Lycee Francais Charles de Gaulle

The Lycée Charles de Gaulle is the oldest and largest French school in the UK, founded in 1915 in Victoria and at its purpose-built South Kensington site since the late 1930s. Over 3,400 pupils aged 3 to 18 across the main school and feeder primaries.

Pupils follow the French national programme through the Brevet, then choose the French Baccalauréat stream or a modified British stream taking GCSEs and A Levels. Brevet honours rates run near 100 percent and Baccalauréat results are strong. Fees are partially subsidised by the French state and run roughly GBP 10,000 to GBP 21,000, well below the central London independent norm.

Ofsted rated the school Good overall and Outstanding for quality of education in October 2024, recovering from an Inadequate rating in 2022. Families describe a huge, oversubscribed school with a cosmopolitan feel, tough but caring, with size cutting both ways: deep facilities and peer group, but a more impersonal experience than the smaller bilingual alternatives. Best fit for French-curriculum families who want the full Bac pathway at French-state pricing.

• The UK's largest and oldest French school, on a South Kensington campus, certified by the French Ministry of Education.
• Parents consistently describe an academically demanding, French-style environment with a heavy workload and limited pastoral hand-holding. One parent said the school operates on a "sink or swim" basis with little supervision or nurture.
• Anglophone children without strong French at home are flagged as struggling, with some families switching out for sixth form. A British Section is available in later years for families who want a different pathway.
• The site is cramped. Parents describe long days and odd timetables driven by a building that is too small for its enrolment, with extracurriculars and sport often pushed outside school.
• The 2022 Ofsted inspection rated the school Inadequate, citing weaknesses in personal development and in leadership and management, particularly around safeguarding processes required of UK independent schools. Academic quality and pupil behaviour were rated Good in the same inspection. The Inadequate finding is significant and recent, and should be weighed against the school's strong academic outcomes.
• Outcomes remain strong: a near-100% Brevet pass rate and high A* to A rates at A Level and GCSE, plus a 100% French Bac pass rate with around a quarter of distinctions in 2022.