English Language

English Language suits students of every level who speak English as a second language. A pre-course assessment and a first-day conversation with a teacher place each student in the right class. Interactive lessons on popular topics focus on speaking with confidence, broadening vocabulary and improving fluency, and the course ends with each student giving a presentation on a topic of their choice.

Students keep the same academic subject every morning (3 hours a day, 30 hours over the course) and one elective every afternoon (2 hours a day, 20 hours) for the whole two weeks. Electives are football, sports and leadership, tennis, art, robotics, drama, photography and dance. Classes are small, all teaching is in English, and every student takes home a report and a completion certificate.

There are three two-week sessions in 2027 — 5–18 July, 19 July–1 August and 2–15 August — each running for 13 nights from Monday to Sunday, and every academic subject and elective runs in each session.

Students live in one of four traditional boarding houses on the Charterhouse campus. Most rooms are single, with some twin and quad rooms; room-mates are the same sex and no more than two years apart in age. Three meals a day and an evening snack are included, laundry is done once a week, and students use the school's facilities, including the 25-metre pool, sports hall, athletics track, theatre and art studios.

After electives, students choose each day from three activities — always something sporty and something creative, such as swimming, basketball, badminton, tennis or yoga, or drumming, painting, clay modelling or jewellery making. Evenings bring everyone together in mixed house teams for events such as a treasure hunt, talent show, lip-sync challenge, fashion show and the Charterhouse Ball. Each session includes trips to London, Oxford (with punting on the river) and Thorpe Park.

No more than 20% of students come from any one nationality, and English is spoken throughout. Every student has a pastoral leader who checks in with them twice a day, designated safeguarding leads are on site, and staff hold enhanced DBS checks with safeguarding and first-aid training. Phones and valuables are handed in on arrival; students can call home and check messages twice each afternoon. The summer school is accredited by the British Accreditation Council.