Eastbourne College is a private co-educational day and boarding school in Eastbourne, East Sussex, on England’s south coast, taking pupils from age 13 to 18. International families looking at a UK independent school will find the College’s own website unusually specific about entry points, assessments, fees and the support provided to non-native English speakers. This guide gathers what the school itself publishes — accessed on 5 August 2026 — and says plainly wherever the official pages are silent.
Eastbourne College at a Glance
Eastbourne College describes itself as one of the UK’s leading independent co-educational day and boarding schools, offering full boarding, flexi-boarding and ad-hoc boarding alongside day places for pupils aged 13 to 18. The campus sits between the South Downs and the sea: the town centre and the beach are both about a five-minute walk away, and central London is reachable by train in around 90 minutes. The school shares one charitable organisation with St Andrew’s Prep, its prep school, and the website announces a new prep school project, ECi310. Facilities, per the school’s own pages, include a major campus development completed in 2019 — 32 new classrooms, IT suites, a sports hall, a 25-metre six-lane pool, a fitness centre and a dance studio — plus the £8 million Birley Centre for music and performing arts. The site also displays its own list of industry recognition, including a Commended 2026 Independent Schools of the Year Award, a shortlisting for best creative arts in The Week Schools Guide, and a Tatler 2026 School Guide listing; these are the school’s own claims rather than independent verdicts.
Academic Programmes: Year 9, GCSE and A-level
Eastbourne College’s academic path runs in three stages. Year 9 is a broad experience year: pupils follow a 58-lesson programme within a two-week cycle, and both day pupils and boarders can complete their prep at school if they wish. In Years 10 and 11 the balance shifts towards option subjects, and the school says the timetable is tailored so that all pupil choices can be accommodated; pupils typically finish Year 11 with between 9 and 11 GCSEs (some do more), with options including Classic Civilisation, Computing, Dance, Drama, Physical Education and Textiles. In the Sixth Form, pupils choose almost freely, and most complete the Upper Sixth with three, or occasionally four, A-levels, with room for the Extended Project Qualification, a Gold Arts Award or the school’s own Leadership, Awards and Personal Development Programme. The 2026-28 GCSE Choices booklet and the 2026-28 Sixth Form Choices booklet are the reference documents the school points to for current subject combinations.
Year 9 Entry Requirements
Entry to Year 9 at Eastbourne College starts with registration, which the school says can be done for a child of any age, though families are advised to attend an open morning and register during Year 5 or Year 6. That timing unlocks the Early Offer process: the school says a place can be secured from December of Year 6, with priority for the family’s choice of house. Offers are made to pupils in Years 6 to 8 on receipt of a satisfactory reference from their headteacher — the reference should include data showing academic ability — and after a meeting between the College and the prospective pupil. In Year 8, pupils are expected to provide Common Entrance, baccalaureate, the St Andrew’s Prep bridge curriculum or equivalent results, which are used to set them in core Year 9 subjects; where a pupil’s current school does not offer Common Entrance or a home-grown equivalent, the College sets academic ability tests in Year 8, likely covering English, Maths, Science and a foreign language. For September Year 9 entry, registered and appropriately prepared applicants then sit either the ISEB Common Academic Scholarship Examination (May), the Common Entrance Examination (June) or an equivalent set of examinations. Accepting an offer means completing a Guaranteed Place Form and paying the relevant deposit by the offer expiry date; the deposit is held against final extras and any balance is credited to the final account. The school also states that applications from pupils with mild to moderate learning support requirements are considered.
Sixth Form Entry Requirements
Around 40 new pupils join the Lower Sixth (Year 12) at Eastbourne College each year, and the school says applications for September 2026 are still open, with September 2027 entry also welcome. Sixth form candidates register online and pay a non-refundable £186 administrative fee. The school advises families considering sixth form entry to get in touch with the admissions department as early as possible — ideally by the end of Year 10 and certainly by the end of the first term of Year 11 — to arrange a visit, meet the headmaster and see a day or boarding house. Scholarships for external sixth form entry are offered in academic, art, design, drama, music and sport, with auditions and examinations held in November of Year 11 and an application closing date in October; means-tested bursaries are also available and require registration first, followed by a Bursary Application Form from the admissions department. A comprehensive induction programme helps new pupils settle in.
International Admissions: Process and Requirements
Eastbourne College has a dedicated international admissions team that welcomes applications from across the globe and from all educational backgrounds. The school deliberately manages the international spread and tends to cap international pupils at around 20% of the total intake, and it also watches the number accepted from any single country. Applicants for whom English is an additional language are welcome provided they have the aptitude and ability to cope with being taught in English. The published process runs: submit the two most recent school reports for an eligibility assessment; once eligibility is confirmed, complete the registration form; the admissions team then arranges the assessments — CAT4, the Password English Test and the Password Mathematics Test — which can be conducted locally or remotely; these are followed by an interview, online or in person when the applicant visits the College; the team also requests a reference from the applicant’s current school; and an offer is made once all documents and references have been received and reviewed.
English Language Support (EAL)
International pupils at Eastbourne College follow compulsory EAL (English as an Additional Language) lessons throughout their time at the school, delivered by specialist teachers while pupils continue with the mainstream curriculum. The department prepares pupils for EAL examinations: the IGCSE in Years 10 and 11, and the IELTS exam in Year 12, which the school describes as the standard test for those continuing higher education in an English-speaking environment. The EAL department is based in the Winn Building. For new arrivals, the boarding houses also pair each international pupil with a buddy to help them settle in.
Fees for 2026-27
Eastbourne College publishes its 2026-27 fee schedule for new families per term, in two columns: without VAT and with VAT. For Years 9-11: Day £10,930 / £12,460; Day+ £11,470 / £13,076; Flexi3 (three nights of boarding) £13,710 / £15,629; full Boarding £16,650 / £18,981. For the Sixth Form: Day £11,145 / £12,705; Day+ £11,680 / £13,315; Flexi3 £13,980 / £15,937; full Boarding £16,910 / £19,277. The with-VAT column reflects the standard 20% VAT that independent schools now charge on fees, and the school notes that a 5% discount has been applied to the net fee for families who did not pay into the fees-in-advance scheme; existing families follow a two-tier structure described on the fees page. Fees are per term, and the schedule is dated 2026-27 — the definitive figures are the ones on the school’s current fee page.
Term Dates and Key Dates
The 2026-27 calendar published by Eastbourne College (last updated 10 June 2026) runs: Michaelmas Term 2026 begins Wednesday 2 September for boarders and Thursday 3 September for all pupils, ending Friday 11 December; Lent Term 2027 begins Monday 4 January for boarders and Tuesday 5 January for all pupils, ending Friday 19 March; Summer Term 2027 begins Monday 12 April for boarders and Tuesday 13 April for all pupils, ending Saturday 3 July. New overseas pupils are asked to be on site from 9am on the day boarders move in. For visits, the school hosts an open day each term — the 2026 diary shows a Sixth Form Open Evening on Thursday 17 September 2026 at 5.30pm and an Open Morning for Years 9-12 on Saturday 3 October 2026 at 9.00am — and personalised visits can be arranged afterwards, including house tours, lesson drop-ins and a meeting with the headmaster.
Boarding and Daily Life
Eastbourne College runs five boarding houses: Nugent and School House for girls, and Gonville, Pennell and Wargrave for boys, each typically accommodating around 60 boarders under a resident housemaster or housemistress, supported by tutors and a resident matron. Weekends are structured but not academic: there are no compulsory lessons on Saturdays or Sundays, and full boarders can join optional enrichment sessions, co-curricular activities, sports fixtures and trips, while formal exeats let boarders go home for a weekend. Parents overseas can follow progress through the school’s electronic reporting system, which the school singles out as ideal for families living abroad.
Application Support and Next Steps
Planning an application to Eastbourne College is mostly a matter of matching your child’s year group to the right entry point and working backwards from the assessment dates. For Year 9, the decisions that matter are registering in Year 5 or Year 6 for the early offer route, then preparing for the Year 8 assessments and the Common Entrance or equivalent in the summer before entry. For Sixth Form, the discipline is to start early — by the end of Year 10 at the latest — and to line up school reports, reference and, for international applicants, the CAT4 and Password assessments. The fees table above should be read alongside the VAT note, and boarding families should budget per term rather than per year. All facts in this guide come from the Eastbourne College website as of 5 August 2026, and fees and dates are subject to change on the official site. If you would like to map your child’s year group, English level and family timeline against these entry points, our advisers can help you build a step-by-step application plan tailored to your situation.