There are very few English boarding schools where Sunday can mean a fell walk in the Lake District, followed by structured evening study and a house meeting. St Bees School is a co-educational day and boarding school for students aged 11 to 18, with a deliberately small roll and a capacity of 180. Its identity is tied to three big ideas: a historic foundation in St Bees village, an explicitly international outlook (including Mandarin as a key language), and a timetable that keeps the day active well beyond the final lesson.
Leadership is currently described by the school as interim, with Mr Laurence Gribble leading day to day.
For families who want a contained community, strong routines, and a sense that weekends are part of the education rather than an afterthought, the model is clear. The harder question is fit: the school’s small scale can be a major advantage for some students, but it also means subject breadth, peer mix, and results context need careful consideration.
St Bees has an unusually explicit link between place and culture. The school sits in coastal Cumbria, close to the Lake District fells, and it uses that geography as an everyday feature of school life rather than a one-off trip destination. The clearest example is the Wainwright Walking Club, introduced in September 2021, with the stated aim of completing all 214 Wainwright fells. Walks are scheduled on Sundays and framed as an inclusive activity for students and staff, regardless of prior experience.
The internal culture is organised around a house system that runs across ages, genders, and day or boarding status. Students are assigned to one of four houses, Bega, Elizabeth, Foundation, and Grindal, and that house membership is intended to be a consistent anchor through their time at the school. The house pages also explain how leadership is practised, through elected house captains and structured inter-house competitions.
The school’s heritage is not presented as ornamental. Its own history pages link the modern school to a founding in 1583 by Edmund Grindal, and they continue to foreground the original “Foundation” building as the historic centre of the site. The school motto is published as Ingredere Ut Proficias (Enter so that you may make progress).
For many families, what will stand out most is the combination of a tight community and a global narrative. The headmaster’s welcome positions the school as a bridge between the UK and China, with Mandarin presented as a core language, and with a stated intention to develop students’ “character” alongside academic outcomes.
On the FindMySchool GCSE dataset, St Bees School is ranked 4,461st in England and 8th in the Carlisle area for GCSE outcomes. This sits below England average overall, placing the school in the lower performance band when compared across all schools in England on the same dataset. (These are FindMySchool proprietary rankings based on official data.)
The GCSE metrics show an average Attainment 8 score of 2.2, with 0% recorded for pupils achieving grades 5 or above in the English Baccalaureate measure, and an EBacc average point score recorded as 0. England comparator figures are provided for context.
The A-level dataset fields provided here are not populated with numeric outcomes or rankings, so external comparisons are not available from the FindMySchool A-level dataset for this school. However, the school does publish headline A-level outcome summaries on its website. For 2025, it reports 57% A* to B and 30% A* to A, with 7% A*. For 2024, it reports 44% A* to B and 27% A* to A, with 10% A*.
A small school can see year-to-year volatility, particularly where cohort sizes are modest and a few individual outcomes materially shift percentages. The safest way to evaluate academic fit is to triangulate: ask how the school sets, supports, and stretches students, and then check whether that approach is consistent with your child’s learning profile and motivation.
England ranks and key metrics (where available)
GCSE 9–7
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% of students achieving grades 9-7
The school positions its curriculum as distinctive, with an explicit East–West framing and an emphasis on future-facing competencies. A clear, concrete example is the prominence of Mandarin, described by the school as a first foreign language for UK students.
In the wider academic structure, the school publishes its A-level subject menu and it includes traditional facilitating subjects such as mathematics, further mathematics, biology, chemistry, physics, English literature, geography, and history, alongside economics and art and design.
The day is also structured to keep students under purposeful supervision well into late afternoon, with a mentoring slot built into the timetable and a planned extracurricular hour on most weekdays.
From a parental perspective, the key implication is that the school is selling a model of education that is as much about routine, coaching, and applied character development as it is about classroom delivery. That can be a strong match for students who benefit from clear structures and supervised productivity, particularly boarders, but it will feel less attractive to families seeking a more traditional day-school rhythm.
The school publishes an alphabetical list of universities its sixth form students have received offers from, including the University of Cambridge, Durham, Edinburgh, King’s College London, Manchester, Warwick, Sheffield, and others. The list is useful as a signal of ambition and breadth, but it is not accompanied by counts or percentages, so it should be read as qualitative context rather than a destination metric.
No published Oxbridge application or acceptance numbers are available in the provided dataset for this school, and no quantified Russell Group or destination percentages are published on the school website page referenced above. In practice, families should ask for recent leaver profiles, typical subject combinations, and the support offered for competitive applications, particularly where medicine, engineering, or selective courses are in view.
St Bees runs a direct admissions process. The school’s admissions page describes registration alongside submission of the latest two years of school reports, plus an English and mathematics test.
Open events are presented in a deliberately flexible way. The school states that it can arrange tours around family availability, and it frames this as “every day is an open day”.
For sixth form specifically, the school also states that admissions operate on a rolling basis, and it notes that numbers are capped to keep the sixth form experience small and focused.
Because the school is independent, there is no local authority coordinated deadline in the way state schools operate. The practical implication is that timing is driven by capacity, fit, and whether a place is available in the relevant year group. Families should engage early if boarding is central, as matching the pastoral environment to the student matters at least as much as academic alignment.
Boarding is a defining feature rather than an add-on. The school explicitly links boarding to pastoral care beyond lesson hours, framing it as a community where students study, dine, and spend leisure time together.
The weekly rhythm matters. Term dates are published with specific boarders’ arrival and departure arrangements, including half-term breaks and end-of-term departure timings, which helps families plan realistically, particularly those travelling from further afield.
For many students, the best part of boarding is not the room, it is the structure and the access to supervised evening routines. In a small school, this can create a strong sense of belonging, but it also concentrates social dynamics. Families should ask how the school manages friendships, privacy, and online use within boarding life, and what escalation pathways exist if a student is struggling.
The school publishes its safeguarding team structure and named roles, including a designated safeguarding lead and deputies, alongside the wider framing of student support.
Beyond statutory safeguarding, the pastoral model also uses built-in mentoring time during the school day, and it offers wellbeing-related activities as part of the extracurricular programme, including a “Wellbeing Ambassadors” option within its co-curricular menu.
The overall implication is that the school’s approach is designed to be active rather than reactive. For students who benefit from adults noticing small changes early, the small scale can work well. For students who value anonymity and a wider peer set, it may feel more intense.
St Bees puts real weight behind co-curricular structure. The school describes its after-school programme as GCAS (Global Awareness, Creativity, Active, Service), run Monday to Thursday for an hour at the end of each day, with activities changing termly.
The list of examples is unusually specific and it gives a clearer sense of the school’s identity than generic club menus. Options named by the school include CanSat, Debate Club, Business Enterprise, School of Rock, Chinese Embroidery, Maths Challenge, and Eton Fives, alongside sport and fitness strands.
Outdoors is not limited to the occasional trip. The Wainwright Club is a signature feature and it is explicitly positioned as a long-run project, aiming to complete the full set of 214 fells. For students who thrive outdoors, that can become a defining part of school life and a strong driver of confidence and resilience.
Sport is framed as inclusive and space-enabled, with the school referencing extensive grounds and an indoor gym and sports hall. The key point for parents is less about whether a sport exists, and more about how participation is structured for boarders during evenings and weekends.
Fees are published for 2025 to 2026 and stated as inclusive of VAT. For UK students, day fees are £6,300 per term in Years 7 to 8 and £7,250 per term in Years 9 to 13. Boarding fees are tiered: £10,800 per term for full boarding in Years 7 to 8 and £13,100 per term for full boarding in Years 9 to 13, with weekly boarding also available.
The school also publishes one-off costs including a £120 registration fee, and acceptance deposits that vary by day or boarding status.
Bursaries are described as means-tested and scholarships are stated to be available, including for academic merit and for sporting and character promise. Specific award values and the proportion of students supported are not published on the currently accessible bursary page, so families should ask directly how financial assistance is allocated and what typical support looks like for their circumstances.
*Bursaries may be available for eligible families.
Basis: per term
The published timetable shows an early start, with registration at 08:30, lessons running through to 16:15, and a short afternoon break before co-curricular activities. GCAS activities run 16:30 to 17:30 Monday to Thursday.
Transport support includes a school minibus service around West Cumbria with multiple pickup and drop-off points, which can be a practical differentiator for day families outside the immediate area.
Term dates and a school calendar are published for 2025 to 2026, including boarders’ return dates and major events, which helps families understand the year’s rhythm in concrete terms.
Results context and volatility. The school publishes A-level and IGCSE summary percentages by year, but small cohorts can shift outcomes materially year to year. Treat headline percentages as one input, then ask for subject-level detail and support structures.
Small-school trade-offs. A capacity of 180 can mean close attention and strong routines, but it can also limit peer breadth and increase the intensity of social dynamics.
Boarding rhythm and distance from home. Boarding works best when students genuinely want the immersion. Review the published term dates carefully and consider travel fatigue, weekend structure, and how often your child will want to be home.
Financial extras. The school flags additional charges for exams and textbooks from Year 9 onwards, and it also lists optional costs such as music tuition and airport pickup. Budgeting for the full experience matters.
St Bees School offers a clearly differentiated proposition: a small co-educational boarding community in Cumbria, a structured day that extends into supervised co-curricular time, and an outdoor strand that is unusually central to identity. It suits students who do well with routines, enjoy being known by staff, and can benefit from the momentum of boarding life. Families seeking a very large peer group, a highly broad subject ecosystem, or a purely traditional day-school rhythm may find the model less aligned.
St Bees offers a small, structured environment with a strong emphasis on routine, co-curricular participation, and boarding community. The latest Ofsted inspection (October 2018) graded the school Good, and the latest ISI compliance inspection (February 2023) reported that the required standards were met.
For 2025 to 2026, published UK fees range from £6,300 per term for day students in Years 7 to 8 to £13,100 per term for full boarding in Years 9 to 13. The school also publishes registration and deposit charges, and notes means-tested bursaries and scholarships.
Applications are made directly to the school. The published process includes a registration form, the latest two years of school reports, and English and mathematics tests. Tours are arranged flexibly and the school frames visits as available throughout the year.
Both day and boarding routes are available. The published fee tables show day fees and separate weekly and full boarding fees, which indicates multiple pathways rather than a single boarding-only model.
Two features stand out from the school’s published activities. First, the GCAS programme runs after lessons on most weekdays and includes named options such as CanSat, School of Rock, Chinese Embroidery, and Debate Club. Second, the Wainwright Walking Club runs on Sundays and aims to complete all 214 Wainwright fells, which is unusual in English boarding.
Get in touch with the school directly
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