to think boarding schools are no longer ok...

Babies and small children typically (entirely?) aren’t in childcare for entire terms, overnight?

I've seen it work brilliantly for sixth form. It can be OK from 13 up. 11-13 is such a gamble. Below that, you must be mad, and although it's increasingly rare it does still happen.

My dad boarded at 6 and imo remained emotionally 6 years old his whole life. My late dh who died by suicide boarded from 8.

I spent some time yesterday reading the Makin report on the sadistic abuser John Smyth. Not that abusers can't exist anywhere but it gave a very clear view of just how toxic the belief can be that boarding schools represent something elite, instead of something that may be the only option but that is intrinsically risky for children. He could never have groomed and abused such a high number of boys and young men in a different type of school.

I was desperate to go to boarding school from about the age of 10. My parents told me years later that they discussed putting me in for a scholarship/bursary (couldn't have afforded it otherwise, and I was a pretty bright kid so may well have succeeded) but decided against it.

The reason I wanted to go was because I was desperately unhappy at home. I still wonder if life would have been better if I'd gone, I couldn't have ended up any unhappier!

I've known lots of people who boarded. I had a friend at uni who boarded because both his parents had died, and he had no other family in the UK. I know someone else who says that boarding school was the one saving grace of her childhood years, as she was there with her sisters and it was an escape from a badly disrupting and disruptive homelife; it gave them all sanctuary and stability which they didn't otherwise have.

But these people were older. Like almost everyone else, I cannot imagine sending a small child to live away from home.

I was a day pupil at a girls school which had full boarding.
I envied the boarders, my home life was chaotic and the boarders always had their homework done on time, were fed properly and had a camaraderie that I would have loved.
My opinion from talking to men and women is that girls mostly enjoy boarding and boys don’t.
Obviously not scientific at all.

Most successful actors went to private school when you start looking.

I was shocked and quite saddened. Even Nicola Walker!

TBH I don't understand why anyone would have a child and make that decision for them, however it takes all sorts to make the world go around and I'm sure that people who make that decision would hate the decisions I make with my kids too.

I had a relative board from secondary school age. Her mum had died and her dad worked in a dangerous 3rd world country and I don’t think had immigration status to live/work in uk. I suppose alternative would have been foster care.
I know someone else who needed specialist education (school for deaf) realistically there can’t be local specialist provision accessible to all areas especially if rural.
Flexi boarding also seemed a sensible option for a classmate of my dc. She had a single parent mum who needed to travel internationally for work sometimes. Before moving to private she was left with elderly and infirm grandparents who couldn’t take her to school or activities.
So I’d say always be circumstances where it may be needed.

I was one of the "remote Scottish island" kids who had to board @mitogoshigg. I loved it. It was almost like living in a Mallory Towers book (without the posh folks!)

I guess because of the circumstances it was pretty natural - there was no option so I never felt that I was "sent away". I had a much better social life as a teenager because I was away from home, and had much more opportunity to study than I would in a 3 bedroom house with 4 siblings and a grandparent. Excellent school with superb pastoral care.

I did Sunday - Friday (although quite often had sleepovers with friends at weekends). Pupils from the more remote islands didn't get home at all during term time.

I don't think boarding school is always a bad experience.

This in a nutshell

@Silvan and @pizzapizzadaddio I have my theories about that! Currently trying to figure out if I can even afford to go back to work after maternity leave myself. Doubtful at the moment. But to be honest I don't want to send my baby to nursery. He's still too little for that. I think it's dreadful we expecte mums to leave their little babies with strangers.

I'd never do it. I think it's detrimental to their mental health. I've known a few boarders and they all claim their issues go back to boarding. It's bizarre to me. Why have kids just to send them away?

I live on an island where a large number of kids board mostly in UK. Mine are 13 & 9 now and we'd only send them to board if they excelled in something that the education here couldn't offer (small Caribbean island).
That being said, I don't think either of my boys would want to go, but may change their minds at 14-15 years or so.
I have no opinion on it for teens but I personally couldn't have sent either of my kids before double digit age.

I used to feel negatively about boarding school, I had friends who had clearly been sent off to give the parents an easier life and the parents wouldn’t let them home at weekends.

But my kids went to a school which had a small boarding facility (now closed). It was used by parents who were doctors on night shift, or in the forces, or farmers who lived too far away to commute to school daily or from smaller Scottish Islands which didn’t have a high school. Also, I almost got sent when my dad was posted overseas in my high school years. In the end my mum stayed home and we saw my Dad every other weekend.

So I wouldn’t choose it for my kids, but I can see why people might have to.

It isn’t what I would choose for my children, BUT I think there are a number of circumstances where it is the best for the child - military families, foreign service, children with special musical or athletic abilities, etc.

I would also push back on the idea that it is an offloading of parenting - boarding schools work on compressed schedules so there is much more time off school. It shifts parents time for little and often to more regular longer 1:1 time. If I were still in my old job that required extensive travel the boarding cadence could work quite well and leave us with more family time - otherwise I would be relying on wrap around and nannies quite extensively.

I also think flexi boarding is a bit of a game changer. We aren’t in secondary yet, but looking ahead the possibility of flexi boarding is quite attractive for us and dc and would be best of both worlds. We would still see dc on a weekly basis, but for a couple nights a week (when they would have an early start and/or a late finish) the ability to sleep over at school is both fun for the kids and also a massive help to the schedule. I know some older children who have a 6:30am start and a 6pm+ finish depending on sports/extracurriculars, so they are just home to sleep and eat - saving the commute and staying at school makes a lot of sense.

Why wouldn't Rachel Johnson send her kids away? She has no idea how to parent because she never experienced parenting from her parents.

I absolutely adored boarding school. I wasn’t escaping an unhappy home life, and I'm not remotely emotionally stunted as an adult. BUT I didn’t go until I was 13, and it was my choice. I went to a school quite far from home so was a full boarder, and honestly had the best time of my life, and was incredibly happy, but would I have coped as well, and been as well adjusted if I’d gone at 7 or 8? Absolutely not. I think I’d have been absolutely miserable!

Depends on so many things - the school, the child, the circumstances. Many younger children can thrive, while older children can find it hard.why is everybody constantly desperate to ban everything?

@Pigeonqueen

Plenty of parents do need to board their children from 11 because there's no local secondary in state boarding schools. Smaller Scottish islands in particular often don't have post 11 education

I went weekly boarding at 16 and class those two years as some of the very best fun of my life.

I wouldn’t dream of sending DSs pre-16. The older I get the more I note that the boys I know who boarded from even 13 are (on the whole) the ones who don’t seem to form long-term relationships. (I do wonder though about correlation rather than causation…do the kind of parents who in the 80s sent prep school boys (always the boys!) off to board perhaps overlap with the more distant kind of parent?!)

I went to boarding school! From age 10-16. I absolutely loved it. I'm in my 40s and the girls I was at boarding school with are like my family. Honestly, it was a sleepover with my best friends every day. I loved it!

Lots if boarding schools will be fine

Others not