Our prepayment plan allows parents and other fee payers (for example, grandparents or relatives) to pay some or all of a pupil’s tuition fees upfront. In return, the GDST applies a discount to the fees covered by the plan.
Opens: 1 May 2026
Closes: 7 August 2026 at 5pm. Applications received after 5pm on 7 August 2026 cannot be accepted.
Once the prepayment plan agreement has been signed by the GDST, funds must be received on or before the first day of the Autumn 2026 term.
If you are interested in a plan starting in the 2027/28 academic year, you will need to submit a request when the prepayment platform re-opens in May 2027.
When you request a personal illustration, the GDST calculates a defined lump‑sum payment based on:
Once your plan is set up, your prepayment is automatically applied to your fee account each term.
You will receive a termly prepayment statement showing:
Important information
Please note:
For further details on shortfalls and excess balances, please see the FAQs below.
To get started, please go to this link to obtain a personal illustration. If your child receives a scholarship, sibling discount, or staff discount, please email prepayment@wes.gdst.net to request a bespoke illustration. Please note that it may take up to five working days for the illustration to be prepared and sent to you.
Please note: the GDST cannot provide tax, financial or investment advice. We recommend seeking independent advice before making advance fee payments.
If your question is not answered below, please contact the Fees Department at prepayment@wes.gdst.net.
The minimum duration is two years.
Yes. The prepayment plan includes estimated annual fee increases. For planning purposes, the calculator uses a standard 5% annual increase.
No. Once a plan ends, a new one can be requested for future academic years, subject to the discount rate and VAT rules prevalent at that time.
Yes. An invoice and receipt for the full value of the plan will be issued as soon as full payment for the prepayment plan has been received by the GDST.
Yes, once you have accepted the offer of a place and paid the acceptance deposit
No. The discount rate is fixed at the time you sign the prepayment plan agreement and does not change for any reason during the plan’s term.
The GDST recognises that there is a financial benefit when families choose to pay school fees in advance, as these funds are available to us earlier than they would be otherwise. In common with many organisations, we therefore offer a financial incentive to families who choose to do so.
This incentive is provided through the prepayment plan. Each year, the overall incentive is a fee discount of 2.75%, applied as 0.916% per term.
Your prepayment plan agreement includes an illustration showing how funds will be used over time. This illustration sets out estimated future fees, which are transferred from your prepayment plan to your child’s fee account each term exactly as shown.
Once the illustrated (estimated) fee amount for the term has been transferred, we then add an additional amount to your prepayment plan. This additional amount is calculated as 0.916% of the balance remaining in the plan at that point. Because the discount is applied after each illustrated transfer, it is credited exactly as shown in the illustration, giving you full clarity from the outset.
The additional amounts credited to the plan are used towards future fees. As a result, families who pay in advance benefit from an effective discount of 0.916% per term, compared with families who pay fees on a term‑by‑term basis.
For clarity, any refund of fees paid in advance will be limited to the value of the funds originally deposited with the GDST, less the costs of education already provided.
That’s correct, and it is something families may wish to consider when deciding whether to pay fees in advance.
The amount added to a prepayment plan is not interest, like you would receive from a bank or savings account. Instead, it is a financial incentive to thank families who are able to pay fees ahead of time.
It may help to think of this in the same way that a hotel or travel company might offer a lower price if you book and pay well in advance. The benefit comes from paying early, rather than from earning interest on the money.
Families should also be aware that interest earned on savings accounts may be taxable, whereas the prepayment incentive is applied directly towards future school fees.
Each family’s circumstances are different, and we encourage families to consider what works best for them before choosing to pay fees in advance.
A change in whether your child is a boarder or day pupil will create a new contract between us. The fees paid in advance under one contract (e.g. for a day student) cannot be transferred and applied towards the fees payable under another contract (e.g. for a boarder). The GDST would consider any later prepayment plan request to transfer fees on a case-by-case basis but is under no obligation to do so or to refund any fees because of the change.
If your child leaves one GDST school to go to another one, then any advance payment applied to future terms may be applied towards the fees of the new school in the same way as originally applied, unless your child becomes a boarder having been a day pupil or vice versa (please see immediately above in the case of a change of your child’s status).
If your child leaves and does not go to another GDST school, then there will be no refund of any advance payment unless your child is unable to go to a GDST school because she is a day pupil and has moved too far away (in GDST’s opinion) to attend any GDST school, or because of her illness or death. There will not otherwise be any obligation for GDST to make any refund of any part of any advance payment if a child leaves before the end of the prepayment plan period.
If your child is unable to continue at or, having been offered and accepted a place, does not join the school because of her ill health or death, or because she moves home and that home is not within a reasonable distance of the school, or any other school then owned by GDST, then GDST will refund to the payer any fees paid in advance for any term in which the child is unable to attend the school in full (subject, in the case of a move, to a term’s notice being duly given by the parents under the Parent Contract). Save for any excess that may be due under clause 4 of the prepayment plan terms and conditions, in no other circumstance is the GDST obliged to refund to the payer any part of the advance payment because the child leaves (or, having been offered and accepted a place, does not join) the school before the end of the prepayment plan period.
No. Prepayment plans are not available for pupils who are in receipt of any type of financial assistance.
No. Prepayment plans are not available for pupils in nursery.
Yes. A payment plan can be arranged; however, we are unable to include the EYE as grant values are subject to change on a termly basis. Any EYE funding for which you are eligible will be applied directly to your account upon receipt. This may result in your account showing a credit balance. Any excess funds remaining at the end of the plan will be refunded (without interest, and less any outstanding amounts).
In this most unlikely case, the remaining lump–sum should be protected by the overall strength of the GDST organisation, which has substantial assets and investments to draw on should a repayment be required for any reason. However, in the event of its insolvency, GDST cannot guarantee that any part of the advance payment will be returned.
The discount is an annual figure, so the cumulative effect of this on the reducing balance over subsequent years will provide a higher overall discount.
Funds can only come from one of the following sources:
Please note that we will require a copy of the passport of the bank account holder for the account from which the prepayment will be made, and we may also request proof of the source of funds as part of setting up the prepayment plan.
Each prepayment plan covers one student only. If you would like to arrange a prepayment plan for a sibling, please complete a separate application form.
The prepayment plan does not include public examination fees. As of May 2026, examination fees are not subject to VAT.
No. In April 2017, legislation was introduced to stop school fees being part of a salary sacrifice scheme.
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