Information for Universities

School Background

Christ’s Hospital is a unique boarding school in that it educates a significant proportion of its students for free.  School fees are paid on a means assessed basis so that students from any background are able to access a high-quality independent school education that would otherwise be beyond the means of their parents/carers.

Christ’s Hospital was formed in 1552 as a charitable school to give students from all backgrounds the access to a life-changing education and this mission is still achieved today.  Due to our charitable goals, the school is a finalist in the 2022 Social Mobility Awards for school of the year. It is an independent boarding school of approximately 900 students where our 16-19 year olds are invited to study A Level and Pre-U courses and an optional EPQ.

In our current 2022 cohort:

• Almost 90% of our UK students are from state primary schools
• 11% of our students receive a full bursary to study with us
• A further 65% of our students receive a bursary of up to 90% of their fees

Christ’s Hospital exists to provide students from all walks of life with the access to the high-quality education they deserve.

Impact of the coronavirus pandemic

As with all schools across the country, Christ’s Hospital closed to students for two periods: March to July 2020 and January to March 2021.

For both closures, we undertook a program of distance learning and delivered the A Level and Pre-U courses via video link using the Microsoft Teams platform.  Students were able to join these lessons via their own devices. Most of our students were able to successfully access their learning via this platform but a small minority of them had problems with accessing this content and being able to engage with it. For students who struggled with this form of delivery, this is discussed in their individual references.

How we set predicted grades

It is our policy to set predicted grades that are “realistic and firmly based on evidence”.

Our students took formal exams (conducted under strict exam conditions) towards the end of year 12 and in the second week of their return to school in year 13. These exams were composed of past exam paper content and therefore reflected the difficulty of the final exams. The results were used to heavily influence the predicted grades we have set. As such, we have confidence that the predicted grades we have given our students are both evidence-based and firmly reliable.