Boarding School realities

[Historicalroad]

Just wondering if anyone who attended Boarding Schools between the 60s and 90s would be willing to share their experiences?

So as to not drip feed, I'm attempting, though failing miserably so far, to write a novel. Purely fictional. I have my characters and a storyline but it works best set in a boarding school.

I've never stepped foot inside a boarding school. I've no idea what they're like but I want to keep it as realistic as possible. I've trawled the internet to try and get an insight into what life is like at boarding schools but I'm struggling. I don't think the plot would fair as well if it was set today, hence why I'm looking at some time between the 60s and the 90s.

Depends if you want good or bad experiences? I attended an all girls boarding school 1991-98 and had a very mixed bag of experiences - fab opportunities but also bullying and some interesting health and safety violations (letting an 11 year old loose unsupervised in the school kitchens on a regular basis)

I was at a very elite boarding school in the late 90's on a scholarship - are there specific things you'd like to know?

That sounded so wanky, sorry! I mention the scholarship to make it clear that I'm not from a wealthy family, so my experience is perhaps coloured by that.

Why have you never set foot in one of your novel is set there? Get yourself an imaginary child and go on some open days!

@FrenchFancie any and all experiences are greatly welcomed!

I really just want a broad idea of what life was like.

I'm assuming the images I have in my head are probably quite a way off the reality.

I've read about all sorts of things that you could supposedly get up to but I guess I assume half of that is complete fiction.

I've a friend who attended a few years ago and they talked about parties every Saturday night with alcohol but these were strictly monitored and overseen by teachers and what not so those old enough to drink were able to do so in a responsible manner, etc.

In my head I picture teachers smoking in their classrooms, it's strict but all manner of things that shouldn't happen, do, and a blind eye is turned...

I was at a boys Catholic bs in the early 70s. Miserable experience, I mostly taught myself while hiding from the perverts and sadists. It marked my brothers and I for life, not in a good way.

@PotteringAlong Ha! That's a fabulous idea. That will be the next stage in the research process, I imagine!

@SpinachnRicotta I didn't at all! Anything you'd be willing to share!

What did a typical day look like? What were the relationships like between teachers and students? How strict was it? Did the students get up to things they shouldn't? Did you enjoy it?

A few random things, 80s.

• seating plan at all meals so we rotated who we sat to and got to know everyone in the house
• not wanting to sit on house mistress's table as she was scary to make conversation to and the older girls got cross if you didn't do your bit
• organised prep times in the house-study, you were expected to be there and be working
• rules about what home clothes you could wear, trousers on Wed and weekends only (!)
• limited contact with home - one pay phone in lobby area shared between 40 girls
• mandatory letters home on a Sunday
• free periods during the day to get prep done, but lessons could go on until 6pm and also Saturday morning lessons
• suits on Sunday for chapel
• not allowed to sit next to people from your own house in lessons
• really bitchy girls who you couldn't get away from because you were there 24/7

Well I went to a well known boarding school in the 80s. Certainly no teachers smoking in the class room! Not wildly different from my children's day schools now except we slept at school! Normal friends, normal interests, no major partying! There were some girls who did drugs and drank a lot - much like any school!

And quite a lot similar to what poster above said!

@DisgraceToTheYChromosome I'm sorry to hear that it was such a horrible time for you and your brother.

From what I've been googling, it seems like this wasn't an uncommon experience either.

This makes me incredibly wary about proceeding with the Boarding School setting to be honest. It seems over the past few years these historic scandals are slowly coming to light. It's truly awful!

I was a day girl at a boarding school for girls in the 80's.
The thing that I found most shocking was the lack of privacy for my boarding classmates. Eg lower years were accommodated in dormitories of 20 or so beds in rows, middle years got a cubicle with a curtain and seniors had a room with a door (although the walls were like paper).
There was lots of girls with eating disorders.
There's a million ways to hide a half bottle of vodka.

I found it a very difficult experience, partly because my social background was so different from my peers. As an illustration, I was the only girl in our year who didn't have her own pony staying in the school stables. There were a lot of great aspects to it, however, and I'm very grateful for the opportunities my education afforded me.

A typical day started with the bell waking us; we'd have 5 minutes to get into uniform and be downstairs for the morning run. Then back to tidy dorms before breakfast. Dorm inspection after breakfast, then classes in the morning, lunch, then games in the afternoon. Communal showers (!), then supper and prep (homework); and an hour of free time before cocoa and then bed. That was Mon-Fri. We had clases on Saturday mornings, and chapel on Sunday evenings, so the 'weekend' was very short.

The relationships between pupils and staff were much better and more respectful than at the state schools I attended either side of my private education. We spoke to each other politely and in a friendly way, mostly. If your dorm had the highest inspection scores for a term, you got to have an evening together in the deputy head's study - he'd rent a film and buy chocolate and have the fire on and we (the kids) would all snuggle up. It felt like a friendly uncle sort of situation - obviously not the sort of thing that would feel appropriate nowadays. There were lots of hugs from pastoral staff; the headmaster's wife would come to read to us in the evenings in bed etc.

People got into mischief, yes. At times the boys would climb out onto the roof to cross over to the girls' dorms. There were shenanigans and dares etc in empty classrooms in the evenings. The only time I was ever punished was for messing around after lights out. My dorm leader sent me downstairs to the duty master, who had me stand still for a couple of hours in the middle of the entrance hall on the cold floor.

Oh and it was extremely strict. Lots of periods of silence moving between classes / to meals that were rigidly enforced; standing when a teacher entered the room; timekeeping and discipline in the classroom; uniform presented immaculately etc.

No hints or rumours or anything of any kind of abuse at my girls school.
larger dorms were cubicles with curtains (largest was 11), smaller ones were all open, room with 7 had 2 cubicles for the 2 eldest. 1 chest of drawers, 1 chair with basket and small curtained hanging area each.
No communal showers. Actually no showers only baths, 10-15 mins each.
Early gong at 7am, had to be up by second gong 7:20 downstairs 7:40, and breakfast in main part of site 8:10.
Younger years in bed by 9pm, lights out 9:30pm, lower 6th had to be in bed by 10pm.
Upper sixth in separate boarding house, had more freedom, cooked own evening meals and breakfast with provided food.

Quality of pastoral care very dependent on the house mistress and matron. generally though I would say not a patch on that available now at my DD's comp.

Exam silence - absolute silence moving round school during exam periods, including outside buildings.

General behaviour standards very high.

Obviously no tech!

I was a boarder at a girls school in the 90s. We had fun but looking back what I remember most is the crushing feeling of loneliness/anxiety of getting it wrong (and I did make good friends). I’d grown up overseas so didn’t have knowledge of all the cool music/clothes etc and took me a while to understand the school slang - lush for something gorgeous, a lemon was a bit of a plonker. I’d never played hockey or netball etc. As my parents were on the other side of the world and they wanted me to do well I never really would say what I was feeling, v brave face plus it was a public phone in a hallway. Even worse at the time the line to where they were was dreadful with an echo. I hated having to talk to them with people walking past. We wrote a lot of letters and aerograms back and forth. Can’t rmeembwr much about the school day but a hearty breakfast then lessons etc. Once a week we had to do kitchen duty, clearing tables and pouring slops into waste buckets etc. If you did something bad you went to sin bin. If you wanted to baggsy the phone you ‘coggsed’ it. Prep was done till 8pm supervised by sixth formers, some were utter cunts. There were some ridiculous rules re hierarchy eg couldn’t use a certain exit and steps as they were for 6th formers only. A lot of boarders were weekly so it was mainly the overseas boarders around on the weekends and exeats so again it was quite lonely. My first half term I went to stay with an uncle and aunt on the other side of the country I barely knew, I was nearly 13 years old and cried all the way there changing trains twice in big cities. My parents gave us a lot of independence. So all in all there was fun and games and made good friends but some tough times too.

I was at a mixed boarding school in the 80s.

When I talk to other people about school the thing that always stands out to me is the lack of free time we had. Every minute was timetabled and you always had to be somewhere. It was better at sixth form but when I was 11 it was a huge shock to me. From the moment we were woken until lights out we were supposed to be somewhere. You could never be on your own.

Prep school was the worst for that but even when I went to the senior school at 13 we had very little time in which to do our own thing. Typically, we had breakfast, chapel, two lessons, break (10 minutes) another 2 or 3 lessons, lunch, another 2 lessons, games for a couple of hours, then another 2 lessons before tea. After tea we had prep for 2 hours in yrs 9-11, and 2.5 in sixth form. We had 5 lessons on Saturday mornings and games for much of the afternoon. If you weren't on a team you could do your own thing between 4pm and 6pm on Saturday, but as we were miles from civilisation it was either walking, reading, or music practice.

I don’t think my experience (late 70s to mid-80s) would make much of a novel. I boarded at a co-ed English school from the age of 10, my parents being long-term expats.

There was plenty of bullying and nothing much in terms of pastoral care. Matrons and housemasters were authority figures rather than home-from-home types.

We had occasional midnight feasts, with staff prowling at night and pressing ears to the dormitory door to catch any sounds. Once they got the better of us by prowling outdoors rather than indoors - we had foolishly left the window open.

School food was pretty awful, provided not in the boarding house but in a central dining hall quite a walk away. Lots of gristly meat and bits of unidentifiable boiled fish, followed usually by a stodgy sponge pudding with lukewarm custard. Our favourite pudding was Angel Delight, especially butterscotch flavour.

Any drinking/smoking/fumbles took place covertly, usually in far corners of the playing fields. Definitely no supervised alcohol parties ever. Weekends involved lessons until Saturday lunchtime, compulsory sport after lunch and boredom/prep/music practice after that. Chapel for everyone on Sunday morning and then we could be taken out for the afternoon by parents or guardians if they were around, so long as we were back in time for prep. “Prep” every evening was universally enforced under strict silence. In the younger years prep took place all together in a classroom with a supervising teacher or prefect; later on we did it in our dormitories.

We were allowed to watch some TV - Top of the Pops was a regular fixture, and the TV room would be full for Wimbledon finals etc. I can’t remember watching much other than that.

We had a booth in the girls’ boarding houses with a single payphone and often lots of girls queuing up with their 10p pieces for their turn to phone home. There was no privacy as you could hear every word the person was saying on the call.

The junior boys’ boarding house had compulsory letter-writing to parents on Sundays (with the housemaster reading the letters before they were sent) but our housemaster didn’t bother with that.

Each boarding house had a signing in & out book. If you went out but failed to sign out it was a serious disciplinary offence. Generally speaking discipline was enforced by “gating” for shorter or longer periods of time. A person who was gated was confined to the boarding house in their free time and was not allowed to change out of uniform into “civvies”. They were not allowed to see parents or guardians at the weekend. Every three weeks or so there would be a weekend leave where we were allowed to stay away over Saturday night. Other than that we were not allowed home for the weekend even if there was a family wedding or similar.

We did not have our own money. Housemaster ran a “bank” whereby parents deposited small amounts of money (£10 per term in my case!) and you could queue up to withdraw what was needed for necessities (stamps, sanitary products etc - I think we had to explain what we wanted to buy). Mostly though we were expected to use the school shop for purchases such as stationery etc, which were directly recharged to the parents.

Well I have ended up virtually writing a novel so that is probably enough from me. We did have fun (probably doesn’t sound like it)

I was a boarder from 1967-74 at a girls school. Boarding houses were age-segregated (junior to Y8; middle to Y11; senior for sixth formers was across town). Junior and senior houses were old buildings, the middle one was purpose built and modern, with showers: complete delight. Dorms got smaller as you got older, but there were no single rooms. Housemistresses and matrons came in the full spectrum, from kindly to gorgons. First junior matron was lovely and a big sister to many of the younger girls, some very young as in those days it was not unusual for children of expatriates to be sent to the UK close to relatives if their parents were in remote areas/mining camps in Africa. Another matron was the mum of one of the girls in my year. As others have written, it could be good and bad, but if you want answers to specific questions, I'll do my best to oblige. Good luck with the novel.

Oh yes LarkDescending has just teminded me about being gated. That was also the punishment at my school too. Once a girl in our year drank a bottle of vodka and was gated for a whole term as her punishment. We also had socials, usually once a term, with a local boys school. Discos and things. We had horses at our school so another punishment was being on pony care duty early on the morning eg mucking out, I didn’t mind as liked horses. Each boarding house had a common room with a TV where we’d watch Eurovision and Casualty, only really on Saturday nights. Our house mistress was ancient and terrifying, not a v warm figure. I think it’s very different now.

Read Daisychains of Silence, you can get it on Amazon. It's fiction apparently but comes across as realistic and part of the story covers a girl's years at boarding school.

But some houses had really great housemisstresses eg the kind who made hot chocolate for all her girls, watched films with them, had cost chats and cake in her study etc. Used to feel a bit envious of those houses. I do remember once our housemistress caught me and my roommate in another dorm, we’d sorinted (thundered) down the corridor to ours and leapt into bed but as we did so a chair stacked on top of a desk came crashing down with all the books stacked on top of it. Whoops! Rather hard to pretend we’d been tucked up and dreaming after that :)

Thank you, all! You've been really helpful so far, painting an overall picture of what life was like as a boarder.

More specifically, can anyone elaborate on what lessons were like? What the relationships between students and teachers were like?

What about in the sixth form, more specifically?