The Maynard School is a registered charity committed to providing the very best in education for girls. All our income is reinvested in the school for the benefit of our pupils. The school is managed with integrity, is properly regulated and is fully accountable.

The school has a strong tradition of high academic achievement for girls, sound moral and ethical codes, and a commitment to a wide view of school life embracing extra-curricular activities, outdoor education and community service. It offers a high quality of education within a framework where the focus is on the development and care of the individual, the enjoyment of learning, cheerful co-operation and generous compassion. Pupils come from a wide range of socio-economic backgrounds, from different countries, cultures and religions. Our experienced staff gauge the potential of prospective pupils and we offer places to those girls we feel have the potential to be happy and thrive with us.

Fee support

The Governors are proud of the school’s record in providing a range of financial assistance to support girls from financially disadvantaged backgrounds. In 2007/08, 56 girls (12% of the total number of pupils) received means-tested bursaries. The usual maximum discount available for girls in receipt of a these bursaries is 45% of fees, and 15 girls received this level of support in 2007/08. The Maynard is also strongly proactive in helping low-income families to secure additional financial support, and, thanks to the help of external charitable trusts and private donors, five girls attended the Maynard on completely free places last year.

We also offer Scholarships to recognise academic achievement, and for more information on all types of Fees Assistance at the Maynard, please click here.

Benefits to education within the wider community

The Maynard also offers benefits to wider educational development in Devon. For each of the spring and summer terms, the school hosts a group of 3 trainee teachers from the University of Exeter’s School of Education. The students can be placed in any department, but at least one usually joins our PE team. Each student spends half of his or her work placement with the Maynard, and half with another school, in a scheme designed to ensure that trainees receive contrasting experience. The Maynard is particularly strong in providing training for teaching PE to junior girls, as the breadth of this experience is often not available elsewhere. The Maynard has a well-established induction programme for newly qualified teachers and in recent years two newly qualified teachers have gained national awards for the quality of their teaching after their induction programme at the Maynard.

Individual members of the Maynard staff also contribute to wider curricular and subject development by, for example, co-authoring GCSE text books, marking public examinations and contributing to the work of national curriculum and subject development groups. We also provide facilities for students educated at home or through correspondence courses to take their public examinations, a service offered by a very limited number of centres. The Maynard has informal links with state schools through a member of staff who gives Classics lessons in a local primary and through the three staff members who are Governors for other schools.

Charity and community

The Maynard created the responsibility post of “Charity and Community Co-ordinator” in 2003, to reflect the strong and growing nature of its civic responsibility programme. Pupils at the Maynard are very active in support of local and international charities, and a number of fundraising events and activities are arranged every year. During 2007/08, these included a Summer Fête, sleepover, Christmas shoppers’ bag packing, concerts and Junior School productions, mufti days, and class fairs. The £6,322 raised by these events was donated to charities including the Bishop Simeon Foundation and Rwanda Aid, to support education projects that will benefit girls in Africa, and also to the Make A Wish Foundation and to charities supporting suffers of Asthma and Parkinson’s Disease. Maynard girls also volunteer their time and skills to help community projects, which, in 2007/08, included Singing for the Brain to help Alzheimer’s suffers, the St Thomas Play Scheme, and a summer camp for disabled children.

Lettings

The Maynard has excellent facilities for sciences, music, drama and the arts, and a first-rate indoor sports hall, which are made use of most evenings, at weekends and during the school holidays by a variety of local community groups and schools. In most cases, the hire fees are nominal, and certain groups have the use of our facilities at no charge (such as small local schools needing a larger location for musical or dramatic productions).