The UK’s ‘best schools’ have been revealed. Is your child’s on the list? Tatler has unveiled the shortlist of its 2026 Schools Awards, naming the five best prep schools and public schools in the country.
The awards aim to be where “excellence is celebrated at the very highest level” and show the “very pinnacle of British education”. Readers nominate and vote on the best schools in the country for the magazine’s awards and Top 250 list. Included on the ‘best prep schools’ is Cargilfield in Edinburgh, a day and boarding school for 300 boys and girls aged three to 13. It charges £26,070 a year for upper school day pupils, with an additional charge of up to £5,940 a year for boarding. The school has 13 acres of private land and boasts of “excellent teaching, high expectations and small class sizes”, with extracurriculars including jewellery-making, archery, fencing and more.
On Tatler’s shortlist of the UK’s best public schools is Caterham in Surrey, which was named the Best Independent School of the Year by the Times in 2023.
It is a day and boarding school for 950 boys and girls aged 11 to 18, charging £27,630 a year for day pupils and a further £57,345 a year for full boarding.
Caterham sits in 200 private acres in the Surrey Hills with sports fields, woodland, high ropes course and outdoor learning centre. It promises “an atmosphere which supports pupils and enables their success, their development of character and wellbeing”.
The UK’s Best Prep Schools
Cargilfield
Cumnor House
Francis Holland Prep
Heath Mount
Walhampton
The UK’s Best Public Schools
Brighton College
Canford
Caterham
Gresham’s
Eton College