Beyond the open day.
You’re about to commit a substantial sum to your child’s education. You’ve been to the open days, read the prospectuses and spoken to the admissions teams. Chapel & Tuck provides impartial data to help you complete the picture.
Why Chapel & Tuck
Fragmented public data, organised to give parents, consultants and schools objective clarity on fees, pastoral care and more.
A boarding school may show you the new sports hall, the beaming sixth-formers, the impressive A-level results. But how much are they spending per pupil? Are they quietly burning through their financial reserves? What makes a school truly different from its peers?
These are things you should know before you commit.
How it works
The whole picture, without the legwork.
Chapel & Tuck pulls together data from multiple sources — including the Charity Commission, the Department for Education and ISI inspection reports — and presents it in a way that actually makes sense.
No spreadsheets, no freedom-of-information requests, no sponsored listings dressed up as reviews — just clear, honest and relevant information about 400+ boarding schools in England, Scotland and Wales, presented in a way that helps you make a decision.
A school report on Chapel & Tuck — shown for a fictional school.
Example School
Co-educational boarding & day school · 960 pupils · 38% boarding
Preview — illustrative example. “Example School” is fictional and all figures shown are realistic but invented.
Financial health
How many months the school could keep running on its savings if its income stopped. More months means a larger safety net.Reserves cover around 5 months of expenditure.
Reserves
How many months the school could keep running on its savings if its income stopped. More months means a larger safety net.5.2months
Cover provided by free reserves at the latest year end.
Total income
£16.1m· 2024
Latest year, with the five-year trend.
Net fee yield
An estimate of what families actually pay on average, after discounts and bursaries — usually lower than the headline fee.£24,800per pupil
Estimate — what families pay on average after discounts and bursaries.
Fee dependency
How much of the school's income comes from fees. A school funded almost entirely by fees has less of a cushion if pupil numbers fall.92%
Share of income that comes from fees.
Senior boarding fee
£12,600per term
3-year fee inflation: +5.1% a year.
Investment surplus
The school's overall surplus for the year as a share of its fee income. A long-standing rule of thumb is that around 10% is healthy for the long term.8.4%
Of fee income. Around 10% is the healthy long-term guide.
Pupils
960
38% board; the rest attend as day pupils.
Inspection
ISIInspected March 2024
Bursary generosity
How much of its fee income the school gives back as means-tested bursary support, compared with other schools.3.8%
Of fee income given as means-tested bursary support.
Financial stress index
A single score ranking how financially stretched a school looks compared with others. Lower is more comfortable; it's a comparison, not a verdict.out of 100
Ranks how stretched a school looks vs peers — lower is more comfortable.
What you can find out
The answers to questions you didn’t know you could ask.
Is the school financially stable, or are reserves running thin?
What makes one particular school different?
What did the inspectors actually find, beyond the headline grade?
Is the school reinvesting in its facilities, or falling behind its peers?
Is the school owned by an overseas investment company?
How generous are the bursaries, really?
Chapel & Tuck answers all of this, and more.
For schools & consultants
Competitive intelligence at your fingertips.
Our Scholar tier is built for bursars, heads, governors, admissions and marketing teams to understand their competitive position — continuous, self-serve intelligence across every school in your peer group, reducing the need for expensive benchmarking reports.
- How does your reserves ratio compare with your peers?
- How healthy are the finances of that prep school that regularly sends pupils your way?
- Does the language on your website really reflect your offering?
- How many people live within a 30- or 60-minute drive of your school — and how many are aged 5–19?
Start your search
Peace of mind for the price of a tuck box.
The UK is home to a wealth of outstanding boarding schools — but how do you find the one that’s right for your family? An investment of this magnitude deserves more than a curated tour. Join Chapel & Tuck to inform your decision.
Start your search from just £60 per month. Cancel any time.