.
Full participation by everybody is an expectation at Matravers; the option to “buy-out” is not given. We believe that school trips, competitions, teams and clubs are an essential aspect of each young person’s journey through the Matravers experience.
We are delighted with our continued huge investment into the school site. Our site master plan is well on its way to being delivered. Our new astro-turf is being well-received by students, alongside new toilet facilities in our dance/music block.
Our new food court area is one such recently developed area. Our catering provision, all produced on-site every day, provides a wonderful opportunity for students to access high-quality food which students are clearly enjoying.
As we look forward to 2018 we will progress towards beginning our major building project which will provide a state-of-the-art three-storey science, maths, technology and computing classroom block on site. Further enhancements are also planned for our sports provision during 2018.
