Mount Kelly

Mount Kelly, set on the edge of Dartmoor National Park, combines academic excellence, an outstanding range of opportunities beyond the classroom and exceptional pastoral care.  We are a fully co-educational School for children aged between 3 and 18 and offer day, flexi, weekly and full boarding.

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, riding the waves on a surf board or enjoying an overnight sail in our 50 foot pilot cutter ‘Olga’. We call it the ‘Mount Kelly Spirit’ an attitude to life that develops here, one that allows pupils to really experience the life-defining 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 4 lane 25m pool and an 8 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.

www.mountkelly.com