The fees listed below are inclusive of VAT, applied from January 2025. All fees are annual and can be paid either by monthly direct debit or up front for the full year before the first day of term.
Our Nursery and wraparound care provision will not be impacted by VAT, and our Nursery continues to benefit from being in partnership with Edinburgh Council, meaning that eligible families have access to 1140 hours of free childcare, which equates to our term time nursery provision.
Fee assistance, in the form of means tested bursaries may be available in our senior schools.
Our Fee Strategy and Long-Term Approach
Our priority remains to keep fees as manageable as possible whilst maintaining the quality of education ESMS offers. This includes our plan to stabilise fees in the future through ongoing cost-saving measures that will be realised more fully post-merger. Every pound of recoverable VAT will be allocated toward reducing fees; nothing will be retained by the school.
Any extra expenses in addition to the annual school fee can be found on the relevant pages below:
Our Move to Co-Education
From August 2026 we will be fully co-educational, please click here to find out more about these exciting changes.
Additional Information
- Hot lunches are compulsory from Nursery to Primary 1 and optional thereafter. The annual charge is £896 for students from Nursery to S3, and between £697 and £806 for S4-S6 students. For Nursery children, if families are eligible for the Early Learning and Childcare Funding (1140 hours), there is no extra cost for a hot lunch.
- ESMS Nursery is in partnership with the City of Edinburgh Council, which gives eligible parents living within the boundary of the City of Edinburgh, the opportunity to benefit from 1140 hours of Early Learning and Childcare (ELC) funding a year. This equates to 30 hours of funded childcare a week, during term time, Monday – Friday, from 8.15am to 2.45pm and includes a hot lunch in our bespoke early years dining facility. The funding can be accessed for the term starting after your child's third birthday but cannot be used for our wraparound care provision. There are some caveats to the funding, so please contact Hannah Ireland, our Admissions Manager, who will help you confirm whether you are eligible.
- Childcare Vouchers or the Government backed tax free childcare scheme can be used to offset the cost of e-Plus
- For families joining ESMS from session 2022/23 onwards: Where four or more children attend the ESMS family of schools (Primary 1 to Sixth Form) at the same time, a 25% reduction in fees applies to the eldest child’s account.
- For families whose first child joined the school prior to session 2022/23: A 25% reduction in fees will continue to apply when three or more children attend ESMS at the same time (Primary 1 - Sixth Form). The discount is applied to the eldest child’s account.