All boarding schools will claim to have good pastoral care and most do. But in your situation you don’t just want good pastoral care but excellent pastoral care. What you and your DD will experience very much comes down to the individuals you DD will be involved with, the house mistress other house staff tutor matron and the schools nurses. You need to be totally honest, talk to the admissions dept, explain your situation, the sort of person your DD responds to the best, the sort of person you can talk too, and ask to meet the HM other house staff etc, Ask to meet the head of the medical centre find out what experience they have of anorexia, I take it you have a method of managing it, discuss it with them. Do they seem helpful, interested and happy to help or are they saying yes we can do that here or no that won’t work we’d have to do it like that.
Boarding schools will take anorexics but they do have to be recovering contrary to what some parents think they are not extensions of CAMHs. The level of supervision especially for 6th formers is likely to be significantly less than you are doing at home, afterall each house will often have 60+ kids and 1 HM 1 assistant HM a matron who may or may not be residential, and 5-6 visiting other staff but they are not there all the time. You do the math. If your hoping for everymeal to be supervised that’s what a big ask. Is you DD happy to eat most foods? Most boarding school food is ok but lots of carbs, pasta etc sponge puddings etc.
To thrive at boarding you have to be pretty robust, anxious children do board but they often struggle especially in the beginning. I think I would be asking myself if my DD will have enough time to settle down and get on with her A levels at the same time. You say you know nothing about boarding it’s going to a big cultural shock. Communal living isn’t for everyone, and can definitely raise anxiety levels significantly. How quickly does your DD make friends? She’s been home schooled boarding is on the other end of the spectrum do you honestly think she’ll adapt to a totally different way of living, new friends, new environment or will this cause her anxiety/anorexia to rear its ugly head? To board successfully you have to be able to read situations very quickly adapt live alongside people you may not like some who are totally different to you, tilt untidy noisy very quiet, etc etc some find this difficult will your DD?
You need to decide what sort of boarding you want in you situation I wouldn’t consider full, (living in the school 7 days a week) she probably would benefit from knowing she can come home 1-2 of nights a week to get some space and peace. I always say don’t have the school more than a 1 1/2 hour each way travelling time you might want to be closer, so that you can easily get there if it all goes wrong.
I’ve worked in boarding schools and with anorexia although it’s not my field of expertise but it was my colleagues, if I’m being totally honest if I was told that a child was starting who’d been home schooled and had anxiety issues and anorexia alarm bells would’ve be really ringing, home schooled children do adapt to boarding but they often find it difficult, over the years I think at least 70% of those who were previously home schooled left after a shortish time. Those with significant anxiety issues can adapt to boarding, as do anorexics again I would say 70% didn’t stay or were politely asked to leave because they are unhappy and not schools have a duty of care and can’t keep safe especially if the anorexia is causing concerns.
I can’t recomend anywhere close to your home because it’s not my area.
My advise is think very carefully. I would be less concerned if you said you were familiar with boarding life, your DD had siblings there and knew about it was often in the school and was really keen to go. I’ve seen pretty robust new 6th form boarders really struggling feeling home sick, struggling to break into existing friendship groups, getting totally exhausted because boarding is very full on especially this term. Do you honestly think you’ll DD will be ok? Do talk to CAMHs or whoever you DD is seeing, ask them their opinion?