Boarding schools in Norfolk: fees, types of boarding and the state option

By Helen Marsh Schools and Family Editor Nov 11, 2026

13 min read

The useful thing to know about boarding in Norfolk is how few schools there are to choose between. Six mainstream schools take boarders in 2026-27. Four are independent: Gresham’s at Holt, Langley near Loddon, Beeston Hall at West Runton and Glebe House at Hunstanton. The other two are Wymondham College and its prep school, which share a campus and are state schools, so parents pay for the boarding and not the teaching. Of the independent schools, only Gresham’s and Langley board through to 18, and Glebe House boards up to four nights a week, with no full boarding.

The price gap is wider than the short list suggests. Full senior boarding at Gresham’s costs £52,680 a year at 2026-27 fees, with VAT included. Boarding at Wymondham College costs £16,950, with no VAT, about a third as much. The college fills its boarding places through priority groups and then a lottery, and a child needs a right to state education in the UK to apply. Its on-time round for Year 7 in September 2027 closed on 31 October 2026, so a Year 7 application made now counts as late.

What boarding costs at each school

Fees are per term as each school publishes them for 2026-27. The yearly figure is three terms, which is our arithmetic rather than the school’s. We give the latest inspection and its date; we don’t rank the schools.

The independent schools

Gresham’s is the county’s biggest independent boarding school: ISI counted 282 boarders across the whole school, prep included, when it inspected in April 2026. Full boarding is the only senior rate published, at £17,560 a term from Michaelmas 2026, and the fees page says all fees include VAT where applicable. Anyone joining a Gresham’s boarding house in the sixth form, boarder or day pupil, pays an extra £910 a term on top of the fee. It publishes no weekly rate, and it lists occasional nights at £147. Forces families receiving the Continuity of Education Allowance get 20% off the boarding fee, and the sibling discount is 10% with three children at the school and 25% with four or more. Bursary amounts are not on the fees page, so ask admissions. In the prep, boarding costs £12,730 a term, and a child can start more gently through what the school calls Pathway to Boarding: £1,600 a term for two nights a week or £2,100 for three, with an occasional night at £97.

Langley is the only senior school here that prices weekly boarding, and it has far fewer boarders. It had 45 boarders when ISI inspected in March 2024. From September 2026, full boarding is £15,594 a term with the day fee included. Weekly boarding, Sunday or Monday night to Thursday, adds £2,700 a term to the day fee, which is £8,124 from Year 9 and £7,620 in Years 6 to 8. Flexi boarding adds £1,362 a term for two nights a week or £1,938 for three, and a single night is £66. That ISI report found all Standards met and listed more weekend activity for boarders among its next steps, which is the question to ask if you want full boarding there. Boarders pay a £6,000 deposit, or £15,000 for international boarders, who also pay a £575 visa administration charge. Sibling discounts are 7.5%, 15% and 20%, Forces families get 20%, and the school says it has a bursary fund. Its open morning for Years 7 to 9 is on Monday 30 November 2026, 9.15am to 11.15am, at Loddon.

Beeston Hall is a prep school for ages 2 to 13, so a boarder there moves on to a senior school at 13. At ISI’s June 2026 visit, 67 of its 146 pupils boarded, and full boarding runs from Year 4 to Year 8 at £13,210 a term, with flexi nights at £72. The fees page is headed 2026-2027 but says nothing about VAT, and we have not been able to confirm whether the figure includes it, so check VAT with the bursar before you budget on it. ISI records that the school merged with St Peter’s College, Radley in September 2025. From September 2026, Forces families on the allowance with boarders aged 7 to 13 pay 10% of fees, pupils from outside Europe pay a 15% supplement, and the school offers “a limited number of means-tested bursaries”.

Glebe House works differently from the others. Boarding is for up to four nights a week, from Year 3, with no full boarding. It is charged per term on top of the day fee: £156 for one night a week, £312 for two, £432 for three and £480 for four, with ad hoc nights at £25. The senior prep day fee is £7,433.60 a term including VAT, so a year with four nights’ boarding comes to £23,740.80. The school doesn’t publish a boarder count; it says “almost a half” of prep pupils board at some stage. It offers means-tested bursaries and sibling discounts of 5%, 10% and 15%.

Wymondham College: the state option, and who gets it

At Wymondham College you pay for the boarding and nothing else. The fee is £5,650 a term in Years 7 to 11 and £6,275 in the sixth form, and the college says no VAT will be added. Its admissions policy says families on Universal Credit can claim the boarding fee against the childcare element. Boarders in Years 7 to 11 have Saturday school and can go home any weekend after it. Staying in over one of the six exeat weekends costs £100 a night. Day pupils can take day boarding for £1,450 a term. Ofsted rated the college Outstanding after its inspection on 10 October 2023. The college reports its boarding inspection at the same visit as Outstanding too, though Ofsted’s provider page shows no separate boarding grade.

Money will not buy a place. Applicants need full UK citizenship or another residence status that gives a right to state education, and the college asks for proof. There is no catchment area for boarding. For September 2027 it has 50 boarding places in Year 7, 15 in Year 9, 10 in Year 10 and 95 in Year 12. If Year 7 or Year 9 boarding is oversubscribed, looked-after children come first, then children with a significant boarding need (Forces families entitled to Ministry of Defence boarding support first within that group), then siblings, transfers from a day place, boarders from the prep school, children of staff and children with an aptitude for music. Every remaining place goes by random lottery. Boarding need covers a parent in the Forces, the Foreign Office or an international body, or one who works for a UK company and is overseas for more than a month a year; it also covers remote rural homes, and families meeting two of a list of circumstances, such as having a lone parent.

The dates matter more here than at the independent schools. A family in England applies for Year 7 through its home council’s common application form, plus the college’s Year 7 Boarding Supplementary Form. The round for September 2027 closed on 31 October 2026, offers come on 1 March 2027, and the policy treats anything after the closing date as late. Late applicants go into a waiting pool, places that come up after offer day go to on-time and late applicants alike in priority order (section 3l of the policy), and the college can admit above its published numbers if extra boarding places come up. Families in Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland, the Channel Islands, the Isle of Man or overseas apply direct, as do applicants for other years and the sixth form. Year 12 applications for September 2027, day and boarding, are due by 30 November 2026, and the deadline for the sixth-form boarding scholarships was 31 October 2026. The admissions page also says boarding applications are taken all year. Every boarding applicant gets a supplementary form, an interview and a request for a school reference; the interview checks whether the child can cope with boarding, and the college says it “is not an academic assessment”. A boarding place offered in Year 7 rules out any other state school offer in the same round.

Sixth-form entry needs an average of grade 5 across a student’s best eight GCSEs, with at least 4/5 or 5/4 in English and maths (Annex B of the policy), and at least three sixth-form boarding scholarships a year are worth up to the whole boarding fee. The prep school boards Years 5 and 6 in Underwood Hall, at £5,650 a term full or £2,725 flexi, and has 16 Year 5 boarding places for September 2027. Its round closes on 15 January 2027, interviews run from 1 February to 31 March, and offers come on 16 April 2027. The same residence rule applies, and after the priority groups its places also go by lottery.

Whether to board at all, and how this compares with a free state day place, is the subject of our guide to state, state boarding and independent schools.

What to check before you commit

Check which year a fee is for and whether VAT is in it. All five give the year; Beeston Hall’s doesn’t mention VAT. Then check what the boarding fee sits on top of. Langley’s full boarding figure includes the day fee, but its weekly and flexi charges are added to it, and so are all of Glebe House’s. A family comparing a weekly place at Langley with full boarding at Gresham’s is comparing £32,472 with £52,680 a year, not two boarding fees.

Weekends can cost extra. Staying in at Wymondham College over an exeat is £100 a night, and Gresham’s lists occasional nights at £147. Glebe House boards up to four nights a week, with no full boarding. If you will be abroad, ask each school what happens on the weekends you can’t collect your child, and remember the residence rule at Wymondham College, the international deposit at Langley and the supplement at Beeston Hall for pupils from outside Europe.

Residential special schools are a separate route, with places agreed through an education, health and care plan and the council rather than chosen and paid for. Sidestrand Hall near Cromer, which the council runs, is a day and residential special school where pupils can board Monday to Friday for up to four nights, according to Ofsted. Our guide to special educational needs in Norfolk schools explains how a place is agreed.

Where families live

Boarding changes the question of where to buy. A weekly or flexi boarder still needs collecting, so the drive matters more than for full boarding. Gresham’s and Beeston Hall are on the north Norfolk coast, a short way from Holt and Cromer. Langley is at Loddon, south-east of Norwich (our Loddon guide covers the town). Glebe House is in Hunstanton, and Wymondham College is just outside Wymondham. Our private schools guide gives the drive from each of the places we cover to the nearest school that boards, along with the day schools, and the prep schools guide covers the younger years. If the school is fixed and the town isn’t, the Which Norfolk town? questions will narrow the list. Open days and application dates for the independent schools are in our open days guide.

If you are moving with children, our free Norfolk Relocation Pack comes by email and covers the rest of the move.

How we produced this guide

Fees, boarding arrangements, discounts and admissions rules were read from each school’s own fees, boarding and admissions pages on 11 November 2026, and Wymondham College’s from its admissions policy for September 2027 and its prep school’s boarding admissions policy. Yearly figures are three times the published termly fee. Inspection dates and outcomes are from the ISI and Ofsted reports, and the status of closed schools from the Department for Education’s Get Information about Schools register. We give inspection outcomes and dates and don’t rank the schools. Last updated: 11 November 2026. Author: Helen Marsh, Schools and Family Editor.

Run one of these schools and see a fee or date that has changed? Tell us and we will check it.

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