News & Community

2026 · The story we're proudest of

The summer our own people said no.

Britain's independent schools are living through the hardest era in their history. Hundreds have concluded they had no alternative but to close, in the space of barely two years - among them schools that had stood since before Magna Carta, schools that survived civil wars, two world wars and every recession in between. Several were in Wales; some went within weeks of our own story reaching the news. In 2026 those pressures brought us to a cliff-edge, and to a single question: could we open in September, or must we close?

What happened next never made the headlines, because it was over before the news broke. The funds came from insiders - people already part of the College family, who stepped in personally and needed no persuading. Our staff - unasked - volunteered to take pay cuts, precisely so that parents would not have to be asked to contribute. And parents gave anyway - not money, but their summer: working parties tidying the grounds, trades and talents freely lent, every kind of help that doesn't come with an invoice. The College has reshaped itself to stand on a sound financial footing for the years ahead.

We tell this story prominently because it is the best evidence this website contains. Schools do not survive this era on sentiment - and they do not survive it by concealment either. Ours is here because the people closest to it - the ones who know it best - refused to let it fail, with their own money and their own sacrifice. And because we believe a school that asks for your trust owes you the truth, we have told you ours: the hard part and the ending.

Every independent school in Britain is living through the same weather. When you visit schools this year, ask each one the question we asked ourselves - and notice who answers plainly.

They say it is always darkest before the dawn. Consider this website our "good morning".

Hundreds of schools have closed in near silence. The mere prospect of losing Llandovery made national news. That is how much this college means - and the ending the headlines missed is the best part: our own people would not let it fail.

“It is not the buildings that make this place, but the people.”

Catrin · Head Girl · Speech Day 2026

“So many, at every level of this place, asked and answered the question: what can I do to help?”

The Chair of Governors · Speech Day 2026 · an address about leadership

That is what we mean when we say leadership lives here. It is the ethos we form in our children - and in 2026, the whole College showed them how it's done.

Open. Secure. Certain of what we're for.