Private school (United Kingdom) in the context of "State-funded schools (England)"

In the United Kingdom, private schools (also called independent schools) are schools that require fees for admission and enrollment. Some have financial endowments and most are governed by a board of directors consisting of school governors. Many are owned and operated by a mixture of corporations, trusts and individuals. They are independent of many of the regulations and conditions that apply to state-funded schools. For example, the schools do not have to follow the National Curriculum for England, although many such schools do.

Historically in the UK, the term private school referred to a school as private property, privately owned, in contrast to public property or a financial endowment, subject to a trust or of charitable status. Many of the older private schools catering for the 13–18 age range in England and Wales are known as public schools, seven of which were the subject of the Public Schools Act 1868. The term public school meant they were then open to pupils regardless of where they lived or their religion (while in the United States and most other English-speaking countries public school refers to a publicly funded state school). Preparatory schools educate younger children up to the age of 13 to prepare (prep) them for entry to the public schools and other secondary schools. In 2023, the Independent Schools Council (ISC), a lobbying group for private school industry, claimed that their members schools contributed £16.5 billion to gross value added (GVA) in Britain.