School Structure (State vs Independent)

Education is compulsory for children in the UK from the term after they reach five years old (as opposed to Nursery, which is available from birth). The following table summarises how the school structure and, importantly, terminology, differ between state and independent / private schools according to your child’s age.

Age	State Schools	Independent Schools
1	Nursery	Nursery
2		Nursery
3		Pre-Preparatory School
4
5	Junior School
6
7
8		Preparatory School
9
10
11	Senior School
12
13		Senior School
14
15
16
17	Sixth Form
18	Sixth Form

Of course, not every school will rigidly stick to this, and some schools will call themselves “preparatory” while in practice operating a junior school structure similar to the state system and ending at 11. Nevertheless, this should give you a rough guide to what the different stages of an independent education are.

The table does not imply that each of these stages represents a different school; there are many schools in ISC that can educate children from nursery straight through to sixth form, and you will also find many pre-prep and prep schools have close ties with senior schools in their area. As a rule of thumb, most prep schools will cater for pre-prep children as well, and there are very few senior schools without sixth forms.