Make a gift and change a life
An Exeter School education can change a life. We open doors for bright pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds, ensuring they reach their full potential via our bursary fund.
Exeter School opened almost 400 years ago. We built it to educate boys in Exeter, whatever their financial background. Our founding charter told teachers to treat every pupil as “one & the like.” That principle still guides us today.
Through the twentieth century, the Direct Grant and Assisted Places schemes widened our doors further. These schemes let us welcome children whose families could never otherwise afford a place. At one point, roughly 25% of our pupils studied here for free. Exeter School became a place where ability, not income, decided who belonged.
Times have changed, and not for the better. Today, only 1.5% of our pupils hold a free place. That gap troubles us. We want ambitious, talented children to walk through our doors, regardless of what their parents earn. We want the Exeter School story to include more of them, not fewer.
This is where you come in. Your support can fund a bursary. Your gift can open a door that money alone might have closed. Every donation, however large or small, brings us closer to our founding vision.
We’re not asking you to fund a building or a plaque. We’re asking you to fund a life-changing education. A bursary from the Exeter School Bursary Fund pays for uniforms, trips, and tuition. It removes the barriers that stop bright children from thriving here in Exeter, Devon.
Consider what a place at Exeter School meant to you, or could mean to a child today. Then consider what your support could do. A single gift can turn a promising student into a confident sixth former. It can turn potential into achievement.
We’ve always believed that talent doesn’t check a bank balance first. Our founders knew it in the seventeenth century, and we know it now. Helping us return to that founding spirit means helping a new generation of Exeter pupils flourish.
If you’d like to make a gift to the Bursary Fund, please get in touch with our Alumni and Development Office. They’ll talk you through the options and answer any questions you have.
Change a life. Support a bursary. Help Exeter School open its doors wider, just as it once did.
We are grateful to all those who support the bursary fund – thank you.
“Exeter School has helped me to achieve and instilled a strong work ethic that I know will stay with me forever. It has been an incredibly important part of my life. I would not be where I am now without Exeter School and the bursary support has been a huge help to me and my family”.
Eka, bursary recipient
“I am the first in my family to attend university and my mum, who is a cleaner at my primary school, loves to brag to my former teachers about how far I’ve come. It makes me very proud to say that I went to Exeter School”.
Adam, bursary holder (2021-2023)
