How do you justify seding your child to boarding school?

IME it's very common for day children at boarding schools who often have to be at school from 8 am in the morning till 9 PM and even those who only live a stone throw away to change to boarding. Probably because boarders are often very close, the period after 9 PM is often a time for just relaxing mucking around and strengthening existing friendships further, dorm raids and pillow fights are also part of strengthening existing friendships and getting to know those you may not initially like. Many HM's also have groups into their side of the house or provide for all boarders, a glass of wine, a chat or a pizza or curry late at night especially at the weekend, day children may begin to feel slightly left out from a tight knit happy community and change to boarding although some parents aren't always so enthusiastic.

That's an interesting question Hakluyt. For DS's first school we initially saw boarding as a necessity. I asked my DS that same question a term or so in and several times since. He told me that he would definitely choose to board in both his schools even if he lived right next to them. In fact for his first school there were several boys who lived very close, started off as day pupils and then chose to board.

CaptChaos - it's so fantastic to hear that your son is doing so well. And so frustrating to hear how rubbish the other provision available to him was.

Can I ask - if he could have gone to his school as a day pupil, would you have preferred that? Or did you think that boarding was one of the positive things about the school?

Im so happy to see so many happy boarder families on mumsnet...Its nice

Well done Capt....I take my hat of to you....

I hope your DS enjoys school now...The most important thing I see is that kids need to enjoy school to learn.

Well done, CaptChaos, I don't suppose that was easy to post. So glad your DS found somewhere he could be himself and learn/be happy.

I don't actually have a problem with communal pants and socks!

CaptChaos.

Poor ds to have gone through so much, my heart goes out to him.
Were you in Germany? I know H.ed is illegal there.
I hope he getting the education he deserves, it certainly sounds like it.
It must have been and continue to be difficult for you to wave him off, but as you say there was no choice.
Thank you for sharing your story and I sincerely hope your ds goes on to succeed with his exams, please let me know how he gets on.

Your story makes all the comments about parents being selfish, not loving their dc etc pale into insignificance

So, if you chose to send your child to a boarding school then I'm curious as to why you chose to?

My son has SEN. I got so tired of him being illegally excluded, being taught in corridors away from the 'normal' children, being excluded from invitation to parties, excluded from life, that I took him out of mainstream school and Home Schooled him for nearly 2 years, during which time he went from a child who was terrified of people to a really quite able student. I had constant abuse from the LA, but, as they refused to entertain the idea that he needed to be in a special school, they had no case.

We moved to a country where HS is illegal, so he was forced to attend school again. He was physically attacked, spat on, taught in the corridor, illegally excluded and we'd had enough. My DH's employer would pay for DS to go to a special BS in the UK, so we took the opportunity. He was taught in classes of 8 children, he was able to concentrate on subjects he was good at, so his self esteem was built up and he was then able to tackle things which had eluded him before. He started playing sports, because he didn't have teachers and other pupils taking the piss out of him all the time. He tried new sports because he had built the confidence to try things. He has friends. Lots of them. The friendships he has are a little kooky, but they are real.

We were told, categorically that he would never be able to take any 'real' exams, this summer he took 8 GCSEs he will get an A-A* in one of them.

It broke me, every time he had to go back, but, I knew I was doing the right thing by sending him. Even when we moved back to the UK, and I made inquiries about him attending a SN day school, we were told that he would have to go to a MS one, so we demurred. If we hadn't had a government who continually experimented with making children for whom MS was not suitable go to MS schools, then the argument would have been academic, but, as so many SEN placements and schools have disappeared, then some of us are left with little choice but to send our children to BS. With hindsight though, if I had to do it all again, I would have sent him anyway.

Maryz I'm surprised about communal underpants etc at most boarding schools I know children put their socks and underpants into these brilliant individually named net bags, these go the laundry and straight into the washing machine, are dried in the bags and then returned. I'm not an organised individual at home but so impressed am I by them that I "borrowed " some bags and now we all do it. I used to have a drawer full of odd socks now a I have none.

I don't anyone should keep their child in an unsuitable school for any reason whatsoever.

happygardening- could you possibly stop getting so ariated and stop taking everything as a personal attack? Otherwise it's impossible to have any sort of discussion.

Hakluyt has any one said they are proud their DS's can't use a washing machine? I don't think my DH (day school) could use one till we bought one when we first got married. It's not exactly a complicated thing to use. Im a complete technophobe and it took me only 10 mins to work out how to use my ridiculously over programmed Miele washing machine so a I personally don't think it's worth keeping your DC in an completely unsuitable day school so that he can learn how to use it.
I also don't think anyone said that they are proud that their DC's don't think about how their clothes get mysteriously clean or more to the point that their DC's don't know how their clothes get clean. My DS is full of praise for the laundry service, turn around time 24 hours, they iron shirts much better than I ever do, he's actually never met those who do it but then in a large campus with tight H and S regulations that's not exactly surprising.

*Maryz8

Oh I love that story, but agree with your dd, how disgusting.
You would think they'd be the opposite
Its black socks in our house, me and dd have the same size and dh and the 2 ds do. I thought it would be easier when ds1 went, but it isn't.

hak

You maybe have a point there about the shirts

Oh definitely regardless of age, the dc have always had to help. Obviously age related stuff, not mowing lawns at 5 or anything, but always have a few jobs to do.
She is using it as a microphone now, singing voi che sepate. Don't ask me why, she's a bit daft.
I'm Mnetting before I tackle upstairs, when my lovely dh will take her out somewhere.

"My dd is busy mopping the floor at the moment, she has already done and pegged out 2 loads of washing as well, everybody helps round here, irrespective of talent "

And presumably regardless of age?

A bag of 21 shirts would be a bit grim too. Particularly shirts that somebody had done 5 hours piano practise in. Smellier than football kit!

Hak

I don't think they do any PE more than the necessary at this school, its not really where you go if you like sport. Maybe the more sporty schools are the ones with the laundry.

My dd is busy mopping the floor at the moment, she has already done and pegged out 2 loads of washing as well, everybody helps round here, irrespective of talent

Sorry, I used the word fagging without thought. In my family of origin, it was used to mean doing tedious unpaid work for other people. I retract it unreservedly.

Fagging, Hakluyt? That's the least of it. Considering your expertise on the subject of boarding schools I'm surprised you haven't mentioned the induction process of new boys in which they are roasted on a spit then hung upside down out of a 10th floor window.

FYI fagging was abolished many years ago.

three weeks?????

My day school son gets through 4/5 games kits a week- I dread to think what a bag containing 3 weeks worth would smell like.....!!!!!

I think at the school we looked at the dc take washing home to parents every 3 weeks and during holidays. There are less than 300 students and they don't have a laundry as I'm aware.
It gets better though, this school doesn't have an expensive school uniform or blazer, just black trousers, white shirt/blouse and the odd black frock or long skirt.
It just shows how even within the same type of school there can be huge differences.

Are people actually proud of their children not knowing how to use a washing machine, or not thinking about how their clothes get mysteriously clean?

I am trying to find the first mention of boarders being more inclined to use nursing homes, but can't. So as it has been mentioned here's my tuppence worth.

If children are incarcerated all through their childhood, parents shuttling them away for holidays, like the typical famous five children then maybe more would be inclined to.
children coming from loving homes where parents have time to spend with their children, maybe less likely to.

Some children are put into full time childcare as babies, then school and wraparound care, some parents put their career first and hardly ever see their children although they live in the same house. children begin to see this as the norm, they don't know about families being close and spending time together as it is alien to them. These are the ones who are likely to use nursing homes for their parents as soon as they can.

The Eton laundry washes 17,000 socks a week. It must be fun pairing them up.

We had to do our own washing at school.

I didn't mind that at all. And actually I just realised how much I prefer to put the wash on.

I left a load ready to go the other day and the nanny turned it on. Which cycle? Colour catcher? I was most unsettled.