Admissions
Welcome to Sevenoaks
Welcome to Sevenoaks. Our role is to give you the information you need to decide whether Sevenoaks is the right school for your child and, if so, to help you through the admissions process. If you think Sevenoaks is a good fit for your family, we very much hope that you and your child will visit Sevenoaks: there’s no substitute for seeing the school in action.
Although founded in 1432, Sevenoaks is modern, forward-thinking, fully co-educational, unstuffy, diverse, non-denominational and open-minded.
All our Sixth Formers take the International Baccalaureate Diploma, which has been taught at Sevenoaks for nearly 50 years. In the Middle School, all students study for IGCSEs and GCSEs, alongside our own core curriculum which encourages critical thinking.
Academically, Sevenoaks is fast-paced and both our exam results and university entry statistics are impressive, although we are emphatically not a hot house. Students leave us as broadly educated critical thinkers and creative problem solvers.
Meet the Team
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Entry points
We have entry points for boarders and day pupils at 16+ and 13+, and for day pupils only at 11+. We take about 80 students at age 11, a further 100 at age 13, and roughly 80 to 90 at age 16, when we increase the cohort by nearly a third.
We are occasionally able to take one or two new students for Year 8 (12+) or Year 10 (14+). Please email if you wish your child to be put on the waiting list to test for one of these places. We never take new students into Years 11 or 13 (Upper Sixth).
The school community
Sevenoaks is a co-educational school of around 1200 students with an even mix of boys and girls. There are no boarders in the Lower School, but over 40% of our students aged 13-18 board – about 450 in total. Day and boarding students are exceptionally well integrated and they both have lessons on most Saturday mornings in term-time, followed by sports in the afternoon.
75+
nationalities represented in our student body
Global in outlook
While most of our students are British, Sevenoaks has for many decades been global in outlook, with students from across Europe, Africa, Asia and America, and occasionally Australasia. We have more than 70 nationalities represented in our student body.
For FCDO families, the lack of boarding in Lower School does not affect the Continuity of Education Allowance. Contact the Admissions Office for more details.
Sevenoaks is a warm and welcoming school with a firm commitment to equity, diversity and inclusion.
Visit the school
We hold a number of Open Mornings and Group Visits throughout the year which give a general introduction to the school, a tour of the campus and, if appropriate, a visit to a boarding house. Following a visit you can arrange an individual meeting with a member of the Admissions team. We also offer virtual events if you are unable to visit us in person.
Criteria for entry
Sevenoaks is a strongly academic school and we select students we believe will flourish in an intellectually exciting environment. All candidates are assessed through entrance tests, group discussion tasks and references or reports from the candidate’s current school.
A culture of mutual respect
The success of our students is partly due to a culture of mutual respect, admiration of success in any field whether academic or co-curricular, and a collaborative and supportive outlook within our student body. The character of our students is therefore very important to us and this is assessed through the group discussion task. The Admissions team also welcome the opportunity to get to know candidates during individual family meetings.
We are also keen to identify students who will benefit from our balanced and well-rounded education, and who will make a positive contribution to the life of the school. We therefore gather information about each candidate’s wider co-curricular interests through a personal statement at 16+, or a form which parents complete for younger candidates.
“The educational focus here is on developing roundedness, and we are most proud that our students are kind, empathetic, collaborative and grounded people who can get along with anyone.”
Lorna Dolan, Director of Admissions
Agents
We are very happy for families to apply directly, but we are also willing to receive applications from agents. We pay commission to just a handful of agents with whom we have a long history and a formal agreement.
The school takes seriously its obligation to ensure that agents are acting with legitimate intentions and may undertake checks if required. We are committed to adhering to the key principles of the Agent Quality Framework (AQF) as stated here.
Contact us
Where Next?
Entry at 11+
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Entry at 13+
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Entry at 16+
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