OPEN MORNINGS
Every second Tuesday through the autumn term. No portfolio, no appointment — just come and see the studios working.
Enquire
Register your interest through this page or by phone, and we will send you the portfolio brief the same week.
FROM THE HEAD
Send us the thing you are proudest of, not the thing you think we want.
“Every year I read four hundred portfolios and I can tell within a page which ones were made for us and which were made by their owner. The second kind is always better, and it is always the one we offer a place.
We do not set an entrance exam and we do not interview in the way most schools mean it. A conversation, yes, about the fifteen pieces you bring and how you made them. That conversation tells us more in twenty minutes than a written paper would in two hours.”
Adam Holloway · Head of School since 2019
Who we admit.
Three routes in. Whichever one applies to you, the process from here on is the same conversation about the same fifteen pieces.
Day pupils
The larger half of the school. Studios stay open until ten in the evening for day and boarding students alike, so nobody is working to a shorter day.
Boarding
Roughly half the school boards, from age eleven. Houses sit two minutes from the studios, which is the entire design brief for a boarding house here.
Sixth Form & Portfolio Year
External entry at sixteen, and a one-year Portfolio Year for students building a body of work for art school application after eighteen.
ENTRANCE EXAMS
0
There is no written paper at any stage, and no interview in the way most schools mean it.
Four hundred portfolios a year, read by the Head personally. Fifteen pieces in each. Five steps from a first enquiry to a first morning in a studio. None of those four numbers changes depending on who you are or where you are applying from.
How to apply.
Five steps from a first enquiry to your first day in a studio. There is a portfolio review at step three and nothing you would call an exam anywhere in it.
Applications for September 2027 close on 1 October. If none of the dates above suit you, say so — individual visits run all year.
Step three is a conversation about work you have already made, not a test you can revise for.
Step five is a day in the building before term starts: your studio group, and a kiln or forge induction if your discipline needs one.
Fees & funding.
What a place costs, and what it does not have to. Bursaries are assessed separately from the portfolio.
THE PART THAT MATTERS
Bursaries cover up to full fees, materials included.
They are assessed by a panel that never sees the applicant’s name. Ask about them at any point in the process. There is no separate form and no deadline that runs ahead of the main one.
- Day pupil£9,850 per term
- Boarding£15,400 per term
- Registration fee£150
- Deposit£1,000
The main hall. A bursary place and a full-fee place get the same room, the same technician and the same hours.
ENQUIRE
Tell us about your child.
A few lines is enough to start. Admissions read every enquiry themselves and reply within two working days, usually the same one.
admissions@enfoldacademy.ac.uk
+44 20 7946 0102
The next open morning is the fastest way to decide.
Every second Tuesday through the autumn term. No portfolio, no appointment.