Exeter Cathedral School

Our View

Origins lost fancifully in the mists of time, like all these cathedral song schools – goes all the way back to a henge where the choristers kept pet pterodactyls. Main school building up by the cathedral, access a bit of a nightmare. A huggermugger place of thundering stairs, classrooms, dorms, commonrooms. We didn't dare go down the cellar. Retro vibe all-pervasive – old millennium chic down to the smell of the polish; many desks accommodate inkwells. You look out of an upper window down onto the playground and the children morph into a Lowry painting, then into an engraving from 'Great Expectations'.

A bling free zone and it clearly filters out the WAG set because parents here are an unaffected, unpretentious lot, bookish looking, from quite a range of backgrounds, for whom this school is an affair of the heart. 'It's as far away as you can get from a SATS machine,' they say. When they talk about things that matter, they mean values and the way people treat each other. When you talk about facilities, they ask tartly, 'At this stage, do they really need so much equipment?' Fees are attractively non-exorbitant.

A well worn place with a cheerful, slightly doolally feel and the children love it, only wishing they had their own green space to play in, as they wistfully gaze into the overgrown garden next door in the old deanery. They do have masses of green space all round the cathedral. When they go to the other school buildings, none of them more than a hundred yards away, children are escorted or, if old enough, walk in pairs. – it's a perfectly safe environment. And it's easy to feel that the lack of mod cons is compensated for by the ancient cathedral, in whose chapter house the children meet every morning for assembly.

Games fields have they none or, to phrase it the head's way, 'We have jolly good facilities but by no means all on site'. It's a short ride by minibus to a selection of sports fields, including the university's – judging by the jollity of those we watched embarking, social value in the ride. Hockey is the pick of the bunch.

Musically, the school tests parents' superlatives. Exceptional director of music has been here 20 years. A hard life for choristers, of course – 'Friday evensong's the real killer' – but they feel they are part of something extraordinary – and they get to go on great tours abroad. All the music making you would expect, all classically based. Not just a chorister thing – in tune with the spirit of the place almost all children get caught up in music making, instrumentally or vocally. Boy choristers get 25 per cent scholarship, girls 20 per cent – because they sing fewer services. Means-tested bursaries available and they do their best to find the money. 'We want music here first, parents who can afford to pay second.' Non-choristers do not feel they are there to make up the numbers – no way.

Academically, parents like the breadth, the quality, the way teachers make their child think creatively and ask 'ridiculously difficult questions'. Above all, they like the relationships between teachers and children. A fair number of heritage prep school teachers here, a retro touch a lot of parents would travel a long way to get: characters, eccentric certainly by the standards of the wide world but, in their own world, remarkably effective, funny, caring and unforgettable – legendary. Parents say: rigour and 'a realistic sense of what each child can do'. They praise responsiveness to problems, speed of communication and the ever-helpful admin staff. A school where parents get very stuck in – membership of the PTA comes with registration; an unusually strong sense of belongingness in everyone.

For those with special needs, a team leader and 4 specialist teachers, who also dispense EAL as necessary to overseas pupils.

Art taught in a room in which a profusion of work is in progress, so it's definitely not tidy – so it's a real artroom. Drama thrives, a bit old fashioned some say, but the teacher's lovely. Good number and range of after-school clubs.

Discipline isn't really an issue in a school in which the personal touch plays the leading part. Parents talk of 'moral and spiritual growth' – just a posh way really of saying their child is growing up to be a very nice person with a strong sense of self, and having masses of fun while doing so, what small schools can do best and where this school, having little in its purse, directs its efforts. Really, really nice lay chaplain who supports children and families. Boarding is well done – the children feel looked after and flexi-boarding is popular. The IT's just been revamped, a matter of gigantic pride to the children (though nothing to make a rocket scientist swoon), and now at last boarders can email home.

Popular pre-prep in its own building and walled garden.

Parents wanting a prep school hereabouts have just two very good schools to choose between. It's no dilemma – ECS has to try terribly hard to make up for what it lacks, which gives it its special quality, though it doesn't paper over the lacks. It is remarkable how many parents we spoke to had rejected the other when they found ECS – it's all down to your value system and what you reckon your child needs most.

Head

Since 2005, Mr Brian McDowell (early fifties). Educated Haberdasher's, Elstree and London University. Ten years in primary schools, the last 20 in independents. Advanced to the headship of St Aubyn's, Tiverton, and oversaw its handover to Blundell's. Mathematician. Not in any way one of your post-modern heads who's traded up to flash-suited marketing executive, so expect no glittering spiel, none of that self-congratulatory stuff prefaced by, 'We pride ourselves on ... ' Touchingly unselfconscious, modest, an attentive, intelligent listener and wholly your child centric. 'Not at all into his own importance,' summarises one parent. You don't get slick signage and bigged-up straplines at ECS (as they call it), but you do get lit-up weenies in the pre-prep running up to their head to tell him everything. Which would you rather?

A school in which the software glows but much of the hardware is a matter of -let's be kind – nostalgia, or, where the main staircase is concerned, white knuckles (it feels a bit at sea). In a nutshell, children happy, place tatty. Mr McDowell looks like the man for the moment. He has up to date managerial skills to orchestrate the vivacity of his teachers and keep them safe in the ways of best practice. As important, he is proving to be a most effective recruiting sergeant at a time when all choir schools are suffering from secularism and the Xbox factor. Though rich in things of the heart, a school which mirrors our own finances – a little extra would go a heck of a long way.

Musical himself, he sings and slips into the organ loft if he thinks no-one is listening – ebullience in a china shop. Has directed plays. Golfs, walks coasts, gardens and watches cricket. Married to Diana; four children. Mr McDowell is leaving in April 2011.

Entrance

Entry by interview plus taster day. Voice trials for choristerships. Full academic range here – SENs mild to moderate.

Exit

Almost all stay to 13, then on to sou'westerlies, mostly: King's Taunton, Exeter's Maynard School, Exeter School and St Margaret's, Torquay Boys' Grammar School, Blundell's, Wellington. Two thirds win music scholarships. Former pupils include Coldplay's Chris Martin and, they claim, 14th century theologian Boniface. Hit and myth!