Private school Orwell Park School

Orwell Park School

Orwell Park is a boarding school, founded in 1868. Orwell Park School is located in Nacton, in Suffolk County. It covers an area of ​​more than 44 hectares in a beautiful wooded area overlooking the estuary.

The main school is housed in a unique mansion with its own observatory and a clock tower. Orwell Park's classrooms and facilities are said to be some of the most beautiful in England.

The school curriculum is strong in traditional academic disciplines. Training is carried out using the most modern equipment and technologies. The school is preparing to enter the country's best high schools and pass the Common Entrance exam.

Orwell Park provides first-class parents advice on choosing a high school. Most students go to Benenden, Stowe and Ampleforth, as well as: Eton, King’s Canterbury, Felsted, Oakham, Rugby, Cheltenham Ladies’, Marlborough, Oundle, Gordonstoun, Ipswich, Millfield, Uppingham, Woodbridge and others.

The school has 300 students, 48 of them are full boarders.

DIRECTOR (stand 2026)

Guy Musson, Education - Bachelor's degree with honors, has a postgraduate certificate with the right to conduct teaching activities.

KEY FACTORS

• The school is regularly audited by the Independent Schools Inspectorate (ISI) committee, most recently audited in 2014. According to the results of the audit, the school received almost all the marks: “excellent”.
• Each child has his own iPad.
• The school regularly conducts theatre trips.
• The school is strong in hockey and athletics. Has notable successes in skiing, high jump, sailing.
• Orwell Park has its own outdoor activities program - the Orwell Park School Challenge (OPS Challenge). It is intended for students 10-11 years old, conducted on similar principles with the program for the award of the Duke of Edinburgh. Students earn points by participating in classes and camps / excursions.
• All children have a class teacher who plays an important role in communication between home and school, as well as in caring for the child.

PROGRAM

English

English is the medium through which everyone learns, learns and plays. The curriculum is consistent with the National Curriculum for Speaking and Listening, Reading and Writing. School competitions are held every year for all students: in reading, poem and public speaking, allowing them to demonstrate their abilities.

Other subjects: geography, history, life skills, mathematics, physical education, religion, science, art, design and technology, theatre, music. Children begin to learn Latin at the age of 10, there is also the opportunity to learn classical Greek. Classics is an unrivalled medium for creating solid linguistic foundations.

Digital skills

In September 2016, the iPad launched a 1: 1 strategy in the school, in which each child in the school has his own iPad. To reflect this, the school has created a new curriculum. The Digital Skills curriculum consists of five elements. These are: Systems (networks and equipment), Literacy (basic computer skills), Citizenship (electronic security and security), Design (presentation and coding) and Thinking (procedures and problem solving).

ACCOMMODATION

All the children in the main school belong to their schoolhouse: Blue Boars, Green Dragons, Red Lions and Yellow Tigers. The home system at Orwell School provides additional opportunities for initiative, competition, responsibility and leadership.

SPORT

The vast territory provides a lot of opportunities for children's games. Great equipment, floodlit artificial turf, golf courses, playgrounds, a swimming pool, squash courts and a gym.

The main sports are:

• Boys: rugby, hockey, cricket.
• Girls: hockey, netball, cricket.

Many other sporting events are held at different times during the school year: athletics, badminton, cross-country, competitions, football, golf, gymnastics, karate, sailing, skiing, squash, swimming and tennis.

On match days, the school puts up 25 teams.

ADDITIONAL ACTIVITIES

Boys and girls at Orwell Park have a wide range of out-of-class activities in addition to an extensive sports program and a variety of cultural activities, including art, music, drama, etc. Activities are held every day for a semester; regular trips are also organized to theatres, museums and other interesting places. During school holidays, excursions and expeditions are organized.

Typical events during the semester include: aerobics, visual arts, ceramics, chess, a humorous club, debate, theatre, design and technology, football, gardening, golf, lacrosse, Chinese, mountain biking, lectures in the greenhouse, photography, sailing sports, sculpture, squash, swimming, textiles and others.

Typical weekend excursions include:

• Strawberry picking
• Pleasurewood Hills Theme Park
• camping
• Shopping at Bluewater Shopping Centre
• Visiting Colchester Waterpark
• Drive to Southwold
• Drive to Walton-on-the-Naze
• Morning Crazy Golf
• Ceramics and painting in nature
• Drive to Sutton on Barrow
• Cinema
• Braintree Shopping Centre
• Ride and walk in Pin Mill
• Departure and entertainment at Felixstowe
• Boating in Thorpeness
• Duxford Open Air Museum
• Laser quest

COST, 2026-2027

£16,692 per semester.
There are three semesters in an academic year.

Included in cost

• Teaching
• Accommodation and meals

Extra paid

• Registration fee – £150
• Deposit – £750
• Flights
• Transfers to / from the airport
• Visa
• Services of the company "Paradise"
• Guardianship (as required by British law)

Our services and fees

IMPRESSIONS OF A SCHOOL VISIT

Natasha Strein
Founder of ‘’Paradise’’

Hungry to learn - it can be translated as ‘hungry to learn’. That's exactly the kind of child you'll find at Orwell Park, a prep school near Ipswich, close to Colchester, the ancient capital of England.

A fine wrought iron gate launches us into an English manor house from Jane Austen's time. The fire in the fireplace, the carpet, the sofas, the huge baskets of firewood ... as if we were on the set of a film... the carpet is slightly stained with soot, creating a sense of authenticity: this is how they lived, the English aristocrats of the countryside.

A young teacher skips past, winking at me. I catch myself thinking that I subconsciously organise visits to schools for kids to get a high: everyone here is so kind and welcoming! I am covered with drops of kindness like dew on grass. It's all around you. Sounds cheesy, but what can you do if it's true?! I always come out of pre-school on wings. I mean, I fly out.

‘Manners, manners and manners again,’ the headmaster instructs. - It's a way of expressing respect to another person. And we read the recommendations of foreign children very carefully, the opinion of the educational counsellor to whom the parents have turned is important to us. There is no place for bullies here.

This is a school where ladies and gentlemen are raised. Most of the parents are successful businessmen from the City of London, a very wealthy crowd. Most of the children at 13 go from here to Harrrah's (in packs), a few a year to Eton, and to Tunbridge, Rugby, Stowe, Aundle, Haileybury, Uppingham.... all such different but equally prestigious schools. However, the headmaster recommends you start at the age of nine to get into them.

Recess. The boys are rushing round. But they don't tear us down, they stop respectfully. I am introduced to three boys of 12 years old (graduating class). From Nigeria, Mexico and England. They give me a hand, look me in the eye. Eye contact is a very important part of etiquette. They talk in depth about what they like about school, about their friends. They talk about the high schools they have chosen: Tunbridge is for nerds, Aundle is for kids who can compete in academics, sports, and the arts. They'd just been playing catch-up, and then they transformed: I was looking at mature, fully grown adults. Surprise!

There's a play at school tonight, Oliver. The parents are promised wine and cheese. In the theatre, the drama teacher finds an apple stump on stage, picks it up and asks: ‘Who put that apple stump here so gracefully?!’ He doesn't raise his voice, doesn't make an angry face, doesn't start moralising, just throws it in the bin.

Orwell Park has a seriously well-equipped technological design workshop. From the age of 7 they are taught to carve wood, and from the age of 9 they make calculations and drawings on the computer, in three dimensions, after which they use a 3D printer. From the age of 9 they make metal things. For example, a metal spatula (see photo). This means they have to make both the handle and the spatula themselves and attach one to the other. They have to cut out the metal themselves, melt the metal themselves in the furnaces available for this purpose. All by themselves, from scratch! Of course, under the supervision of a teacher and with safety precautions.

I look at this spatula - factory production, that's all. Shock! A little later, by the age of 11-12, children combine wood, metal and electronics in their works. (I'm attaching a photo of variations of music speakers where there are electrics hidden inside a steam locomotive, or a shelf, or a wooden lamp.)

It's no wonder that by the age of 16 or 17, British schoolchildren are building golf carts and cars to race. They build them from scratch, from blueprints. Thankfully, they have all the materials they need, because schools have huge resources.

On Saturday - lessons and sports matches. You don't need to bring a lot of clothes, as the only day to wear them is Sunday. The rest of the time everyone is in uniform. Here we don't discuss new trainers and gadgets, the boys have different values.

We look into the classrooms. Everywhere the teachers rush up to us, shake my cold hand. They're all so hot! I'm looking through the window. Suddenly, a little Chinese kid smiles and waves at me! I even got tears: Chinese children are very restrained, but this little boy is relaxed, enjoying his childhood!

In the art studio we are met by a dog, wagging its tail desperately. The children and teachers pet it, mould it, draw it....

We could not miss the Latin room, which has been taught here since the age of 10. Latin is always an indicator of traditional classical education of and for the upper classes. Immediately I inform the teacher of my knowledge: in vino vêtiras! (Thanks to Bloch). ‘Good!’ - shouts the teacher in Russian, and we both burst out laughing. On the wall is a picture from Buckingham Palace. Prince William is presenting this teacher with an MBE: a badge of honour. It stands for ‘Member of the British Empire.’

There's no turnover among the teachers. They're happy, and so are the children. You can tell. Wearing the endless fields of the school. I am not cold (colleagues come to my office in a coat, but today I am wearing a hat and gloves, a jacket with a zip under the throat. The kids play tennis on the outdoor courts. The rest of us run around in shoes and pullovers. Everyone. ‘We raise strong kids,’ the director of the admissions office tells me.

They have about 40 hectares of territory here, a river and a forest. In the forest they have an ‘outdoor classroom’. Here they learn to make fire, gather fire, orientate on the terrain, render first aid, cook in nature.
And in general, everyone starts cooking from the age of 7 - there is a cookery class for this purpose. On the river they do sailing and organise fires, like pioneer ones.

The school has a special department for foreigners - learning support department. It not only teaches English, but also helps them to acquire the skills they need to study. Not all foreign children know how to organise themselves, do not know what requirements are set for homework, do not know how to write essays, projects, portfolios. Unfortunately, in high school we have to learn it ourselves and in the course of the play, so to speak. Or send your child first to a special college for training. Because knowledge of English is not all that is required for successful study in Britain.
With phones here everything is simple: they give them out for half an hour a day. No problem.

On new plumbing recently spent 45,000 pounds. Beautiful residences, wide corridors with soft carpets, bright bedrooms with high ceilings and gorgeous views. The rooms sleep six to eight people. Don't be intimidated: remember the pioneer camps. Small children like to be in a big company.