Could you send your 13 year old away to boarding school?

[ShowOfHands]

If offered a full scholarship to an outstanding boarding school 150 miles away? If there was no way you could afford private education and your child was quite remarkably bright? The alternative is a good local comprehensive. Would you even consider it?

I can't afford a day school.

I read your thread title and thought no no no. My heart would break if I had to do it. But the way you have described your DD, maybe it would be the right place for her. Sorry if I've missed it but have you visited the school? I would want to be as certain as I possibly could be that they were a school that valued nurture as well as academics. I would need to know that she would be cared for, had somewhere to go/someone she could go to if she felt sad/anxious. I read an awful thread on here not long ago about a boy who was distraught about being at boarding school and the way the situation was described was just so cold, as if he were a nuisance for phoning home in tears, I felt so sorry for that boy. This seems different. I think it could work for your DD if you could bare it yourself.

Your political principles don't matter. Don't limit her life chances just because you can't understand basic economics. Quite frankly now of all times I would expect a socialist to be revaluating the merits of the politics they have supported. Think of the alternative for one second. If private schools didn't exist education would 100% be in the hands of the government. Can you not see why that isn't OK? Obviously state funded education has its place, along side an independent sector. This important for two reasons. Firstly it provides and benchmark to measure the success of state schools and secondly it provides choice for parents (although not as much as it should in Britain because the British in dependant education sector is very weak) in the event that the state fails to provide a satisfactory education. That was how state education was originally envisaged, to ensure that children whose parents couldn't afford to pay for an education (note I haven't said are due socialists) still had access to an education. If the state had a monopoly over education then the quality of education would stagnate or fall and the risk of political indoctrination would be considerable (think about education in the USSR for instance, two generations were intentionally prevented from learning adequate levels of verbal reasoning, economics and, politics in an attempt to prevent dissent. Yes the sciences thrived as a result of all the best minds being pushed at STEM subjects but rational thought in general was lost. Putin's Russia is the result). Seriously, you don't have the right to force your daughter to cobfork to your political ideals (even if you truly believe that they are the right ones), that's just really screwed up. What you are proposing is the academic equivalent of circumcision.

Would it be weekly or termly boarding?

Thanks for the unfounded judgement and unneeded explanation. I understand economics perfectly thank you and the very decision to apply might suggest to you that I am not married to an ideology. I do have serious misgivings about independent education, rooted not solely in my principles. I also have misgivings about state education but this thread isn't about that.

Thank you for all of your responses. I'm logging off for now. You were very kind to answer.

Gosh, what an opportunity! If she wanted to go I’d secretly be gutted but proud of her bravery and thrilled for her getting such a rare experience, and off her own abilities.

I freaking loved boarding school!

Showy have a hard pat on the shoulder from me.

Don't limit her life chances just because you can't understand basic economics.

This is quite funny, particularly because of the amount of bollocks that followed.

Lol at racecar driver's so called political theory
Make sure you take note of russian education systems before you make a decision wont you!!

I went to boarding school in a different country to my parents at 13. I wanted to go! I was allowed to go on the understanding that i had to attend for a year because of the notice period. I stayed from year 8 right up until i left for Uni. It was the best move for me academically & socially. Have a good chat with her about it then take her to go look around. You get a feel for a school when you visit

Tacecar - there is homeschooling

I have two friends whose children have boarded over the last year or so

They love it and the opportunity has been fantastic for them

Im sure they have had their hard moments and i know for a fact that their mums have

Thats two friends i know well, i know a number of other people whose children board and they say the same things

I wonder what Putin would do.

nope. parental bonds are too important.

I went to one, fwiw. I would never send my child ever.

He would wrestle a bear while wrestling with the idea of boarding

I was a little older when I went but it was the best thing for me. I was so unhappy at school and I think my parents really only knew bits of it.. and going away to school changed me for the better, it changed my life, it changed everything.

I would absolutely do it. I’d do it for the same reasons if my child HATED school and wasn’t remotely academic and we couldn’t find anything that worked I’d pull them out and home school. I wouldn’t rule any option out.

Very unlikely

I don’t have the same politics as you OP (im right leaning) but I do follow the same parenting ethos (BF to natural term, cosleep etc). This does not remotely fly in the face of boarding school to me because for me it’s about wanting the best for my child and understanding that the best for my child won’t be the best for another and that all you can do as a parent is respond to their particular needs at the time.

Is there a weekly boarding option Show ?
I went to boarding school at 12.5 and it made me - a cabals and bright but lazy child - the person I am today. It makes you independent, self-reliant, organised, adaptable etc. The academic opportunity is the secondary benefit (at most!)
Big question though... do you have a 'stable' (read: wholesome, nuclear or similar) family set up at home?
I really needed that as the counterpoint to the environment of school. It required you to behave like an adult a lot of the time - a good thing - but I needed that chance to be a child back home (went home every other weekend or so).

Hope that helps xxx

Unnecessary kisses, sorry... here's a tissue to wipe the slobber off! Force of habit!

Cabals = capable.

If they wanted to go, I couldn't see myself keeping them from that sort of opportunity as hard as it would be.

You'd be putting your own needs before your DD's if you refused

^ This. She sounds like an amazing girl who would thrive at this school. She wants to go. Why would you deny her this opportunity? She could meet so many like-minded souls.

I couldn’t watch my dd teaching herself theology and philosophy knowing I’d denied her the chance to study it properly, alongside friends who want to learn it too.

No. They need you a lot in the next few years to come and it priorities education/attainment over relationships for me, so I wouldn't , unless she really really really wanted to go/insisted.