Save Exeter Cathedral School

Aim

Fundraise to reimagine Exeter Cathedral School: save a small, music-rich, nurturing school through transparent, community-led transformation

More details: https://www.save-exeter-cathedral-school.co.uk/

Current offline pledge total: £15,000

We have two months to save our school!

Save our school! Exeter Cathedral School families are launching an emergency appeal to secure the school’s future. We are launching a campaign to raise £650,000 by April in order to prevent our school’s closure and to reinvent its operating model to secure a sustainable future. We need your help.

The soul of the school is in its children, staff, and families; we must act quickly to keep this community together. We are asking for your help because we believe we can develop a strategy that will maintain the ethos and community-feel of the school while ensuring its viability for another 850 years. We also want to instill confidence by confirming that donations are being acquired in an all-or-nothing model and will be returned if we are unsuccessful in raising enough funds or if we are no longer able to realise a long-term, sustainable vision and plan.

Note that you do not need to 'tip': there will be a default 20% charge, but it is completely fine to move that slider to 0%.

Why Are We Fundraising?

We believe ECS is worth saving and have begun exploring models which would improve the long-term sustainability of the school. We also believe now is the time to commit to long-term plans to widen access to the school. The funds raised will give the school the 2-3 years required to implement required changes. Funds raised above and beyond the level required to establish short-term stability will go into long-term investments for the school, such as regrowing the bursary fund. The bursary fund is a core part of our long-term strategy to preserve the school and widen access.

For 850 years, Exeter Cathedral School (ECS) has been part of the city’s cultural and educational life, surviving and then evolving alongside plague, war, economic crashes and COVID. Many in Exeter have come to assume there have always been, and always will be, scenes of children in ECS uniforms playing on the Cathedral Green in the afternoon. But, in July 2026, the school is set to close, and not because the education isn’t excellent. The school is closing because stakeholders in its future - all of us - were not given the chance to engage and drive a solution before execution.

If the school closes in July, we will lose something that can never be recovered. We will lose not just a historic school that has educated choristers for centuries, but something far more important: a place committed to nurturing and allowing children to actually be children.

What Makes ECS Irreplaceable?

ECS is a non-selective, small independent school with a reputation for nurturing all its pupils.  Anyone who has met an ECS pupil knows that kindness and curiosity are at the core of what ECS stands for. While being particularly well known for musical excellence, the school fosters the joy of learning, music, the arts, and sports in all of its pupils.  

ECS sits in the heart of Exeter, an ancient city in the county of Devon. Records from as early as 1179 mention a school for choristers on the site. The school is part of the backdrop of the city. First time visitors will notice the parents lining up on the Cathedral Close at pickup, soon to let their children loose on the green. Those with more experience look forward to the Christmas carol services every year.  

How Did We Get Here?

In the news there are many stories of small schools facing financial headwinds and being forced to shut their doors. Many will say the same of ECS. The school has been an integral part of the local and regional community for centuries. Beyond independent schools, many such institutions of historic importance have struggled in recent years, for many reasons. What is important is that there is a group of dedicated families who are eager to rally the community around ECS and save this school.

Please join us in saving this unique, historical school and reimagining the next 850 years.

This project closed unsuccessfully on 23rd April 2026