United Kingdom · Edinburgh
Scotland is not a footnote to an English independent-school list. Fettes is a co-ed day-and-boarding campus on East Fettes Avenue, ten minutes from the New Town if the lights are kind. Senior boarders stay the weekend. Confirm the 2026/27 fee page before you budget, including VAT.
Questo ritratto è ancora in inglese. Le altre lingue arrivano scuola per scuola.
Curricolo come lo pubblica la scuola:GCSE and IGCSE · A Levels · IB Diploma Programme
Lingue di istruzione:English
Fettes College is a co-educational day-and-boarding school in Edinburgh. The official website is fettes.com. The Prep page prints the campus as East Fettes Avenue, Edinburgh, Scotland EH4 1DL. Admissions: admissions@fettes.com, +44 (0) 131 311 6744. Prep also lists +44 (0) 131 332 2976.
It sits on 100 acres of green campus, the Prep page says, with mountain views, woodland, and a stillness that “belies the fact that the centre of the international city of Edinburgh is within walking distance from our gates.” That is the school’s own sentence. Ask, on a Tuesday in November, how walking-distance feels with a bag and a wind from the Forth.
The Senior School is 13–18. The Prep School is 5–13, with a Pre-Prep beneath it. Together they cover 5–18. Charlie Minogue is Prep Headmaster. The Senior Registrar is James Weatherby; the admissions welcome page also names Victoria Hutchison, Sarah Hamilton-Peters and Mona Gill, with academic queries to Dr Lynden White, Victoria Chandler, and Deputy Head (Academic) Anushka Chakravarty.
It is not a weekly-boarding school in the Senior years. The admissions and boarding-ethos pages repeat the same line: as a full boarding school, Fettes does not offer weekly or flexi boarding at 13–18. Boarders have their friends on campus at the weekend. Day pupils are placed in the same Boarding Houses. Most, the school says, join the evening and weekend programme — some families call that “day plus.” If you want a child home every Friday night, this is the paragraph to sit with.
The Forces page says Fettes is one of the few remaining full-boarding schools with over 70% full boarders. Prep is different: 25% of Prep pupils board. Treat both as the school’s own snapshots.
Education Scotland, in September 2025, evaluated the College curriculum and “raising attainment and achievement” at the top grade of Excellent, and said students “benefit from a broad and balanced curriculum that is outstanding.” That is an inspectorate sentence the school quotes. We are not ranking Fettes against English independents.
The useful questions are: Day, day-plus, or full boarding? Prep or a 13+ jump? A Levels or IB at 16? Can you live with no weekend exeats as the default Senior rhythm? And have you opened the 2026/27 fees page — the pound table is there, and we could not extract the numbers from the official HTML, so we are not inventing them.
Families who want a Scottish independent school with a global Sixth Form (A Level or IB), a full-boarding culture that still admits day pupils, and a campus that is in Edinburgh rather than a valley two trains from anywhere.
It is not an English public school that happens to be north of the border. The Senior page says “proudly Scottish with a global outlook,” and points to Edinburgh Airport. It is not a day-only city grammar. The house is the unit. Every teacher, the ethos page says, has a role in a Boarding House. Every student has a tutor who meets them weekly.
HM Forces families have a specific offer. The school already runs a tiered remission by year group and rank. From September 2026 it becomes a “10% school”: Forces fees equal the CEA allowance plus 10% of the total fees inclusive of VAT. Siblings can board together. There is a CCF, a forces-family events programme, and staff with service backgrounds. If that is your life, write to James Weatherby before you budget the civilian fee.
Bursaries and scholarships exist — the fees page lists remissions and financial assistance; the learning page talks about academic scholars and a Middle School scholars’ meeting called Paramecium, 4–5 times a term. We are not printing award amounts we did not fetch. Ask admissions what is open for your entry point.
East Fettes Avenue is Inverleith, not the Old Town. The building you have seen in photographs is real. The 100 acres are real. The city is close enough that a day pupil’s commute is an Edinburgh conversation: Fettes Avenue, Comely Bank, the New Town, or a family in East Lothian with a morning car.
Prep talks about a new minibus service. Ask which routes run this term. Senior day pupils still belong to a House; the “day plus” sentence means Friday night is not automatically home. Confirm what “strongly encouraged” looks like for your child.
Co-curricular life is part of the fee story the school tells: 60+ activities on the Senior page; evening and weekend programmes; Duke of Edinburgh; CCF; community service; societies; a low-ropes course on campus. None of that tells you if your child will have a friend in week two. It does tell you this is a full campus, not a converted terrace. Ask to see an ordinary classroom and a House common room, not only the front steps.
Prep, 5–13. “Prep for Life”: academic work, a kind community, and a deliberate path into the Senior School. Education Scotland “Excellents” are quoted here too. Boarding is a minority — a quarter — so a Prep boarder is not the typical child, and a Prep day child is not a guest in someone else’s school. Register early, the Prep page says, on the same Registration Form as Pre-Prep.
Senior Middle School, Third to Fifth Form, 13–16. Third Form (13–14) keeps breadth before GCSE choices: English, mathematics, geography, history, physics, chemistry, biology, EET (Engineering, Enterprise and Technology), computer science, art, music, drama, PE; two languages from French, German, Spanish and Mandarin; Latin or Complementary Studies; optional Classical Greek.
GCSE and IGCSE occupy Fourth and Fifth Form (14–16). Usually 8–10 subjects. Everyone takes the three sciences, English Literature, English Language, mathematics, and a modern language (French, German, Mandarin or Spanish). Then four options from art, drama, music, history, English, Latin, Gratin (Greek and Latin), economics, computer science, EET, PE, classical civilisation and geography. The school chooses GCSE or IGCSE by subject, not by fashion. Both, it says, are equivalent qualifications.
Sixth Form, 16–18. Two two-year paths, finishing in the Summer Term of the Upper Sixth.
A Levels: three or four subjects, no restrictions on combinations. Some take three plus an EPQ. You can build a humanities programme, a science suite, or a mix.
IB Diploma: six subjects, three Higher and three Standard — English (group 1), a modern or classical language (group 2), a humanity (group 3), a science (group 4), mathematics (group 5), and either a creative subject (group 6) or another subject from groups 2, 3 or 4 — plus Theory of Knowledge, the Extended Essay, and CAS.
The admissions pages flash result headlines — average IB points, A* shares, first-choice university, straight 9s — but the official HTML we fetched did not include the numbers beside those labels. We are not inventing them. Ask admissions for the current results sheet.
English is the medium. Third Form already asks for two languages plus Latin or Complementary Studies. GCSE requires one modern language. The IB requires a group 2 language. Mandarin is on the official list beside French, German and Spanish. Ask what is actually viable this year for a child who arrives with only English, and what EAL support exists — the pages we fetched do not print an EAL fee or a beginner guarantee.
Register on the official form. Early is better. Entry points the admissions page lists: 5–7, 7–11, 11+, 13+, 14+, 16+. The welcome page says Prep and Pre-Prep take pupils at all stages from 5–13, and Senior entry is at 13, 14 and 16 (Years 9, 10 and 12). Timings and tests differ by point. The team uses “a variety of assessments, exams and interviews” to judge promise. Differences in educational background are “taken into account.” We are not printing a 13+ exam date we did not fetch. Ask James Weatherby for the calendar that matches your child.
Visit. Open Days and individual visits are the school’s preferred first step. Through the rest of 2026 the admissions team is also travelling to UK locations for informal community gatherings. admissions@fettes.com is the inbox.
This is not a Dutch International School with a legal three-sentence test. It is not an Irish Protestant priority list. It is a Scottish independent school that selects. Bring reports, be honest about boarding or day, and do not assume a 16+ IB place exists in every subject.
The fees page is titled for the academic year 2026–27. It has sections for what is included, the fee table, international students, extras, remissions, and financial assistance. The school’s line is that the full-boarding ethos is “reflected” in the fees, and that it strives for value.
We could not extract the pound amounts from the official HTML. The table is on fettes.com/admissions/fees. Budget from that page, including VAT — the Forces page already talks about “total fees inclusive of VAT,” which is the post-2025 UK independent-school reality. We are not guessing a boarding term fee or a day fee.
International joiners have their own subsection on that page. Read it if you are applying from abroad. Extras are listed separately. Remissions and assistance are not automatic.
Forces families: from September 2026, CEA + 10% of total fees including VAT. Confirm the live remission sheet; rank-and-year tiers may still sit beside that headline.
This is the Fettes conversation that fee tables do not capture.
Senior boarders are full boarders. Weekends are campus weekends. The Forces page calls the weekend programme “busy and fun” and cites over 70% full boarders as the reason that programme exists. If you want weekly boarding — Friday taxi to the airport, Sunday night return — the school has already said no.
Day pupils are not a parallel school. They have a House, a tutor, and an invitation (the school says a strong encouragement) into evenings and weekends. Ask a current day family what “day plus” cost them in sleepovers, Sunday sport, and the drive from South Queensferry. We are not inventing that cost.
Prep boarding is a smaller share. A Prep boarder at 9 is a different pastoral story from a Third Form full boarder at 13. Ask Charlie Minogue’s team what the Prep houses actually feel like on a Saturday.
Ask whether this child would be day, day-plus, or full boarding — and what the House expects of a day pupil on a Saturday in January. Ask which entry point is realistic, and what the assessment actually is. Ask how many Upper Sixth are on IB versus A Level this year. Ask whether a child with only English can start Third Form languages. Ask the Registrar for the 2026/27 fee table, including VAT, for this year group and this boarding status. Ask Forces families whether the 10% school headline matches their CEA letter. Ask to see a House and a Third Form classroom, not only the avenue.
If you might want a Scottish state sixth year or a local authority transfer later, ask that question twice. Fettes is an independent all-through; it is not a lycée with a municipal back door.
We are not saying Fettes is the best school in Scotland. We are not guessing a waiting list. We are not inventing 2026/27 pounds. We are not filling in the blank IB and A Level percentages the homepage labels but does not print in the text we fetched. Education Scotland’s “Excellent” is an inspection grade the school quotes, not a league table we built.
Read the current fees page and write to admissions before you resign a house in another country. This is a map. The school still has to be the right Tuesday. Gordonstoun is a different Scottish boarding week — Moray, not Inverleith — if the life is not Edinburgh.
Pagine e documenti ufficiali che abbiamo letto. Se un numero conta per il bilancio o la domanda, aprite il link e controllate che sia ancora valido.
Orientamento amichevole, non una domanda. Date, rette e programmi si muovono. Confermate tutto con la scuola.
Edinburgh is not a footnote to an English independent-school list. It is a full-boarding campus that still takes day pupils, and a large day house that prints Highers. Ask which paper, and whether this child sleeps at home.
13 minAlcuni ragazzi fioriscono in un corridoio di bauli e cioccolata. Altri hanno bisogno della loro stanza e del cane. Entrambi sono permessi. Il tragitto è anche una forma di convitto.
15 minLe lettere sul diploma contano. Non sono tutto il ragazzo. Ecco come distinguerle senza mal di testa, e senza fingere che ogni porta resti aperta.
16 minNon vi serve un algoritmo perfetto. Vi servono poche cose vere su vostro figlio, una lista un po’ noiosa sul frigo, e il coraggio di ignorare un bel campus che non vi sta.