Mount Kelly
Mount Kelly pupils surmount tor
By Guy Ayling, Headteacher, Mount Kelly
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.
Our new school film captures that journey of achievement, one that is literally and symbolically taken up each year by every member of our community on the Cox Tor Walk. It is appropriate that this journey is set on the Moor: Mount Kelly is embedded in Dartmoor; we would not be what we are without our surroundings - the spirit and ethos of our School is inextricably linked to our location, not just in terms of what it allows us to do, but in shaping our attitudes, values and appreciation of the hidden challenges that lie in apparent tranquillity.
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.