Boarding Schools

Boarding schools are not necessarily the main or even one cause for the list of problems posted earlier

That is true and I don't think Nick Duffell is suggesting that with his list. It is just a list of traits that are commonly seen (not necessarily all of them) in people who have been to boarding school. I am sure that other things can cause the same traits as other experiences could have the same impact on a child's development/psychological health I suppose.

Sent to boarding school with my twin aged 10. Yonger sister joined us a couple of years later ,Parents were diplomats, would have had 8 or more different schools by aged 18 ..at least, which is why we went to boarding school.Had a very good education but left with huge fury at being separated from parents for so long, saw them 3 holidays a year and not in term time unless they were on leave in the UK..School kept us like a nunnery, locked up, so we perfected the art of deception, the school was so unreasonable.Freedom day girls had was ok but not for boarders.Dorms of 11 and no escape from bullies , and activities featured in the brochure which my parents chose the school for ,closed down..eg Girl Guides..and, as parents broke from cost of fees and getting 3 of us home to where they were, Africa, India,we never signed up for expensive school trips . The school is quite different now from 1966 to 1973/4. The boarding school 'house' you were in made a difference to what boarders experienced I think. We were in what I consider a bleak one...

Aveline

Not just boarding schools can affect people for life. Unhappy home life can cause long term problems too.
Just reading about the 330,000 children abused by the clergy in France was shocking. The Magdalen laundries etc etc. Boarding schools are not necessarily the main or even one cause for the list of problems posted earlier

I agree Aveline. How many more times is the Catholic Church going to have to apologise? And what does it actually do to compensate its victims? Isn't it the tax payer who picks up the pieces?

I dont think having a dog is an example of anything to be honest, lots and lots of day schools have dogs, I go into many many early years settings with pets. So no those photos would not have any impact on my choice of school.

Survival in these places depended on being reasonably academic, good at sport, very outgoing/confident you could wing it.
There was a recent thread on GN during lockdown where about 75% said exactly the same thing about their memories of state school. I think it is true anywhere in the world. It's j

Not just boarding schools can affect people for life. Unhappy home life can cause long term problems too.
Just reading about the 330,000 children abused by the clergy in France was shocking. The Magdalen laundries etc etc. Boarding schools are not necessarily the main or even one cause for the list of problems posted earlier

Not just boarding schools can affect people for life. Unhappy home life can cause long term problems too.
Just reading about the 330,000 children abused by the clergy in France was shocking. The Magdalen laundries etc etc. Boarding schools are not necessarily the main or even one cause for the list of problems posted earlier

Very interesting to read all the posts on here. I too was sent to boarding school at 11 and my two poor wretched brothers at 8! None of us speak much about it now but represented a pretty dire miserable period of our lives. This was in the 60s some of these places were still pretty brutal. Survival in these places depended on being reasonably academic, good at sport, very outgoing/confident you could wing it.

Sounds familiar allium

I went to a private school that was part boarders and part day pupils. The boarders all seemed very damaged and I always wondered how their later lives went. My home life wasn't that wonderful (severely depressed mother) but I think I would have done even worse as a boarder. The teachers and particularly the school matron seemed to be very cold and appeared to HATE children.

I went at 9 and was very very unhappy

I have no experience of knowing how boarding school affects children, or affects them as adults. But what I honestly can't understand is why any parents would want to send their children away like that and not have them at home.

Parents send their children to public school of snobbery

In the past it was fairly frequently because of work ...not just the forces but also one heck of a lot of children of Missionaries! There were even schools originally set up specifically for the sons/daughters of missionaries.

Yes, I did; age 11-18. I don't know anyone who went to BS who hasn't been adversely affected by it, and for many people, the impact is devastating. If you possibly can, I'd recommend the AWESOME Boarding School Survivors workshops, run by Nick Duffel's organisation. www.boardingschoolsurvivors.co.uk/events-and-workshops/
Happy to talk further if wanted - PM me for a better communication method. There is also a really useful boarding school survivors FB group.

I went to boarding school from the age of 8 - it was pretty spartan but it made me very resilient - I'm nearly 80 now and have had an extremely happy and lucky life. I hated school, but not just because it was boarding - it was all the petty rules. The plus side was that it taught me how to make friends on my own. My 'home' friends were the ones where my parents knew their parents, but school ones weren't. I've never been to prison but I always felt that it would have been much easier for someone who was at boarding school in the 1950s!

I was a troubled and troublesome teenager and sent to boarding school in desperation by father and step mother with whom I lived. Great move as ethos was Quaker and it helped settle me a bit BUT terrible education - few subjects, no out of class activities. Haven't fogiven them for not accepting that no Maths teacher and no supply while she was ill not ok even for girls. Husband boarded and was badly bullied. Our children stayed home with us!

My ex husband was sent to a Catholic boarding school in Sussex at the age of seven and it scarred him for life. He was bullied, and begged his parents to go to a day school. He blamed his mother for making him stay there, resented his sister as she went to a day school so lived at home and I think it’s what turned him into the mysogenist he is.
The catholic element made him very uptight about sex and very narrow minded about a lot if things.
I think girls do better at boarding.

https://www.gransnet.com/uploads/talk/202110/medium-624304-0-caterhamschool.jpg https://www.gransnet.com/uploads/talk/202110/medium-21100-0-jpr-sah-031219bagshot-02.jpg https://www.gransnet.com/uploads/talk/202110/medium-750444-1-jpr-sah-031219bagshot-03.jpg

Like these schools. Who wouldn't want to sign their child up?

Talking of dogs, my husband now inspects boarding schools and says the best ones are those with a resident dog or two or three. Pets do wonders for the children who are away from home.

Oh, that gorgeous puppy certainly does not fit with the image, Josianne
And you need the right Brizzle accent, yeah but no but, yeah

Callistemon

^although I am a chav inner London comprehensive school educated parent, not a Made in Chelsea.^
? I suddenly have a new view of how I imagine you to look, Josianne!

Ha ha! But I'd have to swap my Goldie puppy for a pitbull to fit in with that crowd Callistemon!

My mother was a working widow who had been a boarder herself and taught in boarding schools. She thought she was doing the absolute best and making sacrifices to send us away to good schools.
Ditto my MIL as DH was offered a free place.
He didn't enjoy it particularly but he seems to have survived the experience unscathed and appears to be relatively normal ?

Whatever normal is.

although I am a chav inner London comprehensive school educated parent, not a Made in Chelsea.
? I suddenly have a new view of how I imagine you to look, Josianne!

Very interesting to read all the posts on here. I too was sent to boarding school at 11 and my two poor wretched brothers at 8! None of us speak much about it now but represented a pretty dire miserable period of our lives. This was in the 60s some of these places were still pretty brutal. Survival in these places depended on being reasonably academic, good at sport, very outgoing/confident you could wing it.

Not all boarding schools are 'public schools' with all the snobbery attached to those words. DH went to what sounds like quite a progressive boarding school and loved it. It wasn't very academic by the sound of it but there was a huge range of opportunities offered that he'd never otherwise have had the chance to try.
I begged to be sent to boarding school as life at home wasn't great.

Lucca

Oh come on Josianne. Parents send their children to public school of snobbery, conscious or unsconscious. The camaraderie you are talking about , is that what we see in the cast of made in Chelsea then ?
There are exceptions obviously and I know of one but by and large it is a class thing.

Well that is certainly not my understanding of most of the parents I know. Other values are important.
For myself included in sending my kids to an independent school ......., although I am a chav inner London comprehensive school educated parent, not a Made in Chelsea.