Durham has been named a member of the UNESCO Global Network of Learning Cities, reaffirming the city’s status as a place of scholarship and learning for more than a thousand years. As a Foundation educating pupils every day within the World Heritage Site, DCSF is proud to be part of the partnership behind this international recognition.
Learning City status highlights Durham’s commitment to ensuring that education, skills development and lifelong learning are accessible to everyone, of every age, both inside and beyond the classroom. Durham now becomes one of just twelve Learning Cities in the UK, joining a global network of 425 cities across 91 countries that collectively support lifelong learning for nearly 500 million people.
For DCSF, this recognition reflects what our two schools live and deliver daily. Chorister School pupils, aged 3–11, learn in the shadow of the Cathedral itself – within the heart of the World Heritage Site. On the opposite bank of the River Wear, Durham School continues this tradition of excellence, connected to the Cathedral by Prebends Bridge and offering world-class secondary education. Together, the schools share more than a millennium of educational heritage rooted in the founding of the Cathedral, while operating as modern, outward-looking independent schools with successful sister schools in Doha, Dubai and Kenya.
The UNESCO Learning City designation recognises the strength of Durham’s educational partnerships, including DCSF, and the city’s collective commitment to widening learning opportunities, strengthening digital skills, supporting fair work and entrepreneurship, and ensuring equity and inclusion in education. Initiatives contributing to the successful bid range from citywide digital skills programmes, to climate action and environmental education, to projects supporting refugees and asylum seekers into post-16 learning.
DCSF’s role within the World Heritage Site places it at the centre of Durham’s story as a place of learning. The Foundation was recently recognised as Regional Independent School of the Year: North at the Independent Schools of the Year Awards 2025.
As Durham celebrates this latest UNESCO recognition following World Heritage Site status in 1986 and the appointment of a UNESCO Chair in Cultural Heritage at Durham University in 2014. DCSF will continue to play an active role in shaping educational opportunity across the city, the region, and its international family of schools.
The UNESCO Global Network of Learning Cities will enable Durham and its partners to share expertise with cities worldwide, revitalise learning in communities, and enhance education through innovation, partnership and cultural engagement.
At the heart of the World Heritage Site, Durham Cathedral Schools Foundation remains committed to developing confidence for life in young people from across the North East and beyond, ensuring that the city’s extraordinary learning legacy continues for generations to come.
Founding partners in Durham’s successful bid to join UNESCO’s Global Network of Learning Cities are:
- Alington House Community Association
- City of Durham Trust
- County Durham Cultural Education Partnership
- Durham Cathedral Institute
- Durham Cathedral Schools Foundation
- Durham City of Sanctuary
- Durham County Council
- Durham Fringe Festival
- Durham Learning Alliance
- Durham Sixth Form Centre
- Durham University
- National Trust
- NCFE
- New College Durham
- Redhills
- The Story (at Mount Oswald)