Exeter School

Χρυσὸς ἀρετῆς οὐκ ἀνταξίος (Gold is not worth more than virtue) has sat beneath the school crest since Exeter merchants founded a free grammar school here in 1633, and the sentiment still fits an institution that pairs hard academic results with a broad, outdoor-facing Devon character. Exeter School is a co-educational independent day school of 956 pupils and students, spanning a pre-prep, a junior school, a senior school and a sixth form of around 225, on a 25-acre site on Victoria Park Road. GCSE results place it among the highest performers in England, its A-level grade profile runs well ahead of the England average, and a Combined Cadet Force of roughly 250 sits alongside Ten Tors teams and eight school choirs. Graham Bone currently leads the school as acting head, with Dr Adrian Rainbow due to take over in September 2026.

Nearly four centuries separate today's school from the free grammar school that opened on 1 August 1633, financed by the city's wealthy merchants. The school moved to its Victoria Park Road site in 1880, spent three decades as a direct grant school after 1945, and became fully independent in 1976. Girls first joined the sixth form in 1981, full co-education followed in 1997, and boarding closed in 1999 when the school settled into its present form as a day school. The 2022 acquisition of a pre-prep extended its reach down to the early years, so a family can now follow one child from age three through to a sixth-form leaving desk.

That long institutional memory shapes the tone. This is a school with a strong service ethos rather than a hard-edged crammer, and its inspection reflects that balance. At its November 2024 ISI inspection, every relevant standard was met, and inspectors described a culture in which leaders actively promote pupils' wellbeing. Character education runs through the personal, social, health and economic curriculum, and pupils take part in a wide programme of voluntary and charitable activity, from choir services at the cathedral to expedition fundraising.

For all the heritage, the daily texture is busy and grounded. Dartmoor and Exmoor are on the doorstep, the Combined Cadet Force is one of the largest activities in the school, and the roll draws in from a wide swathe of Devon and Somerset by coach each morning. The result is a school that feels regional and rooted rather than metropolitan and pressured.

The exam record is the clearest evidence of the school's academic standing, and it is strong at both key stages. As an independent school, Exeter School sits outside the primary league tables, so there is no Key Stage 2 ranking to report; the story begins at GCSE.

At GCSE, Exeter School ranks 199th of 3,895 schools in England for results, placing it in the top 5.1% (ranked against all schools in England with published secondary results, state and independent). This is a proprietary FindMySchool ranking built from official data. On the blended overall measure, which combines results with our inspection score, it sits 204th of 3,887, and within Exeter it is the 2nd-ranked school. The underlying grades are emphatic: 46.1% of GCSE entries were awarded a grade 9 or 8, the equivalent of the old A*, and 66.8% reached grade 7 or above. That is a profile well above the England average, and it gives senior-school leavers a broad, high-grade base to build A-level choices on.

At A-level the school ranks 240th of 2,562 in England for results, in the top 9.4%, and 234th of 2,561 on the overall measure, third within Exeter. Here the England comparison is stark. Just over half of all A-level entries, 51.8%, were graded A* or A, against an England average of 23.6%, and 81.6% reached A* to B, against an England average of 47.2%. Around 15% of entries earned the top A* grade. For a school of this size and regional intake, that consistency across the top bands is a genuine strength rather than the product of a small, hand-picked cohort.

Teaching is planned as a single arc from the junior school to the sixth form, with academic leaders in both halves of the school working to keep standards consistent as pupils move up. Lessons are described as interesting and challenging, using a range of techniques to develop understanding, and a comprehensive assessment system keeps teachers abreast of where each pupil sits. That structure matters in an all-through school, where the risk is a jolt between the junior and senior styles; here the transition is deliberately smoothed.

The physical resources back the teaching. Science is taught in well-equipped laboratories across the divisions, with specialist art studios, a design technology suite and dedicated ICT rooms in both the senior and junior schools, alongside libraries stocked with print and digital resources. The pre-prep, meanwhile, is built around The Chapel, a historic converted building that serves as the hub for assemblies, performances and lunch, with a mini astroturf for playground football, so the youngest pupils have a distinct home of their own before they move up.

Support for pupils with special educational needs and disabilities is a stated priority, and staff draw on specialist training to tailor provision. Every pupil on the learning support register is given an Individual Strategy Sheet setting out strengths, areas of need and specific classroom strategies. Inspectors did flag one caveat worth weighing: teachers in the senior school should use those strategies more consistently so that pupils with SEND make the progress they should. It is a targeted point rather than a systemic concern, but it is honest, and prospective families of a child with additional needs should ask how the senior school is closing that gap.

Internal progression is a real advantage of the all-through model. Pupils move up from the junior school into the senior school and, subject to meeting entry requirements, on into the sixth form, so a well-settled child need not face a fresh round of external entrance exams at each stage. The senior school also recruits at Year 7 and again at sixth form, keeping year groups fresh.

At the top of the school, destinations spread widely across selective universities. Recent leavers have gone on to Russell Group institutions including Durham, Bristol, Edinburgh, Manchester, Warwick, York, Birmingham, Nottingham, Sheffield and Southampton, with strong flows to Bath, Exeter and Cardiff. In the most recent cycle, students made 19 applications to Oxford and Cambridge and secured three offers; recent Oxbridge leavers have taken up places at Cambridge, through Homerton and Jesus colleges, and Oxford, at Trinity. In the 2023/24 leaving cohort of 107, just under half progressed directly to higher education, with others taking gap years, degree apprenticeships or employment routes, a distribution typical of a school whose leavers spread beyond a single default path.

Exeter School is selective, and entry runs through several gateways. The pre-prep takes children from age three; the junior school admits into Years 3 to 6; the main senior intake is at Year 7; and there is a further entry point into the sixth form. Each stage has its own registration process and age-appropriate assessment, so families should approach the school directly to confirm the format and timing for the year of entry they want.

Demand is real, particularly lower down. The junior school has recently operated waiting lists for Years 3 to 6 following the March offer-acceptance deadline, so early registration matters for those entry points. As an independent school, Exeter School does not operate a distance-based catchment in the way a state school does; a place turns on the assessment and interview rather than on how close a family lives. That said, the extensive coach network (more on which below) effectively widens the practical catchment across much of Devon and into Somerset.

Scholarships are offered in four disciplines, art, drama, music and sport, at three entry points: Year 7, Year 9 and Year 12. Families should note these are honorary awards recognising talent rather than fee reductions; the route to financial help is a separate means-tested bursary, which can be applied for alongside a scholarship.

Pastoral life in the senior school is organised through five houses, Acland, Crossing, Dowrich, Goff and Walker, which give a vertical structure for mixing year groups and a frame for competition, from sport to the pupil-led House Drama Competition. Warm relationships between staff and pupils were a recurring note of the inspection, and the school's charitable and service activities give wellbeing a practical, outward-facing dimension rather than a purely therapeutic one.

Safeguarding was judged effective. The team maintains firm procedures and detailed records, combines staff training with the close staff-pupil relationships the school is known for, and responds promptly when a concern is raised. One area the inspection asked the school to strengthen is its relationships and sex education: the content should be taught and revisited so that pupils build a sound understanding of healthy relationships. Parents may wish to ask how the RSE programme has developed since.

The co-curricular programme is where the school's breadth shows most clearly, and four pillars stand out: music, the outdoors, drama and academic enrichment.

Music is the flagship. The music school runs specialist classrooms, 18 practice rooms and a dedicated concert hall, and it sustains a remarkable spread of ensembles: five orchestras, eight choirs, seven chamber groups, two brass ensembles and five jazz bands, plus a Samba Drum Troupe. The link with Exeter Cathedral is unusual and prestigious. Around 38 choristers a year, up to 18 girls and 18 boys drawn from Years 3 to 8, sing roughly eight cathedral services a week, each receiving a weekly private lesson funded by the cathedral and dedicated pastoral support. For a musical child, few schools in the region offer this depth of daily performance.

The outdoor and cadet strand is equally serious. The Combined Cadet Force involves around 250 pupils across Royal Navy, Royal Air Force and Army sections. The Duke of Edinburgh's Award runs at all three levels with expeditions on Dartmoor and Exmoor and further afield to Morocco, Spain, Wales and Scotland. Devon's terrain feeds a distinctive expedition calendar: the roughly 23-mile Abbots' Way Walk across southern Dartmoor each October, the Ten Tors challenge in May with unaccompanied teams tackling 35, 45 or 55-mile routes over two days, and the school's own 1633 Challenge run on similar lines. A Friday 8 Programme channels older students into these activities. These are demanding, self-reliant undertakings that leave a mark.

Drama is well embedded. Pupils progress through LAMDA grades in acting, public speaking, Shakespeare and verse, with 46 pupils earning Distinction awards in a single recent year, and the calendar rotates a senior production through musical, Shakespeare and straight play on a three-year cycle, supported by a lower-school play and the House Drama Competition. Academic enrichment is structured by age through the Crossing Club for older students, the Catalyst Club for Years 7 to 9 and the cross-age Comets Club, alongside a Medical Society and Model United Nations for students eyeing competitive university routes.

Sport draws on strong facilities: a 25-metre indoor pool opened in 2017, a 3G astroturf arena, a sports hall, a fitness suite with conditioning and dance space, two squash courts, a climbing wall and an indoor shooting range. Sports tours in recent years have reached Canada, Argentina, South Africa, Namibia and Sri Lanka. The wider trips programme is genuinely far-reaching: a Third Form residential to Normandy, a long-running biennial exchange with a Hildesheim school in Germany that has run for more than fifty years, language exchanges to Granada and to Nice, Montpellier and Bordeaux, a classics trip to Rome, geography fieldwork in Iceland, Switzerland and Sicily, and expeditions as ambitious as Egypt and the Indian Himalayas. Younger students get their own version, from the Heatree Residential Centre on Dartmoor for the Third Form to a Bletchley Park and Thorpe Park weekend that folds wartime history into a theme-park trip.

Fees for 2026-27 are set per term. Senior-school and sixth-form tuition is £7,370 a term, roughly £22,100 across the year. The junior school runs from £5,405 a term in Years 3 and 4 to £5,985 a term in Years 5 and 6, and lower down the fees fall further, from £3,670 a term in Reception to £3,800 a term in Years 1 and 2. Pre-prep and nursery provision is charged on a different basis, and families should confirm current rates with the school directly. Registration is £150 (£100 for the pre-prep), with an acceptance deposit that is later credited, and sibling discounts of 5% for a second child and 10% for a third apply.

Financial help is means-tested and focused on the senior phase. Bursaries are available for pupils entering Year 7 and above, for both internal and external candidates, guided by a clear principle that no child who deserves a place should be barred by an inability to pay. Awards are assessed on family circumstances, with gross parental income generally needing to fall below £70,000 a year and net assets unlikely to exceed around £300,000, and a full bursary can cover up to 100% of fees in the strongest cases. Scholarships, by contrast, are honorary recognitions of talent in art, drama, music or sport and carry no automatic fee reduction, though a scholar's family can apply for a bursary in parallel.

The sixth form is a substantial operation of around 225 students across the two years. It offers 20 A-level subjects, including options that a smaller school might not sustain: Classical Subjects (Latin and Classical Civilisation), Electronics, Politics, Design Technology, Computer Science and Music sit alongside the mainstream sciences, humanities and languages. A BTEC in Sport at Level 3 and the Extended Project Qualification broaden the offer for students who want an applied course or an independent research piece to strengthen a university application.

Students work from a newly refurbished sixth-form area with a games room, a collaboration room and large study spaces, a setting geared to the more independent working style expected at this stage. Progression into Year 12 is open to the school's own students who meet the entry requirements and to external applicants, so the sixth form is both a continuation and a fresh intake. The academic results bear out the offer: with A*-A grades running at more than double the England average, students here are well placed for competitive courses in medicine, engineering and the sciences as well as the arts and humanities.

Exeter School runs as a day school; boarding closed in 1999 and there is no on-site boarding accommodation, though homestay arrangements can occasionally be organised for sixth-form students. The standout practical feature is the coach network. Ten named daily routes reach across the region, from Exmouth, Topsham and Budleigh Salterton in the east to Okehampton and Moretonhampstead in the west, and out to Tiverton, Axminster, Ottery St Mary, Ivybridge, Copplestone and even Taunton and Cullompton in Somerset. That network is what makes a genuinely regional intake workable and is worth factoring into any assessment of the daily commute.

Families weighing distance and travel time against other schools can use the FindMySchool map search to compare journeys, and the local hub comparison tool to view Exeter's schools side by side. For precise term dates, open events and the current registration timeline, contact the school, as these move year to year.

Cost, with help concentrated at the top of the school. Senior fees near £22,100 a year are a significant commitment, and while bursaries can reach 100%, they are available only from Year 7 upward. A family seeking fee assistance for a younger child in the pre-prep or junior school will not find it, so the timing of any bursary application matters.

Entry is competitive, especially into the junior school. Recent waiting lists for Years 3 to 6 mean early registration is important for those year groups. Securing a place, rather than the quality of the education, is often the real obstacle.

A targeted SEND point in the senior school. The inspection asked that senior-school teachers apply support strategies for pupils with SEND more consistently. Provision is a stated priority and well structured on paper, but families of a child with additional needs should ask directly how the senior school is acting on that recommendation.

Relationships and sex education under development. The inspection flagged that the RSE curriculum should be taught and revisited more thoroughly. It is worth asking how the programme has progressed.

Exeter School is one of Devon's strongest academic all-rounders: GCSE results in the top 5.1% in England, an A-level profile with A*-A grades at more than twice the England average, and a co-curricular life, led by an exceptional music department and a serious outdoor and cadet programme, that gives the results context and character. Nearly four centuries of history sit lightly on a school that feels busy, regional and grounded rather than pressured.

It suits an academically able, all-round child whose family can meet day fees, particularly one who will use the music, drama, cadet or expedition opportunities that set the place apart, and one within reach of the coach network. The main caveats are honest and manageable: fee help arrives only from Year 7, junior places are competitive, and the school has been asked to sharpen SEND consistency and its RSE curriculum in the senior school. For the right family, it is a compelling package.