Education in Derby

Like most of the UK, Derby operates a non-selective primary and secondary education system with no middle schools. Students attend infant and junior school (often in a combined primary school) before moving onto a comprehensive secondary school. Many secondaries also have sixth forms, allowing students to optionally continue their education by taking A Levels after the end of compulsory education at age 16. For those who want to stay in education but leave school, the large Derby College provides a number of post-16 courses.

Outside of the state sector, there are two fee-paying independent schools, Derby Grammar School, which caters for boys and considers itself, quite spuriously, a continuation of Derby School (which was one of the oldest schools in the country), and Derby High School, which caters for girls (and also boys at primary level only).

There is also one secondary school, Landau Forte College, that is independent of the local authority but partially state-funded. It is one of fifteen City Technology Colleges set up by the Conservative government in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

The University of Derby is the city’s university.

In 2003 the University of Nottingham opened up a graduate entry medical school which is based in the Derby city hospital.