Scotland's Preparatory & Junior Boarding Schools

Traditional Preparatory (or ‘Prep’) schools educate children from the age of 7 to 13 years and their raison d’être is to prepare pupils for senior boarding schools. Children who have attended Prep schools are already familiar with boarding life and they are often mature for their years which means that senior boarding schools are usually keen to admit them. The traditional Prep Schools, listed below, are Ardvreck, Belhaven Hill, Cargilfield and St Mary’s Preparatory School.  Fettes College and Gordonstoun also have Preparatory Schools linked to their Senior Schools. The ESMS family of schools has a co-educational Junior School as does Loretto.  Please note that ‘all through’ schools (see link on the left) also have Junior Schools.