Boarding Schools

My siblings and I went to boarding school. My DB went early and was not happy until he was much older. I just went for the 6th form and loved it.
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.
None of us have followed suit with our own DC.

My DH weekly boarded while his parents lived abroad. He went to his DGP every weekend. He loved it and you couldn't have wanted for a better human being.

My DB tells me that a number of former teachers at his school are serving prison sentences for child abuse. He was not abused.

When I was at school, we had mixed aged dorms and there were a couple of younger girls who were very unhappy - wetting the bed, crying themselves to sleep etc and I can remember trying to soothe one who thought, perhaps correctly, that her mother and the new partner sent her away as they didn't want to be lumbered with a child.
Not that different from any situation where the parents are failures - just more money.

Not true Lucca.

We sent our children to public schools (as day pupils) for the education.

Our older children started school in the mid 70s when we were confidently assured by the then local Director of Education that Open Plan Education would be commonplace within the next 5 years which we wanted to avoid. Not sure what happened there.

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.

because the staff working in them usually are people that care about children.
I think GagaJo is correct here. I know teaching is a vocation for all educators, and all teachers work hard, but there is a difference between those who work in boarding schools and day schools.

I can't say that I have witnessed any real snobbery in the public school children I know, boarders or day pupils alike. They are after all just people living their lives like any others with their fair share of troubles too.
What I do agree with are a few comments made up thread about a certain close bond that unites boarders for life. It's not quite exclusivity or cliquyness, but a kind of camaraderie about shared experiences. Difficult to put a finger on I guess unless you have been part of it?

I think that’s probably true GagaJo.

Before I worked in a boarding school, I assumed all of the children would be very privileged. Of course, as soon as I was working in one, I realised there is more than one type of deprivation. Neglected children from wealthy families often get a much better deal at boarding school, because the staff working in them usually are people that care about children.

I think in this day and age most parents sending their children to boarding school believe they are doing the best for them. Of course they are not blind to the drawbacks, but very often their own stressful busy working lives are not conducive to having the children at home.
The trouble is no one can ever say that a boarding school child might have fared better or worse as a day pupil because we only get one opportunity, so who knows?

My siblings and I all went to boarding school. I didn’t hate it but I still remember the awful homesick feeling the night before going back. (And I insisted on coming hone to do A levels at the local grammar school) I saw my parents maybe once per term plus the holidays. I know for a fact there were girls there who had a hard time as they did them make friends easily. It was very Spartan in those days and the food was pretty dire. I don’t think it damaged me particularly. My sister sent all her children to boarding school because that was “what you do “
My boys did not go to boarding school. Apart from lacking the finance I wouldn’t have dreamt of it !

As has been said you can’t generalise about the effect or experience but I’m sorry there is for sure an element of snobbery about public school, that is undeniable.

It was tough because I was there in the 50's and the nuns were always trying to save money so little central heating or hot water. I think we were "allowed" three baths a week but there was rarely enough water. I have an obsession even now wearing clothes only once because clean clothes were at a premium there- again to save money.
Food on the other hand was better than many restaurants I have visited- we were fortunate there.

Madgran 77 they are both in their 40s. DS1 went in 1988, DS2 three years later. It was a school with a strong Methodist ethos.

So mayn different types of boarding schools- and very different times too.

Many family members went to boarding school in the late 40s aand 50s- and it was very tough then. Some were badly damaged by this and it all 'came out' later. Others say it was fine...Many nephews and nieces were at boarding school recently, and most of them loved it- bar the autistic one who did not thrive in an academic setting were GCSEs and A'Levels were all that mattered, and no alternatives.

I taught at a large State Comprehensive with a great State boarding school in the 80s and 90s, and most of our students loved it. Originally for services families, but later for all sorts of reasons, and we had many foreign students too. I used to run several out of school activities for them, and also hosted those who could not go home at half-term due to distance. As said, most loved it.

Horses, courses... I would never have sent my own children to boarding school though, and although my grand-children are at excellent private schools, I am glad they are not boarding.

I can't see anything positive about boarding schools. If parents are in the services and travelling so much that education would be disrupted beyond the reasonable then perhaps there is a case, but otherwise, why have children and then send them away? It seems incomprehensible - they grow up with other people.

I first went to boarding school when I was 5 but I did have a cousin there also who was about 3-4 years older. My mother had had an accident and could not look after me. I was there for a couple of years and then went to another when I was 11 and I loved it. Admittedly anything who have been preferable to my horrific home life.
It was a Catholic school and the nuns have put me against religion for life.
I certainly became independent and had an enjoyable professional life.

Yes I did go home every holiday and hung out with the same friends I went to school with.
We had a ‘Fijian girl’ who was our housekeeper. She was like a mother to me. She laughed all the time, cuddled me lots, smelled of warmth and coconut. My childhood there was wonderful.
My mother played bridge and mahjong with other expat ladies, I rarely saw her.
I was close to my dad though.
When we returned to the U.K. my mother became quite nasty, thinking back she may have resented having to come back for my education, who knows.
I left home as soon as possible and returned to Australia at age twenty where I finished my degree. Came back to the U.K. in my thirties because we felt our children should know their grandparents.
Funnily enough my mother was a lovely and devoted grandmother.

A friend of mine went to Harrow and he hated it so much that when he had a son he refused to send him there - and was disinherited by his own father for making that decision.

Another friend who lived in Barbados as a child was sent by her banker father to board in England when she was 11 years old; she hated it and now, at 64 years of age, she still feels its negative impact.

A third friend, the child of British missionaries to Brazil, was sent to an International (Christian) Boarding School in Brazil and loved every minute of it and although she’s nearly 60 now she still keeps in very close touch with her school friends.

I always thought I would have loved to go to boarding school. My cousin used to pass on her bundles of comics to me and I was enthralled by the Four Marys.

Different types of schools, different types of teachers, different kinds of children, different family dynamics. Hard to generalise

And different ages of attendance and different lengths of time away from parents. Did you go home every half term and holiday Laura Norder? I think that must make a difference. I think it would have to me.

LauraNorder

Different types of schools, different types of teachers, different kinds of children, different family dynamics. Hard to generalise.

Absolutely and that is where expert guidance and advice is needed.

GagaJo

I didn't go to boarding school, although given my fairly horrific childhood, it might have been preferable. I have, however, worked in boarding schools.

Almost all of the children I've worked with have thrived. For some, it was their choice to go, rather than their parents. There have been a few that I have felt were being damaged by it, but they were definitely in the minority. But maybe things have changed in boarding schools today.

I very much wanted to become a boarder at my school when my parents moved back to London. My mother decided it was not to be.

I had a horrendous time in my early teenage years as my parents did not get on. In later years my mother apologised and said it would have been better for me had I remained where I was happy.

Sorry, curlywurly, I was trying to think of a better way of saying "fed into" boarding schools.
By way of explanation I was Headmistress of a prep school and we fed into Cheltenham Ladies' College, Millfield, Bruton for Girls, Christ's Hospital to name a few.

Different types of schools, different types of teachers, different kinds of children, different family dynamics. Hard to generalise.

I was 8 years old and went until I was 18. I did not see my parents for long periods like you and Framilode as they were abroad. Mixed feelings, big favours to me educationally but emotionally/socially ...not so much!!

Josianne you say you "sent girls on" to boarding school. What do you mean by "sent on"?

Madgran can I ask what age you went? How do you feel about it now?

I was making a truthful observation LauraNorder the people I knew who were sent to boarding school at an early age were damaged adults, I didn’t say everyone was did I?
As you went from age 8 to 11 it wasn’t that long an experience maybe 6 to 16 is different I don’t know, I did go to a senior boarding and day school but I was a day pupil
I don’t doubt it can be great fun if you fit in but what happens if you don’t if you’re one of the kids whose face doesn’t fit or one who gets a bit of bullying or just left out, no mum or dad to watch your back or talk it over with for months
I m definitely not saying it’s terrible for everyone just that personally I think kids belong with their families it’s my personal observation which surely what this whole chatting thing is about

I ask the question as I also went to boarding school and am finding this thread quite interesting in the variations in response as to how ex boarders feel and how people who know ex boarders feel.