Queen Elizabeth’s Community College has a history of more than 450 years of education behind it. Most children of 11-18 years from Crediton and the local area are educated here.

The first school The Royal Free Grammar School was founded by a charter of Edward V1 in 1547. Under a later charter it was named Queen Elizabeth’s Grammar School and teaching began in 1572 with just ten scholars in the Lady Chapel of the parish church. In 1861 the school moved to a new building at the western end of the town near the Green. In 1911 Crediton High School for girls opened on the adjoining site. In 1966 the two schools became one co-educational grammar school.

The Shelley School Meanwhile the newly built Shelley School at the east end of the town was the secondary modern school until the 1970s when government legislation brought the end of grammar schools in this part of Devon. The Shelley School and the grammar school were merged, eventually to form the Community College that it is today.

The present school The College is on two sites: Lower School at Barnfield has views across the hills to Dartmoor. Upper School on Western Road includes College House, which was the old boys’ grammar school, and the sixth form. QE has two unique features: it is the last split-site secondary school in the county; it is the only state school in the county with boarding places. Boarders come to the college from all parts of the county and from overseas, giving the school a genuinely international flavour.