St Edward’s School was founded by an academic from the University of Oxford in 1863 and designed in the Oxford tradition around a magnificent Quad.
Sitting at the heart of the most famous university city in the world, the School’s 100 acre campus is a safe, secure and inspiring space for its 800-strong community of boys and girls aged 13 – 18. A fifth of pupils travel to the UK from over 45 different countries to live and learn at St Edward’s, ensuring that the community is refreshingly global in its outlook.
Pupils at St Edward’s can achieve at the highest level in every area – in their academic work, in sport, in music, in drama and the arts, in outdoor pursuits and in community volunteering. Sixth Form pupils (aged 16 – 18) choose between the International Baccalaureate Diploma and UK A Levels, with the IB in particular helping St Edward’s pupils to take up places at the world’s best universities. University destinations in the UK include Oxford, Cambridge, Imperial College, University College London and the London School of Economics; in Europe, pupils from St Edward’s take up places at Paris, Bocconi, IE and Amsterdam); the North American universities to which recent leavers have gone after St Edard’s include the Ivy League, NYU, MIT and McGill.
All pupils benefit from the Oxford Programme, which includes talks, seminars and part-time teaching delivered by world-leading academics from the University and postgraduate students completing their doctorates at Oxford.
What Makes Us Unique
To have access to a spacious, 100-acre campus behind access-controlled wrought iron gates and yet to be at the heart of the university city of Oxford is a unique combination providing an exceptional education for our pupils. St Edward’s Fellows are postgraduate students at the University who work part-time as teachers at the School, sharing their expertise and new thinking alongside a wider network of Oxford Professors who give talks and seminars. UK school inspectors have recently ranked St Edward’s as one of only very few schools in the UK whose academic and co-curricular programmes are exceptional – you can read more about the inspectors’ views on the school website.
St Edward’s School enjoys a reputation as a centre for elite sport, and this is particularly true for the Rowing Programme. The School enjoys phenomenal success in rowing, for both its girls’ and boys’ crews, often beating much larger UK schools such as Eton, St Paul’s and Radley. The School has a boathouse on the River Thames, a nearby rowing lake and access to one of the best non-tidal stretches of water in the country through Oxford Brookes University’s boathouse at Wallingford. St Edward’s has won the prestigious Princess Elizabeth Challenge Cup at the world-famous Henley Regatta five times in its history, most recently in 2023, with boys’ and girls’ crews reaching the semi-finals in 2024 and 2025. Crews also attend the Head of the Charles and train each year in Seville, Spain.
Campus Highlights
Arts
Photography & Rock Band
Campus
100 acres
Key Stats
Boarding85%
International20%
Founded1863
Campus Size100 acres
Nearby AirportsHeathrow 1hr, London 90 mins
Global Diversity
United KingdomHong KongGermanyUSAFranceSingaporeJapanIndiaChina