St Paul's School, London

St Paul's School is a selective independent day school (with limited boarding) for boys aged 13–18, founded in 1509 by John Colet. It is located on a 43 acres (17 ha) site, beside the River Thames in Barnes, in south-west London. St Paul's was one of nine English schools investigated by the Clarendon Commission, which subsequently became known as the Clarendon schools. However, the school successfully argued that it was a private school and consequently was omitted from the Public Schools Act 1868, as was Merchant Taylors', the other day school within the scope of Lord Clarendon's terms of reference. Since 1881, St Paul's has had its own preparatory school, St Paul's Prep School (formerly called Colet Court and then St Paul's Juniors), which since 1968 has been located on the same site. The school has been included in The Schools Index every year since the index began in 2020 as one of the world's top 150 private schools, of which 25 are in the UK. In 2025, St Paul's School was ranked as the number one school in the UK, according to the Sunday Times, after having been ranked number two in both 2023 and 2024, (yet being the highest ranked boys' school in both years).

School data from Wikidata (CC0). Summary from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA).