My boys go to a prestigious boarding school. Ask me anything !

[tummyduck]

Ask me anything about my boys who board at an all boys’ school ! Any disrespectful questions will be ignored

I used to work at Winchester College and always felt a bit sorry for the boys. Used to love getting back to my own kids and couldn't image not seeing them everyday. A few of the boys were on anti anxiety meds & anti depressants and really needed to be at home with their family in my opinion. Although I do appreciate the convenience of boarding school if you live/ work abroad a lot of the time.

HI, I went to an independent all girls school which had boarders, but I was a day girl. My parents were asked, by someone who had sent their children to another boarding school five hundred miles away, why they didn't send me to board. My parents replied that they didn't want to send me away to school, which was nice. Most of the boarders at my school had parents who lived far away, like Hong Kong or South Africa for example although some had parents who lived more locally and were sent away to be out of the way of their divorcing parents' conflicts. These were the ones who had the most emotional trauma. Or there could be another reason for children going to boarding school such as if their parents move around a lot, like if they are military or missionaries. That is the one reason I would send my children to boarding school so that they would have some stability in life rather than having to move around and make new friends all the time.

60k wowwww.
Ahh I assumed the allowance was per child but I guess it makes sense it’s not.

It is per child. So the allowance, in current fee levels, pays zbout 50% for each child, leaving c.£30,000 to pay for each child ie 2 x £30,000 in OP's case.

@tummyduck how regularly and for how long do you have FaceTimes with them? Do they talk to you about difficult days they have or any worries or concerns they are experiencing? And what happens when they are poorly? Even now, the only people I want to see when I am poorly are my closest family. Thanks

If you're overseas but returning every couple weeks, does the environmental impact of your very frequent flights not make you feel a bit guilty?

That’s a lot more than I thought! Half the fees for Eton. And then that’s multiplied by the number of children they have.

A big saving could be had if military kids went to a state boarding school, of which there are about 40 starting at a bargainful 11k. Some different decisions might be made then I think.

Aren't you worried that they'll turn out like the Menendez Brothers, or at worse like Boris Johnson?

Right. I’m a bit slow this evening 😂.

Gosh I am shocked at how much it is. I was thinking 11k per term would pretty much cover it.

My therapist referred to as children’s homes for rich kids. That’s as we were going through my childhood trauma - a big part of that was being dumped in boarding school. Are you concerned about the long term impact on them ?

If you were in an equal relationship where you didn’t have to agree with all your husband’s choices (you said the school wouldn’t have been your choice) where would you have sent them?

It has been long shown that girls do better in girl-only environments. Nothing new, nothing controversial.

That’s very different from the statement “girls have different learning needs”. I was curious what OP meant by that.

Is this what they call 'humble bragging'?

Why have you chosen to travel with your husband instead of you staying in England and your husband working away? This is what the previous poster was asking. Your children would then not need to board in order to continue their education.

A quick google tells me that between 20-23% of under-19s experience poor mental health. The vast majority of those are not at boarding school.

If posters care so much about poor child mental health, bashing boarding school seems a strange way to go about it.

Letting down the thread here, but I’m bursting with curiosity.

When you see them on a Sunday, how long do you actually get with them? Do you do activities together, go places, chat, sit around? Do they vanish into their rooms? Or go see other friends? Do they ever choose not to come and see you?

Do you phone them every evening? How does that work? Do they mobile phones or is it a queue to use a communal phone for a set amount of time? Are they chatty on the phone (mine are chattiest at bedtime and almost mute whenever I have to phone them)

What’s the food like? Hopefully vastly better than the typical school dinners? Do they eat well? I’m sure mine would just dodge all vegetables if they could.

How is their day organised? Is it very structured? Can they just lounge about? Do they have outings? Are they ever just alone (I go a bit insane if I don’t get time by myself)

What are the sleeping arrangements? How does laundry work? Do you have to label everything even socks or how does that work?

Do you know what prestigious means? Who do you think feels respect and admiration for these schools in this day and age?

What about motherly love and connection

You know that's not how it works right? Kids don't complain because it's all decided and they don't want to upset you/things and they say everything is fine, and then harbour resentment for years.

My parents went to boarding school ((1930s-40s). Mum from very young as did all her siblings and my father from 12 as his divorced mother lived in Africa. My mother didn’t love it but it was normal for everyone she knew. I can imagine the conditions weren’t great. My father loved his and was that happy combination of being both academic and sporty. He said they felt sorry for the day boys. But I think his mother being so far away and only seeing her once a year took its toll.
My DH went unhappily after his parents divorced (1970s). Hated it but met lifelong friends, but I think he felt being sent there was because his parents rejected him - his full bother did not go, though later on one of his half brothers did.
My stepson decided to go at 13 - Harry Potter may have played a part! My DH didn’t encourage this but he really wanted to go. £35k/year was a lot (he’s in his 30s now so hate to think what it currently costs). He had a shared room at first then his own, so quite nice set up! He did much better academically than he was doing at his day school. And he met his future wife there! He remembers it fondly.
I think going now is completely different than the boarding schools of movie fame. When I was young you were only able to leave once a term. Now it seems every weekend you can visit home. But it has to suit the child. None of the above were SA by the way but I do know a couple of Irish relatives who were in Ireland (1970s). None of them thought of school as raising them, though back in the day parents had quite a hands off attitude to kids anyway.

If it is prestigious they would have started at 13

Would you like me to tell you about all the tears I mopped up from boys at a "prestigious boarding school" as a matron/tutor/teacher?

Ask Me Anything.

And here is an example of a variety of explanations clearly explaining decisions (good or bad, right or wrong) for sending children to boarding school and the reasons behind it. The OP has failed (and no it is not owed to us, but they did start an AMA) to explain the reasons (good or bad, right or wrong) behind the decisions. It would appear that I am not alone in coming to the conclusion that the offer was dependent on the children having no option other than the board. That meant both parents needed to be overseas for a prolonged period of time and that the prestige of attending that school was the primary factor in abandoning her sons for a ‘humanitarian’ purpose overseas.

Actually there has been some academic research into this that indicates boarders fare worse on mental health than day pupils in the same schools. Another paper (linked) reports that ‘the evidence to date, academic or otherwise, points overwhelmingly towards a need for concern about the psychological impact of sending children to boarding schools in Britain.’

On the whole people on this thread are talking about the impact later in life. There is a great deal of academic and anecdotal evidence on that.

onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/bjp.12854