WHAT? WHERE

Concord College is an independent co-ed day and boarding school for children aged from 13 to 18 in Shrewsbury, with a highly academic reputation, particularly in sciences (it’s most popular uni destination is UCL).

The pupils here are largely international, with 40-odd nationalities represented. They are drawn to the school’s intellectual rigour and strength in creative arts, although I’m sure the bucolic 73 acres of Shropshire countryside that surround its 18^th century manor house and the ruined medieval castle of Acton Burnell help. It’s got quite the history too – the castle twice acted as the venue for parliament – in 1283 and 1285.

However, with a 50/50 split between boys and girls, maximum of 14 pupils per class, and global outlook, there is increasing interest locally in Concord too, with roughly 15% of day pupils from the Shrewsbury area, with slightly higher numbers in the younger year groups.

The school was founded after World War 2 so there’s the usual mix of heritage beauty and more practical buildings, though the overall feel at Concord is one of tranquility, order and beauty with its pretty bordered walkways, large areas of manicured grass and its striking cream Georgian centrepiece, with its colonnades, wooden panelling, and elegantly turned wooden staircases.

FACILITIES

SPORT 

Sport isn’t a passion for most students at Concord but it is recognised as important, and those who do have sporting passions find a dedicated team in the sports department ready to support them in achieving their goals. The school was a finalist in the Muddy Stilettos Best School Awards in 2022 for its inclusive approach that helps pupils enjoy playing at their own level and also building participation. The sports facilities here are good, with two large sports halls, indoor heated swimming pool, football pitches, tennis, volleyball and squash courts, running track, all weather basketball courts, a dance studio, aerobics and weight training room, a climbing wall and a high ropes course.

Concord makes it clear that all pupils need to exercise for their mental and physical wellbeing and lower school students have at least one compulsory sports session each week, Forms 3&4 have timetabled PE, and compulsory Wednesday afternoon sports along with extra-curricular options including badminton, trampoline, body combat, fencing, netball etc. There are also regular inter-school competitive fixtures including netball and badminton though football is the most popular, with a busy fixture list and some exciting successes – not least being winners of the inaugural Shropshire schools golf tournament in 2023 and top of the county basketball league (U19) for 2022.

There are several elite athletes at Concord including an an international windsurfer (for Singapore) and a Welsh national indoor running champion, though when I asked a group of students about their general interest in sport they pretty much laughed at me! These kids are here to exercise their minds. Sport at Concord is primarily a social activity, a bit of fun and a release from the intellectual study.

CREATIVE ARTS

The school has its own Performing Arts Centre with a 270-seat theatre, music practice rooms, an orchestra room and a music tech suite. Drama is a GSCE option here, so it’s taken seriously, with regular student productions including an annual Form 3 outdoor Shakespeare play. Concord is a registered centre for LAMDA exams and all Form 3s gain qualifications in various acting or public speaking subjects and there are weekly drama rehearsals for Concord’s International Concert held at the Theatre Severn, Shrewsbury which also celebrates music and dance.

Music-wise, Pupils can join the choir, orchestra, jazz group and there’s also a samba drums band, though more ambitious musicians are also encouraged to join the Shrewsbury Symphony Orchestra or Shropshire Youth Orchestra.

Music isn’t currently offered as an A-Level but Art is – students can utilise four art studios (two for Lower School, two for Sixth Form), classrooms, and a resource centre that includes a small art library. There are areas specifically for Photography and Printmaking here, and the pupils are also able to explore drawing, ceramics and graphics. Central St. Martins and the London College of Fashion are the most popular destinations for the Art students (not too shabby!), but architecture degrees at unis like Bath and Cambridge are also not uncommon.

SCHOOL

No kidding here – Concord’s Science Block, opened in 2018 on an £11 million investment will astound pupils with an interest in STEM. The atrium itself feels like a mini Science Museum with an immersive video room (I stood ‘under the sea’ watching fish and looking up to the surface), giant periodic table of elements to play with, and – the tour de force – a 10ft short-faced bear skeleton imported from America greeting you in the foyer. Beyond this and you’ll find 21 labs, a separate special projects lab (this year they’ve been making an artificial limb – CHECK), classrooms, prep rooms and offices. There are 5 full time lab technicians and unusually their work is fully integrated with the school as they work in glass rooms. I’m the least science-inclined person on the planet, but even I was uplifted by the possibilities on offer.

What else to tell you? In a school that’s regarded by the Independent School Council (ISC) as one of the Top 3 schools in the UK for A-level results and 5^th by both The Times and The Telegraph (2020/1), it’s no surprise the library is well-equipped and well-attended though its practical rather than a thing of architectural beauty. Open every day until 10pm, and even later on Saturday nights, it boasts 7,000 books, 45 computer stations and room for 150 pupils to study at any one time. Next door is Pin Drop (geddit?), a quiet study room with individual booths for when the urge to really put the head down and study hits.

The ‘West End’ is the main student social area, where the kids can raid the snack shop, watch TV, get a coffee at the café or hang out at the outdoor amphitheatre. There’s also the Old Chapel common room for quieter relaxation or even playing the grand piano… now form an orderly queue!

SIXTH FORM

Over 60% of the school is made up of Sixth Form students, giving Concord a quietly confident, collegiate air, and it’s possible to join the school for Sixth Form only. A level subjects on offer here are limited to Art including Photography, Biology, Chemistry, Economics, English, French, Further Mathematics, Geography, History, Mathematics, Physics, Spanish and Music as an EPQ.

As for grown-up socialising, the large student kitchen allows for students to cook their own food and even host a dinner with a group of friends – talk about prep for uni life. But largely, the college is integrated across the year groups for social space and clubs although the sixth-formers are the only group allowed into town on Weds afternoons (by bus).

ACADEMICS 

Sky high. This is a school for highly gifted academic children who are passionate about learning and need little or no encouragement to study. There’s also an overt expectation from the school that pupils keep up with the pace. To that end, there are weekly tests on Saturday mornings for all pupils (day and boarding), along with exams at the end of each term. Parents are given full written reports, one each term, including test scores.

In 2024 90% of the grades were 7-9 at GCSE, 56% at grade 9. At A Level 110 students got 3A’s or more, 44 with 3 A*s or better and one incredible student with 5A*s in full A Levels. Over 1% of England’s 3A* students were at Concord.
Destinations wise, 30 medics, dentists and vets, 10 Oxford and Cambridge, 118 to Russel Group, Over 18 heading outside the UK including to University of Pennsylvania, Johns Hopkins, USC, UCLA, HKU and HKUST.

PASTORAL CARE 

Concord describes itself as ‘dedicated to rigour, kindness and creativity’ and walking around and talking to the kids you do get a real sense of all three. Concord is rare in that it keeps it boarding houses open over all half terms and Easter as well as offering a summer school if students want to stay on (it even stayed open over both Christmases during the pandemic). There are also no exeat weekends during term – all due to the international nature of the student body. For this reason, a sense of shared community and consideration is important, and its most recent ISI report described the pupils as ‘fully meeting the school’s expectation that they will behave with kindness, in a way that promote harmony, decency and trust’. The clear understanding between pupils that I spoke to is that any bullying or harassment would swiftly spell the end of their time at Concord.

Pastoral support at Concord includes individual appointments for counselling, as well as an independent listener if students want to talk to someone outside the College. The year tutors meet each student in their care every 2-3 weeks per term to discuss both academic progress as well as their wellbeing. There’s a purpose-built Medical Centre at Concord with nurses available 7 days a week, and two doctor’s surgeries each week.

BOARDING

There are 17 boarding houses here, all single sex and mostly purpose built, with the kind of formica-clad single rooms and shared bathrooms I see all the time at schools though by the second year of A levels all pupils are guaranteed an ensuite bathroom. There’s also a quirky but popular option for the boys only to board at a local farm in one of 59 single en-suite rooms with the owner and his son as (fully DBS checked) Boarding Parents. Another popular option are the two converted houses in the village (all sixth-form only), one of which, “The Warren”, is for girls only.

The weekends are busy here, with all pupils, including day students, taking their weekly tests on Saturday morning, after which all year groups can go to Shrewsbury or opt for one of the regular school trips. There’s a free bus to the cinema in Shrewsbury for Sixth Formers, or what the school calls a ‘disco’ on some Saturday nights which sounds terrifyingly 1970’s but is actually very popular, with external DJs brought in and lighting set up – a kind of mini (and very safe) nightclub with a chill-out area for those too mortified by the idea of dancing.

THE HEAD 

Dr Michael Truss arrived in Sept 21 from a deputy headship at Barnard Castle, bringing with him a bundle of his own academic qualifications to inspire the pupils – he’s a Doctor of Philosophy in Theoretical Astrophysics from the University of Leicester and holds a First class degree in Physics from Oxford University. He was also a former teaching Fellow at Durham University. Though he has the undeniable air of an intellectual, he’s also really warm and almost boyishly enthusiastic about Concord and how he can move the school on further. His first act on coming to the school was to throw himself off the high ropes course – it’s what new pupils do here as part of team building and to show themselves they can achieve anything so it made sense to Truss that he showed willing too.

Clearly he has ambitions for the school, particularly on upping the innovation further, and developing the curriculum to improve the pupil’s thinking skills – he wants to create ‘multi-faceted polymaths’ to give Concord kids the edge when it comes to university entrance and beyond. I’ll report back on this next year when he’s had a chance to implement it.

QUIRKS 

There’s no uniform here which from my experience with schools seems to foster a more grown-up, respectful atmosphere. With over 40 different nationalities there’s no religion either though all pupils with religious beliefs are well supported. Perhaps the biggest quirk – or bald statement of fact – is the school’s insistence that ‘Promotion from one academic year to the next is not automatic’. In other words, if your child doesn’t make the desired progress either academically or in terms of behaviour year on year, it’s sayonara to Concord. That said, targeted support and tracking is avid so it’s very rare that a student isn’t promoted to the next year.

The school has an ‘Ambassador’ giant bear, named by the college community as ‘Burnell’ after the village near the school. He was made by the local bear makers (one of England’s last), Merrythought, just down the road in Ironbridge

WRAP AROUND CARE  

Day pupils are encouraged to stay for extra curricular clubs from 4pm and they can stay for dinner, as long as they leave by 10pm (with no charge on the bill) so there’s flexibility, but no flexi-boarding.

SEND  

Concord has a dedicated SEN coordinator who mostly deals with support in English as an Additional Language (EAL) but also with a small number of pupils with dyslexia or dyspraxia and a few with ASD and ADHD diagnoses. Extra classes are put on as required, though one-to-one teacher support in lessons is often possible due to the small class sizes of 14 or less.

ISI REPORT 

It’s happy reading for Concord – view the most recent reports including a full report from 2019 and its 2021 compliance report.

TRANSPORT 

A school bus leaves Meole Brace Retail Park in Shrewsbury, Monday – Friday at 7.50am with the return service from Concord at 5.50pm. Any later and it’s the bus of mum and dad.

MOBILE PHONE POLICY

There’s no phone use in the school day (8:30-4pm) other than in specific phone-zones, including at breaktime and lunchtime. The aim is for students to become discerning users of their phones so that outside of school and indeed once they leave Concord, they have good habits and self awareness. As an International community the team know that technology is vital in keeping families connected and hope to enable students to grow into adults who benefit from technology without becoming vulnerable to its more negative aspects.

FEES 

You’d better sit down for this. Boarding fees for 2022/23 are £17,800 per term, or £53,400 per year. Day fees are less painful, at £6,100 per term or £18,300 per year, but the school ethos is such that there are sufficient bursaries available so genuine financial need should not prevent a capable student from applying for a place.

WORD ON THE GROUND 

Very positive. Pupils are known as polite and well-behaved around Shrewsbury and local parents talk of their super-bright kids thriving in an environment where their love of learning doesn’t mark them out as ‘nerds’. One of the students suggested to me that they’d like more integration between the Sixth Form and lower years but the teachers I was sitting with were very open to that idea – they were curious to listen rather than defensive and that’s the feeling I get about the school; it’s very open, liberal and eager to improve.

THE MUDDY VERDICT 

Good for: Highly academic, driven children with a passion for learning will grasp this opportunity with both hands. STEM subjects are particularly well catered for, but it’s possible to have a strong creative education here too. The incredible entry levels into UCL highlights Concord’s particular strong suit for preparing the doctors of the future. Those who want to learn with a global outlook and an international community will be in heaven here.

Not for: If your child struggles with maturity, self-regulation, motivation, or the inevitable pressure to keep up with a highly motivated group of peers, look elsewhere.

See for yourself: The school doesn’t run open days but encourages families to visit the college if they are thinking of applying, You can arrange a visit online or over the phone.

Concord College, Acton Burnell Hall, Shrewsbury, Shropshire, SY5 7PF. Tel:  01694 731631

Concord College, Shrewsbury

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