Royal Hospital School

The Royal Hospital School is a leading independent co-educational boarding and day school in East Anglia. The School has a roll of around 700 pupils aged 11-18, 500 of whom are boarders with the rest being day pupils or day boarders. The School occupies a magnificent site on the banks of the River Stour in the Suffolk countryside, a few miles south of Ipswich.

Today the Royal Hospital School is regarded as one of the country’s leading independent co-educational boarding schools, but originally it was founded in 1712 as part of Greenwich Hospital, a ‘charitable institution for the aged, infirm or young’.

In the building which now houses the National Maritime Museum, boys from seafaring backgrounds had the rare privilege of learning arithmetic and navigation. As the school’s reputation burgeoned, there were more applicants than places which resulted in the school moving to Holbrook and this impressive campus opening in 1933.

The Royal Hospital School Gallery can be visited at Queen’s House, The National Martime Museum, Greenwich.

The main points of entry are at 11+ (mostly from primary schools), 13+ (mostly from prep schools) and 16+, although the School does admit pupils at all other ages. 90% of the School’s departing Upper Sixth Form pupils progress on to higher education, and many of them secure places at the UK’s leading universities, including Oxford, Cambridge, Bristol, Durham, Edinburgh and other Russell Group institutions.

Having just completed a five year programme of building development, which included the creation of a new music school at a cost of £3.5million and a complete refurbishment of boarding accommodation, the Royal Hospital School now has outstanding facilities