Rochester is a member of the Dukes Education group, home to the UK’s leading Oxbridge, Ivy League and US, and medical school application consultancies. Our results are outstanding, but there’s more to us than that. Our students benefit from the constant sharing of best practice among our team of senior leaders who, combined, have an exceptional record of experience and expertise in education.

Founded in 1984, Rochester Independent College in Kent is a day and boarding school offering a distinctive alternative to both traditional independent education and the highly selective local grammar schools.

RIC offers full boarding school for international students from 14-18 years old.

The first thing you’ll notice when you visit RIC is that we occupy a one-of-a-kind urban campus. At the heart of a designated conservation area, the historically distinctive site with listed buildings linked by award winning wildlife gardens creates a special sense of place to explore and in which to live, study and work.

RIC aims to give students an enjoyable and successful experience of school in an international environment with small classes and high quality teaching and pastoral care.

Students in all parts of the school do not sit at rows of individual desks but gather around one table, in the style of a university tutorial. The focus is on achievement without unnecessary pressure, on examination success in a lively, supportive and informal atmosphere.

At RIC students learn and achieve more because they enjoy school and feel positive about themselves.

A school like no other. RIC's unique campus and friendly staff make the college feel more like a home than a school. There is no uniform, no bells ring, and everybody is on first name terms.

However, that doesn't stop Rochester from being in the top 5% of schools in the UK for student progress at A-level. The college’s alumni go on to great success at top universities.

University places won by students at RIC in 2019 included Oxford for Chemistry, Cambridge for History, Economics at KCL, Physics at UCL, Biological Sciences at Durham, Medicine at KCL, Law at Bristol, Economics at Edinburgh, Palaeontology at Bristol, Computer Science at Warwick, Business Economics at Loughborough and Aerospace Engineering at Bath. The most popular university destination over the last few years for RIC students has been Exeter.

The Visual Arts department at RIC is a creative and enriching environment which encourages its students to thrive, giving them the confidence to explore and develop their own personal style with support from experienced tutors offering expertise in a wide range of disciplines. Examination results are outstanding and a high number of students go on to study Art & Design related subjects at University or Art College.