Boarding school - will I regret it?

Buffysmum - thanks for confirming what I thought. If it were me I would apply for the boarding school place. I think you have thought long and hard about this and I think you would have more regrets if you were to send her to the local school.

it doesnt sound like you have much choice buffysmum

shame though

people who live at boarding school spend much more time with people from school (friends/enemies/teachers/whatever) than with their family and people that love them.
that hasn't changed

yes and what I'm trying to say is that it's been less than 10yrs since I left boarding school.......how many years is it since some of the others on here left??? Schools can and DO change for the better.

yes fannyannie I am sure you wre very lucky, extraordinarily lucky
there are many people on this thread with very different experiences

it is much easier to escape peer pressure (about drug taking, sex or whatever) from people you are at school with if you don't actually live with them 24 hours a day
I would have thought that was axiomatic

also drug taking......oh so that doesn't happen with state secondary school pupils then??????

The conservatoire sector is full of outstanding musicians who didn't go to specialist music school, or even any kind of independent school. There is plenty of choice available in the UK.
We know someone who is the head of a fairly well-known independent boarding school.
Their life-long vocation for teaching and nurturing secondary school children is heavily tainted IMO with distrust of young people and contempt for the parents that choose boarding. Some of the views this person expressed, and anecdotes related about life at weekends, have really shocked me.

well OK maybe I can offer a perspective that might be useful.
I was an academic/clever child who stuck out like a sore thumb at my primary school, and I certainly used to get a hard time for caring about work, listening to classical music and generally being a precocious little pain
I applied fo a scholarship to the local girls' high school (without my parent's knowledge I should add) and got in but they wouldn't let me go and do you know what? they were right. I would have been out of place there too, tbh. Socially, I wouldn't have had the least chance of keeping up. I would not have been happy just being with all girls. and frankly any academic benefit would have been hugely outweighed by not fitting in in any respect.
as it was, I managed to get 9 o levels, 4 a levels and an s level and went to Cambridge to study law from my extremely bog standard comp. I wasn't bullied as such, but I certainly had a pretty hard time there is certain respects from other pupils BUT I did have a good circle of friends and I was perfectly happy to ignore those people who thought I was a bit odd.

I was chippy enough ab out my working class background at college so I know if I had gone to a private secondary it wouldn't have been easy.

I think it would have been so much worse to be at boarding school. if things were
difficult at school, then at least I had lots of escape - some privacy at home, freedom to go off on my own, hang out in the library and form relationships with people who didn't go to my school through guides and the church and other incredibly spoddy pursuits that I can't name here I woudl have found the lack of means of escape of school very stultifying indeed. if you are not fitting in, being forced to live every day with it without chance of escape must be torture.
and I don't think people here think that NOT going to boarding school guarantees a good relationship with your parents. but surely, as in every other human relationship, being separated from the other person for the majority of the time can't improve matters
just my

buffysmum, I just have to say I think you are a GREAT mum for giving this issue so much thought and consideration.

Buffysmum - I think some of the posters who have responded possibly don't appreciate just how bad some state schools can be. I posted yesterday and asked for a hint if the state school is the one I'm thinking of - but I do understand if you don't want to be that specific on a public forum. I only asked because we used to live in the catchment area for this school and under no circumstances would my children have gone there. It's not really that the school is academically poor -and it is appallingly bad- but that in order to fit in with their peers and not be beaten senseless every break time the children have to conform to the awful behaviour. So - yes - bullying at any school is a possibility but no one wants to send their child to a school where bullying is inevitable.

Happily we've now moved to a relatively affluent area and we are lucky that the local schools all have reasonable good reputations.

Good luck

Hmm, I only left in 1995 and I still know some of the staff. The prospectus has changed a lot, and they have a nice new glossy website, so it all looks much nicer and more humane, but once the doors are closed it's the same old hellhole.

I dont think I would send girls to boarding schools

too much opportunity for the Alpha female to boss everyone around

also drug taking

I meant that the way they are run and bullying etc has improved greatly since a lot of you lot (I'm just a young 'un ) were at them.

yes they are much less popular nowadays

private schools that were mainly boarding now about a 50/50 mix

sunnyside - just how would my (or Beetroots children as they're in the same sort of school that I was in) education have been done at home???

I think a lot of posters on this thread are seeing boarding schools as they were 20-30yrs ago - and not as they are now.....just like with most things in our soceity they change.

can you not send her to independent day school

there's one in the next town to me that 'only' costs £6k a year

perhaps the change in school selection rules will work in your favour