Frequently Asked Questions

We can receive registrations at any time.

Registration is recommended by the end of Year 5 (but late registrations may be possible). This enables your son to become fully involved in the Admissions programme of events.

Please request a link to the registration portal from the admissions team.

Once completed you will also need to transfer a non-refundable registration fee of £300, inc VAT. Our bank account details will be provided to you at the time of completing the online registration.

We offer the option of testing in Year 6 or Year 7.

We recommend you discuss the best time for your son to be assessed with his current Headteacher.

Please note that your son will need to sit the Sherborne Boys online Assessment in the same academic year that he sits his entry assessments tasks for Sherborne.

Boys that are registered for a Third Form (Year 9) place are assessed for entry in January of Year 6 or 7. 

Boys will sit the Sherborne Boys online Assessment as part of their application. The assessment has been designed in partnership with Quest and covers English, maths and cognitive ability, allowing boys the opportunity to show their best work. A familiarisation exercise can be found here, and further parent-guidance can be found here. They will also be invited to an assessment day where they will have an interview with a senior member of our academic staff and carry out further assessment tasks. Boys' performances in these are then considered along with a confidential school reference.

The online assessments can be sat at your son's current school in the Michaelmas (Autumn) Term if they are in agreement, or it can be sat at Sherborne Boys. 

We recommend you discuss the best time for your son to be assessed (Year 6 or 7) with his current Headteacher.

If you have not registered in time for the assessment day and we still have places available, we are happy to assess your son at a later date.

We use Common Entrance results to set pupils, but rely on our own assessments to offer places to the School.

In a handful of cases, boys may be given an offer subject to their attainment of a certain level in Common Entrance. As a rule of thumb, we expect our pupils to achieve a minimum of 55 per cent in Common Entrance Level Two papers.

Once your son has been offered and you have accepted at place at Sherborne, you will be asked to complete a House Preference Form indicating four Houses that you would be happy for your son to join.

These choices are always considered when allocating boys to Houses, but we can’t make guarantees and the School will make the final decision as to where boys are placed. Priority in House choice are given to children or grandsons of Old Shirburnians or those with siblings already in School.  House placements are finalised and confirmed during the Easter holiday of Year 8.

All uniform can be ordered online. 

For further information on uniform including price lists and shop opening time, please visit our School Shop webpage.  The School Shop is onsite and is open to boys and families during term time and periodically over the holidays - please refer to the opening times on the School Shop website.

Sherborne Schools Group operates a sibling fee discount arrangement across Sherborne Boys, Sherborne Girls, Sherborne Prep and Hanford Prep: a 5% remission for the second child, 10% for the third, and 15% for the fourth and subsequent children who are concurrently at schools within the Group. Other conditions apply; please contact Billing for more information about eligibility and how the discount works.

We do not offer discounts to the children of OS, but the Old Shirburnian Society (OSS) operates a charitable trust to assist its members with school fees for attendance at Sherborne.

An OSS bursary is means-tested, and awarded in addition to any further fee remission offered by the School. For more information, contact John Harden, OSS Secretary: Email

From September 2025, the total amount payable for CEA funded pupils will be the CEA allowance plus 10% of the prevailing (full) boarding fee (inclusive of VAT).

All the Schools within the Sherborne Schools Group also offer a 10% discount off day and boarding fees for those families currently working in the armed forces, who do not qualify for the CEA allowance.

Sherborne has a direct train to London Waterloo, which takes just over two hours. 

Boys using this form of transport can easily walk to any of our eight boarding houses from the train station.

We believe that boys learn better in a single-sex classroom environment, but we are lucky to have Sherborne Girls as a close neighbour, a few minutes walk away.

This enables collaboration in several areas, especially in music and drama. Weekends are packed with a huge array of joint social events, from ‘Rock Soc’ to Combined Cadet Force (CCF), House dinners to film trips.