Private schools in Norwich: fees, ages and the school run

By Helen Marsh Schools and Family Editor Nov 12, 2026

11 min read

Seven fee-paying mainstream schools sit in Norwich or within a short drive of it, and the first thing to sort them by is age, not reputation. Three are prep schools: Notre Dame Prep finishes at 11, and Town Close and Langley Prep at Taverham at 13. That leaves four that take a child through to 18 or 19. Norwich School in the Cathedral Close is co-educational and day only. Norwich High School for Girls on Newmarket Road takes girls. Langley School teaches its seniors near Loddon, south-east of the city. Norwich Steiner School on Hospital Lane teaches to 19 on a different curriculum. So a family with a boy of 12 who wants a fee-paying school in the city itself that runs through to 18 has two: Norwich School, or Norwich Steiner with its different curriculum. Town Close would keep him until 13.

The fees are closer together than the names suggest. For the oldest day pupils in 2026/27, Norwich School charges £25,218 a year, Langley £24,372 from Year 9, and Norwich High £21,816 plus a compulsory lunch, all with VAT included. Norwich Steiner charges £14,200 a year in its Upper School. Each figure below comes from the school’s own fee page, read on 12 November 2026, unless the row says otherwise.

If you are looking across the whole county, including Gresham’s at Holt, our guide to every private school in Norfolk has them all. This page is the Norwich view.

The schools side by side

Pupil numbers are from the Department for Education’s Get Information about Schools register, read on 12 November 2026; the register gives no census date. The fee is the termly day fee for the oldest pupils, as each school publishes it for 2026/27. We give each school’s latest inspection and its date, and we don’t rank the schools.

Langley’s fees were read on 11 November 2026. Norwich Steiner had not published a 2026/27 schedule when we looked, so its row gives the fees it charges from January 2026, per year rather than per term. The register gives Langley’s ages as 11 to 18, but the school’s own fee page charges senior day fees at Loddon from Year 6.

What a year costs

Schools publish termly fees. The yearly figures here are three terms added together, which is our arithmetic rather than the school’s, except where a school prints its own.

• Norwich School: £11,100 for Pre-Reception, £15,192 for Reception to Year 2, £21,726 for Years 3 to 6 and £25,218 for Years 7 to 13, all four the school’s own yearly figures. Senior lunch is £6.25 a day, which the school’s lunch table puts at £1,037.50 a year. Registration is £95 and the acceptance deposit £600.
• Norwich High: £12,072 in the nursery, £16,566 from Reception to Year 6 and £21,816 from Year 7 to the sixth form. Lunch is compulsory from the nursery to Year 11, which adds £900 a year in Years 7 to 10.
• Langley School: £22,860 for Years 6 to 8 and £24,372 from Year 9.
• Town Close: about £21,244 in Years 5 to 8 for 2026/27, if the January rate also covers the summer term. Lunch is extra, at £330 a term in those years.
• Langley Prep: £20,826 in Years 5 to 8 and £10,833 in Reception, with lunch at £416.50 a term on top.
• Notre Dame Prep: £9,228 in Pre Prep and £10,002 in Prep 5 and 6, plus £238 a term for a hot lunch.
• Norwich Steiner: £13,700 a year in the Lower School and £14,200 in the Upper School.

Two schools take money off for brothers and sisters in a way that changes the sum for a bigger family. Norwich School takes 20% off a third child and 25% off a fourth while three or more are at the school together. Norwich High takes 20% off a third daughter at any Girls’ Day School Trust school at the same time.

VAT, and the one school that splits it

Private school fees have carried VAT at 20% since January 2025. All seven print a fee with VAT included, so the figure you see is the figure you pay. Nursery places are treated differently: Norwich High marks its nursery fee as not subject to VAT, and Notre Dame says its nursery is VAT exempt.

Town Close is the one where that fee changes during the year. Its fee page shows three columns for each year group: the fee before VAT, the fee with VAT from September 2026 and the fee with VAT from January 2027. The school is paying part of the tax itself, half of it this term and a quarter from January, so the fee rises in the new year. It says it will, “if possible, absorb 50%” of the VAT on its published fees in 2026 and 25% in 2027, and that this is “not a contractual commitment”. So the figure for Years 5 to 8 goes from £6,872 this term to £7,186 in January, and could go higher after that.

Joining at 11, 13 or 16

A child leaving a state primary at 11 has three fee-paying routes in or near the city, and the dates for September 2027 are already set.

Norwich School closes sixth form applications on 15 November 2026, and its first sixth form scholarship assessment, the academic one, is on Saturday 14 November. Senior applications are due by 10 December 2026. Assessment is on two Saturdays, 9 January 2027 for the digital and written tests and 23 January for group activities and a conversation with a teacher, with decision letters in mid-February. Sixth form entrants have an assessment morning on Saturday 21 November 2026.

Norwich High asks for senior and sixth form applications by 31 December in the year before entry. Its January assessment date for 2027 wasn’t on the school’s page when we looked. Sixth form entrants are interviewed, usually in the autumn, and need at least six GCSEs at grade 6.

Langley takes applications all year, with a taster day and an interview or assessment depending on age. Its senior school takes children from Year 6, a year earlier than most. Scholarship applications for September 2027 close on 12 December 2026.

Norwich Steiner starts with an introductory morning, after which you ask for a form; the school says some classes have waiting lists.

Town Close and Langley Prep both run to Year 8, so their pupils change school at 13. Langley Prep is Langley’s own prep school, and a bus links the two sites. For open mornings at all of them, see our list of independent school open days.

Under 11

Every school except Langley at Loddon takes children under 10, and most start at 3 or younger; Langley Prep’s nursery takes babies from 6 months. Town Close says it has no deadline to apply for the following year and doesn’t select on ability; its next open morning is Friday 23 April 2027. Notre Dame takes children at any point in the year and has no entry tests; its open morning is Friday 20 November 2026. Our guide to Norfolk’s prep schools covers this stage in more detail.

Bursaries and scholarships

Every school words its help differently, and few put a figure on a scholarship on their main pages.

• Norwich School: bursaries are means-tested and can cover up to 100% of fees. The school says one is unlikely where household income is more than four times the annual senior fee, which is about £100,900 at this year’s fee, or net assets more than 20 times it. Scholarships at 11, 13 and 16 cover academic work, music, sport, art and design and performing arts, with no money value stated.
• Norwich High: the school says scholarships are typically worth 5% to 10% of fees, and they aren’t means-tested. Bursaries are means-tested, from 30% to 100% of fees, for entry to Year 7 or Year 12. The senior bursary deadline for 2027 is 30 November 2026.
• Langley: bursaries are means-tested and “typically up to 50% of fees”. Scholarships at 11, 13 and 16 are worth up to 15% of the annual day fee, one per pupil, and come off the fees each year.
• Town Close: means-tested bursaries, up to the full fee in exceptional cases, and unlikely above a household income of five times the annual fee. No scholarships are listed.
• Norwich Steiner: limited help for families on low incomes, with no amount stated.

The school run, and where families live

Three schools run their own transport, and Langley’s buses also serve its prep school, so four of the seven are covered.

Norwich High runs minibuses from Year 2. Places depend on availability, with a waiting list where a route is full. Its 2026/27 routes reach Scole, Pulham and Long Stratton on the A140 south; Holt and Aylsham to the north; Loddon, Beccles, Oulton Broad, Gorleston and Hopton on the A146 route; Worstead to the north-east and Acle and Blofield to the east; Swaffham, Dereham and Lenwade to the west; and Wymondham and Attleborough to the south-west.

Norwich School runs its own buses, with tickets bought by the term or the half-term and charges that the school says cover operating costs only. Its route map is published as an image. The school also points families to the city’s Park and Ride, listing four sites (Hellesdon, Sprowston, Harford and Thickthorn) whose buses stop at Tombland and Upper King Street, both a short walk from the Close.

Langley runs more than 25 minibuses across Norfolk and Suffolk, priced by distance and paid termly, and a link bus between Taverham and Loddon. Ask the transport office for the routes, as none are listed online.

Town Close, Notre Dame and Norwich Steiner publish no school transport. For those, the drive or the walk is the plan, so where you buy matters more. Norwich High is on Newmarket Road, the road out to Cringleford, and Langley Prep is in Taverham itself.

If you are still choosing where to live, our town matcher asks six questions and gives a shortlist, with no email needed.

Names that cause confusion

• Notre Dame High School on Surrey Street is a state school, a Roman Catholic academy for ages 11 to 18 that doesn’t select by ability, and charges no fees. It is a separate school from Notre Dame Prep.
• Taverham Hall is not a separate school any more. It is the site of Langley Prep.
• Thorpe House School, on Yarmouth Road in Thorpe St Andrew, is recorded on the Department for Education’s register as closed on 15 July 2010 after a merger.
• Hethersett Old Hall School closed on 2 September 2019, and Stretton School at West Lodge in Norwich closed on 6 July 2018.

Moving to Norwich for a school? Our free Norfolk relocation pack covers the rest of the move.

Questions parents ask

How we produced this guide

Fees, lunch charges, discounts, entry dates, bursaries and transport were read from each school’s own pages on 12 November 2026, except Langley’s fees, read on 11 November 2026. Yearly figures are three times the termly fee unless the school prints its own. Ages, pupil numbers and closures are from the Department for Education’s Get Information about Schools register, read on 12 November 2026. Inspection dates and outcomes are from the ISI reports (Langley’s read on 11 November 2026) and Ofsted’s provider page; where we haven’t read the report, the row says so or gives the school’s own statement. We don’t rank the schools. Last updated: 12 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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