Chair of Governors: Mr Tim Haynes
Principal: Dr Ellen Hesse, PaedDr, MSc, Associate CIPD, CELTA
Senior leadership team:
Dr Carolyn Dunn (Vice Principal Pastoral)
Andrew Humphris (Vice Principal Academic)
Stephanie Stafford (Director of Operations)
Student numbers. 405, ages 12–20.
Fees per term (2024-2025). UK Day fees: £9,567; Boarding from £17,835.
Abbey College Cambridge is a community energised by a love of learning and the pursuit of outstanding academic achievement for all.
Founded in 1994, Abbey College Cambridge has grown from strength to strength to now be a thriving successful school with over 400 students from over 40 nationalities.
We are renowned around the world for academic excellence that stems from our students’ ambition, their academic discipline and high-quality teaching. This is further aided by an engaging enrichment programme, empowering pastoral support, leadership programmes and a series of lectures. Abbey College Cambridge students make friends from all over the world, share unforgettable experiences, and go on to achieve amazing things together.
Our purpose-built campus provides the perfect study environment, light airy classrooms, with modern technology. We find that we don’t need the acres of sports fields or grand music halls. Cambridge itself can offer us everything we need. Our students can benefit from the most amazing sports facilities within Cambridge. This allows us to offer a wide range of sports and allow students the choice as to which sports they wish to participate in.
Our robust curriculum delivered by our high-calibre teachers allows our students to engage with their studies effectively. Students appreciate the small classes and supportive environment and feel comfortable to be able to ask questions and participate in class discussions. The diverse and international community allows class discussions to take a wider focus, providing students with a different view to many aspects of the world. This allows our students to be truly global citizens and to be prepared for a globalised work environment.
However, we recognise that students need more than just lessons, and Abbey Cambridge has an extracurricular programme with over 50 clubs and activities weekly. Wednesday afternoons are dedicated to enrichment. Enrichment is divided into five categories: Active, Community, Thinking, Science and Technology, Music and Creative Arts. Each Enrichment activity has outcomes which are specifically tailored to give students experiences they will treasure for the rest of their lives, but also, very importantly, experiences they can talk about at university or job interviews in the future.
There are also dedicated programmes for students wishing to progress to Oxbridge, or competitive university courses such as medicine. Our medicine preparation programme with the provision of seven additional lessons a week is globally respected. The outcome – 100% medical offers year on year and 30% of our A Level students progress to G5 universities.
Our clubs and activities don’t stop for the holidays. The college is open to all during the half term and Easter holidays. Our dedicated staff arrange activities, trips, courses to upskill our students, and study support during these times, with many boarders choosing to stay in Cambridge.
We focus on supporting young people to take responsibility for their own learning and provide them with opportunities to develop life skills such as critical thinking, leadership, teamwork and time management to name a few.
Curriculum. UK Curriculum Year 9–Year 13, GCSEs and A Levels. We offer an International Foundation Programme for International Students aged over 17.
Extracurricular activities. We have over 40 clubs and activities every week for students to participate in. Clubs and activities are grouped into: Active, Creative Arts, Community, Music, Science & Technology and Thinking.
Scholarships and bursaries. Scholarships are available.
The college is part of the Abbey DLD Group of Colleges.