[2] The system provided funds from central government[3] for a number of pupils per year to be admitted from local education authority schools within the County of West Suffolk, selected primarily on the basis of their Eleven-plus exam results.

[4][5][citation needed] The Skinner and Hastings buildings were added in the 1960s, followed during the 1970s-1990s by an auditorium, pre-prep school, medical centre and biology laboratories.

The Culford Foundation exists to raise funds for special projects that will benefit the pupils of the school and has raised funds for the Pre-Prep nursery and dining hall; an astro-turf sports field; the William Miller Science Centre (built following a £1m donation by an Old Culfordian); the restoration of Culford Hall, the new library and the Art and Design Centre.

A Sixth Form Enrichment Programme[11] offers Open University degree modules and pupils also compete in competitions such as the Intermediate Mathematical Challenge.

Culford offers high performance academies in Tennis and Golf alongside the major competitive sports of rugby, cricket, hockey, netball, athletics, cross-country and swimming.

Regional honours are achieved whilst European and England players and champions in hockey, tennis, horse riding, karate, polo and rugby are on the school roll.

Numbered amongst current Old Culfordians are an Olympic horserider, a British modern pentathlon champion,[13] a Welsh hockey international, and club rugby and cricket players for Richmond and Middlesex respectively.

[18] The school is linked to the LTA High Performance Centre in Cambridge, and 14 coaches offer a tennis scheme encompassing a junior Academy programme.

An Activities Programme offers over sixty pursuits including climbing, clay pigeon shooting, chess, critical thinking, Cub Scouts, debating, Duke of Edinburgh's Award, expeditions, fencing, horse riding, sub aqua and Young Enterprise.

The CCF Contingent was inspected in 2007 by General Sir John McColl, an Old Culfordian, Colonel of the Royal Anglians and Deputy Supreme Allied Commander Europe.

The current CCF is the successor to several individual service cadet forces, established during the world wars and at other stages, as well as to Culford's Air Scouts troop which, in 1939, was amongst the first five nationally and which became the largest in eastern England prior to dwindling in the 1960s.

The name of the ‘Fifth Dinner Club’ (FDC) is derived from its foundation by five members of the Fifth Form - G G Hawes, R H Tuffs, Gaubert, Downs and Marley - to subvert the prefects.

It is also associated with Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese pub on London's Fleet Street, where members first dined in the 1930s and which they visit to this day.