School report
Merchiston Castle School
Scotland · Ages 7–18 · Day & boarding · 400 pupils
At a glance
Latest income
PrefectReserves
PrefectFee dependency
PrefectFinancial security
ScholarInspection
A colour summarising the school's most recent inspection outcome. Different inspectorates (ISI, Ofsted, and the Scottish and Welsh bodies) use different systems, so results from different inspectorates aren't directly comparable.Grey
Education Scotland · 2015-01-20
Setting
Setting
Self-contained 100-acre parkland campus in Colinton, fully surrounded by South West Edinburgh suburban residential areas.
Getting there
Inspection & safeguarding
Latest outcome: Additional support required; six-month follow-up
- Regulator
- Education Scotland
- Band
- Grey
- Report date
- 2015-01-20
- Report age
- 11.4 years
Inspectorates use different scales, so bands are shown only within their own regime, never cross-mapped.
Fees
Fees
What Merchiston Castle School publishes for 2025/26 — the advertised price, before any bursary or scholarship.
| Day | Boarding | |
|---|---|---|
| Prep | £18,000 /yr ≈ £6,000/term | — |
| Senior | £24,000 /yr ≈ £8,000/term | £50,706 /yr ≈ £16,902/term |
| Sixth Form | £24,000 /yr ≈ £8,000/term | £50,706 /yr ≈ £16,902/term |
Termly figures are the annual fee ÷ 3. Source: the school's fee page ↗ — Sixth-form (VI Form) fee equals the senior rate for continuing pupils; a +5% premium (day GBP 25,200 / boarding GBP 53,241) applies only to direct VI-Form entrants (school's own fees page).
Fee history
Full boarding fees have risen +42.7% since 2022/23 — from £37,320 to £53,244 in 2026/27. Latest figure includes VAT. See the full six-year trend below.
Available on Prefect and Scholar.
See plans →Finances
Available on Prefect and Scholar.
See plans →Peer-group benchmarking
Available on Scholar.
See plans →Academic results
Available on Prefect and Scholar.
See plans →Curriculum & activities
Available on Prefect and Scholar.
See plans →Language & character
Available on Prefect and Scholar.
See plans →Feeder schools
Feeder schools
Prep schools that name this school as a destination.
Named as a destination by 4 prep schools in our data.
Including Ardvreck School, Aysgarth School, Mowden Hall School and more.
Available on Prefect and Scholar.
See plans →Recruitment & staffing
Recruitment & staffing
Available on Prefect and Scholar.
See plans →Catchment
Available on Scholar.
See plans →Data & sources
Where these figures come from, and how complete they are.
- Financial source
- OSCR (Scotland)
- Detail level
- Headline figures
- Latest accounts
- 2024-07-31
- Years on record
- 5
- Accounts age
- 22 months
- Pupil numbers
- 400 (report_text:Care Inspectorate)
- Components
- Summary figures only (OSCR)
- Entity scope
- This school
Pupil–teacher ratio: not published — independent schools aren’t in the DfE workforce census, and filed accounts don’t separate teaching staff.
Capital trend: only one year of capital spend is on record, so a multi-year under-investment signal can’t be computed yet.
Computed 2026-06-20 · pipeline ct-derived-1.0.0. Indicators, not verdicts — each is traceable to its source.
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Sign inPrototype — figures derive from public records (Charity Commission, OSCR, ISI/Ofsted/Education Scotland/Estyn, ONS Census). Some fields (pupil–teacher ratios) are not yet in the dataset and are omitted rather than estimated.