David Game College

A section of the original Roman Wall still runs through the basement, lending its name to the college magazine, Londinium. That mix of deep history and modern intent sums up David Game College, a small independent college on Jewry Street in the City of London that prepares teenagers from across the world for GCSEs, A-levels and university. Founded in 1974, it teaches around 314 students aged 13 to 22 in classes that average eight, with one-year, two-year and retake routes running alongside foundation and Oxbridge-preparation programmes. It is co-educational and non-selective, admitting by interview rather than examination. It holds a clean compliance record against every relevant independent-school standard, most recently confirmed in 2024. For ambitious, internationally mobile families who want intensive, personal teaching in central London, it is an unusual proposition.

This is not a traditional school, and it does not pretend to be one. There are no sprawling playing fields and no house colours stretching back a century. Instead there is a single, dense building near Aldgate and Tower Hill, a short walk from the Tower of London and St Paul's, where teaching happens in small groups and timetables are built around the individual rather than the year cohort. The college describes itself as a college rather than a school for good reason: most students arrive at 14, 16 or 17, often part-way through their education, and the culture is geared towards focus and a fast, deliberate run-up to public examinations.

The intake is genuinely international. David Game holds Licensed Student Sponsor status from UK Visas and Immigration and draws teenagers from many countries, a fact that shapes daily life as much as any timetable. The atmosphere is harmonious and tolerant, with differences celebrated and respect reinforced through PSHE lessons and assemblies. For a college where students may be away from family and adjusting to a new country, that tone matters more than it would in a conventional day school, and it is one of the clearest reasons families from overseas choose it.

Founder David Game still serves as Co-Principal half a century on, an unusual continuity. He read Mathematics at New College, Oxford and took an MPhil in number theory at University College London before turning to teaching, and the college grew from a single private pupil to its present size. Leadership for A-levels and GCSEs is shared with Co-Principal John Dalton, a chartered biologist and Royal Society of Biology member who graduated in biochemistry from Queen Mary College, London and brings three decades of teaching experience. The pairing of a mathematician and a scientist at the top tells you something about where the college's centre of gravity lies.

The building itself carries weight. Its foundation stone was laid in 1899 by the Bishop of London, and it later housed parts of London Guildhall and London Metropolitan universities before the college acquired the City site in 2016, having moved east from earlier homes in South Kensington and Notting Hill Gate. A stretch of the original Roman city wall survives in the basement, on display rather than hidden away, a reminder that this corner of London has been a place of learning and commerce for two thousand years. With around 314 students against a capacity of 380, the college stays deliberately compact, and that smallness is part of its identity rather than a constraint: it lets the timetable bend around the individual in a way a large school cannot.

David Game's GCSE record is the headline academic strength. For GCSE outcomes the college ranks 3rd within the City of London and 377th across England, placing it well above the England average and in the top 10% of schools in England. Those are proprietary FindMySchool rankings built from official results, and they reflect a college that gets meaningful academic value from a non-selective, interview-based intake rather than from cherry-picking the strongest applicants at 11. Because the intake is heavily international and many students follow tailored subject combinations geared to a particular degree, the GCSE ranking is a truer guide to teaching quality than any single composite measure would be.

At A-level the picture is more mid-table, as the data-led rankings show. Just under 6% of entries reach A*, around 14% reach A, and a further 16% reach B, so roughly 36% of grades fall in the A* to B band. That sits below the England averages of about 24% at A* to A and 47% at A* to B, and the college ranks 1588th in England for A-level outcomes, solid performance broadly in line with the middle 35% of schools in England, and 3rd within the City of London. This is again a proprietary FindMySchool ranking drawn from official results. The honest reading is that GCSE outcomes are the stronger record, while A-level results are respectable rather than exceptional, which is consistent with a college that takes many students through retakes, one-year courses and foundation routes rather than a settled two-year cohort selected young. Families should judge the college on its fit for a particular student and pathway rather than on a single headline percentage.

The teaching model is the point of David Game, not an afterthought. Classes average eight students and rarely exceed ten, and where a student needs more, one-to-one tuition is available. An extensive personal-tutor system lets students raise concerns about progress so that a learning programme can be adjusted, which suits teenagers who arrive mid-course or who are resitting after a disappointing result elsewhere. The ISI inspection found that students have access to individualised learning and tutorial support, with teaching that is well planned and uses suitable methods and resources, and that different groups, including those with special educational needs, make good progress.

The working atmosphere is purposeful: students are well motivated, behaviour supports learning, and little time is wasted. That last point is telling for families weighing an intensive one-year A-level or a focused GCSE retake, where pace is everything and a year cannot be spent finding the right gear. The one area to strengthen is consistency of guidance about future pathways, which can vary with the quality of an individual tutor, so it is worth asking how a particular tutor group is supported and who oversees careers and university advice. The college runs an Extended Project Qualification for students who want to stretch into independent research, a useful signal of academic ambition for university applications, and it has begun using AI-adaptive learning software at GCSE and A-level to tailor practice question by question to each student's gaps.

Most leavers move on to higher education. Of the 2023/24 leaving cohort of 106 students, 46% progressed to university, with smaller numbers entering further education, apprenticeships and employment. The college layers specialist preparation on top of A-levels for the most competitive routes: a Medical and Life Sciences Programme for aspiring doctors and dentists, a structured Oxbridge Preparation strand, and University Foundation Programmes, including an Aberystwyth International Foundation Programme, that give international students a direct bridge into UK degrees without the gap that an overseas school-leaving qualification can leave.

Oxbridge outcomes should be read with realism. In the most recent year captured, 13 applications went to Cambridge, yielding one offer and one place taken up. That is a single success rather than a pipeline, and prospective families should treat Oxbridge as an aspiration the college supports rather than a routine destination. The more representative story is a college that gets a large share of an internationally diverse intake into UK universities, often via foundation and bridging routes, while offering intensive coaching for the small number aiming at the most selective courses. For medicine and dentistry in particular, the dedicated science programme and the small-group teaching are genuine advantages, since admissions tests and interviews reward exactly the kind of close, individual preparation the college is built to deliver.

Entry is non-selective and built around an interview with senior staff rather than a competitive entrance examination, though diagnostic assessments may be used to check subject readiness. The college describes the interview as natural and informal, which fits a college used to welcoming students from many different schooling systems. The main entry points are at ages 14, 15, 16, 17 and 18, mapping onto GCSE, sixth-form and foundation starts, and there is genuine flexibility in when courses begin: A-levels can be started over two years from September, over 18 months from January, or in a single intensive year.

For sixth-form entry, the college typically looks for five GCSE passes at grades 9 to 4 (A* to C), including English and mathematics, with subject-specific expectations in a few areas, for example a strong GCSE grade in Music or instrumental ability for Music A-level. International applicants need IELTS 5.5 or equivalent for A-level study and IELTS 5.0 for GCSE. Because the college recruits widely from outside its own GCSE classes, Year 12 places are not limited to internal students, and external applicants are a core part of the intake rather than an exception. GCSE applicants are usually expected to have completed Year 9 or 10 in a UK school or an overseas equivalent, with satisfactory references on academic record and conduct.

As a fee-paying college there is no catchment area and no local-authority coordinated process. Families apply directly, and a place depends on the interview, references and predicted grades rather than home address. If you are weighing the practicalities of the City of London location, the FindMySchool map search can help you gauge commuting distance and compare the college with other independent options nearby.

For a college with so many students living away from home, pastoral structure does heavy lifting. Students' social and emotional wellbeing is supported by counselling, advice and a programme of activities spanning tutorials, PSHE education and assemblies, and students feel safe and know how to find support. Safeguarding is effective, with staff training that ensures adults understand their shared responsibilities and a policy kept accurate and up to date.

The boarding side deserves attention because it is newer than the college itself. David Game opened boarding accommodation in 2022, describing it as the first boarding provision in the City of London, with residential places for younger students and separate accommodation for those aged 18 and over. The ISI inspection found the boarding facility comfortable, with boarders well cared for and given varied, high-quality food alongside recreational and educational activities. Governance, exercised through a Governors' Advisory Council, has suitable oversight of safeguarding, health and safety, the curriculum and the residential accommodation, which is reassuring for parents entrusting a teenager to the college from overseas. For international families in particular, the combination of central-London teaching and on-hand residential care under one roof is a large part of the appeal, since it removes the logistics of arranging separate accommodation in an unfamiliar city.

The David Game offer is academic first, and its distinctive strands sit close to the curriculum rather than far from it. The clearest pillar is its university and career preparation. The Medical and Life Sciences Programme gives would-be doctors and dentists structured support for the entrance tests, work-experience expectations and interviews that medical schools demand, while the Oxbridge Preparation strand coaches the small number of students aiming at Cambridge or Oxford through admissions tests and interview practice. These are concrete, named programmes rather than vague enrichment, and they are the activities most likely to shape a student's destination.

A second pillar is academic breadth at A-level, which is wider than the college's size would suggest. Around 25 subjects are taught, from Accounting, Economics and Business through the full sciences and humanities to Philosophy, Politics, Sociology and Computer Science, with Further Mathematics available for the strongest mathematicians. The creative side is unusually deep for a college this small: Art and Design covers Fine Art, Photography and Textile Design, alongside Film Studies, Music and Music Technology, which gives students a real route towards art and design foundation courses and creative degrees rather than treating the arts as an afterthought. Languages such as French and Spanish run as taught classes, and the college will arrange other subjects, including additional foreign languages, on request, normally through private tuition.

A third strand is the college's embrace of technology and independent study. David Game runs AI-adaptive learning programmes at both GCSE and A-level, using software to tailor practice to each student, and offers the Extended Project Qualification for those who want to produce a substantial piece of independent research. Set against a building where a stretch of Roman wall sits in the basement and a 19th-century foundation stone marks the entrance, the college's willingness to experiment with new teaching tools gives it a distinctive character: old fabric, modern method. The trade-off, which families should go in clear-eyed about, is that this is an academic college rather than a school with a large team-sport and society programme, so a student's wider life tends to be drawn from central London itself rather than from extensive in-house facilities.

David Game is a fee-paying independent college, and fees vary by course and by whether a student is on the home or international schedule, with separate charges for boarding and for 18-plus accommodation. The college publishes its current fee schedules for the 2026-27 year, and because the figures differ meaningfully by pathway and residency, families should take the exact numbers from the published schedule rather than an estimate. Registration, accommodation, materials, examinations and textbooks are charged separately from tuition, so the headline course fee is not the whole cost of a year.

Merit awards are available. The college offers A-level scholarships that reduce tuition fees, awarded to new students who demonstrate strong academic results, an exemplary attitude to learning and a contribution to college life. These scholarships apply to tuition fees only and do not cover registration, accommodation, materials, examinations or textbooks, and they are aimed at students who do not require a visa to study in the UK. There is no widely advertised means-tested bursary scheme of the kind found at large endowed independent schools, so financial planning should assume close to full fees unless a merit award applies. Bursaries are need-based and scholarships are merit-based; here the support on offer is squarely the latter, so the families best placed to benefit are high-achievers paying their own way rather than those needing income-based help.

David Game College sits on Jewry Street in the City of London, within walking distance of Aldgate, Aldgate East, Tower Hill and Fenchurch Street stations, which makes it one of the most transport-connected colleges in the capital and explains part of its appeal to commuting and international students alike. Boarding accommodation is available for younger students, with separate housing for those aged 18 and over, so families can pair the academic programme with residential care in the same central location. The college does not operate as a conventional all-day school with wraparound childcare, and provision and timings change year to year, so confirm term dates, the daily timetable and accommodation availability directly with the college before committing.

A-level outcomes trail the GCSE strength. The college ranks well above the England average at GCSE but around the middle nationally at A-level, with roughly 36% of grades at A* to B against an England average near 47% at that level. Families targeting the most selective universities should set expectations accordingly and lean on the college's specialist preparation strands.

Oxbridge is an aspiration, not a pipeline. The most recent data shows 13 Cambridge applications producing a single offer and place. The Oxbridge Preparation programme is real and useful, but parents should treat top-tier places as the exception rather than the rule here.

Financial support is merit-based, not need-based. Scholarships reduce tuition for high-achieving new students, but there is no prominent means-tested bursary scheme, and scholarships exclude accommodation and other costs. Budget for close to full fees unless a merit award applies, and request the current published schedule for exact figures.

It is a college, not a conventional school. With most entry at 14 and above, a heavily international intake and intensive course structures, David Game suits students who thrive on focus and pace. Younger children seeking a broad, all-through school experience with extensive sport and co-curricular life will find a different fit elsewhere.

David Game College is a focused, international, results-oriented college that does something most schools do not: it teaches teenagers in classes of eight, builds timetables around the individual, and offers one-year, two-year, retake and foundation routes under one historic City of London roof. Its GCSE outcomes are genuinely strong, its pastoral and safeguarding arrangements were endorsed at the 2024 ISI inspection, and its specialist medical, Oxbridge and foundation programmes give clear direction to ambitious students. A-level results are solid rather than spectacular, and the support on offer is merit-based, so this is not a school for families seeking broad bursary access or guaranteed elite destinations. It is best suited to motivated students, often from overseas, who want intensive, personal teaching in central London and a flexible path into UK universities, and who value pace and individual attention over the trappings of a traditional school. The main caveat is to read the A-level data and Oxbridge figures soberly and to confirm fees and accommodation directly before applying.