Boarding from the age of 3. Who does this?

[diagonavenue]

Someone sent me this:

"Our boarding school in Villars (Switzerland) welcomes girls and boys from ages 3 to 13, as boarders or day pupils."
https://prefleuri.ch/boarding-school/

What?

I agree about boarding pre-Yr 7 but from Yr 7 onwards I am not against it. DD would love to board at her school but we just can't afford the hike in fees. I can actually see a benefit in the run up to GCSEs + A-levels. A fair few of her friends board, love it and all have healthy relationships with their parents.

There did used to be boarding options for 3yrs upwards, specifically remember a serving officer couple using it for their child and I and others silently judged.

Maybe they've had to change the rules for whatever reason but they def existed in the UK 15yrs ago.

I looked at the website and my reading of it is that the younger pupils are Day pupils, plus that school isnt UK.
If it is from 3 thats awful

This seems to indicate that boarding is open to all those who attend, regardless of their age.

And acquaintance of mine is a teacher in one of these Swiss boarding schools. Pupils are the offspring of the seriously wealthy. The kind where parent helicopters in for a meeting with the head (to lay out what they expect from the school in terms of delivering for their child) but rarely turns up to see a school play. This acquaintance sees that many of the pupils are really rather deeply insecure and unhappy but have so much wealth and privilege their coping mechanisms get very <ahem> creative and no one says anything.

What sort of creative coping mechanisms?

Do you say the same to parents that use nurseries because they work full time+?

Presumably parents collect their 3 year old from Nursery at the end of the day though, its very different to not seeing them 24/7

One thing that totally shocked me was the amount of parents sending their DC to feeder schools to get into Eton.

There are no official feeder schools guaranteeing entry to Eton. The prep school I know best sends several every year, through the normal application and entrance exam process, so there are always boys who don’t get in. OE fathers can be particularly upset if their sons don’t get an offer.

For any child of 3 in England who has to live/ stay away from home I highly doubt that school would be the motivating factor. Foster care and adoption happen when something has gone badly wrong with regard to their parents. Respite care might happen if the child requires an unusual level of care, to give the parent(s) a break. We don’t have boarding school for 3 year olds here.

Sure, but plenty can’t collect until 6 or so, which is close to bedtime. The ‘why bother having kids if you’re not going to raise them’ has been levelled at working parents on here since time immemorial. I wondered where that poster drew the line.

It's just another stick to beat working parents with

I know but they sleep at home so at least if they wake up sick or whatever a parent is there and if they ARE ill they get to be ill in their own bed not a Dorm or San.
I HATE Boarding schools but in no way do I equate them to Parents using Nurseries and thats from someone who was lucky enough not to have to use a Nursery

Let's all sneer at other parent's choices! That's fun!

Boarding schools are exactly why we end up with the Jacob Rees-Mogg's of this world, stunted and emotionless.

I have a friend who grew up in another country in a somewhat dysfunctional family (single mum who couldn't really cope). Instead of going to foster care she and her siblings were sent to boarding school at quite a young age. They came home for weekends. Not sure if the boarding school was exclusively for chidren from dysfunctional families or for anyone.

There used to be a similar sign outside a noarding school near us. I was horrified and looked into it. What it meant was they take day pupils from age 3 in their pre-prep/kindergarten, and the boarding starts later (though any age under 13 is too young imo, unless it's weekly or part time boarding.)

The Swiss must have strange rules for under 5s.

Yes I don't think we can use Swiss expectations of boarding at a young age to judge UK schools. The Swiss expect reception age day school children to walk to and from school, alone, twice a day (home for lunch). A British friend who lives there walked her son to school on the first day and the teachers said "thanks for that, we don't want to see you doing that ever again" even though the walk was at least 20 mins and crossing roads. There was also an assumption that she would be at home waiting for her son with lunch for him every day for two hours in the middle of the day, plus school is a half day every Weds.

One can imagine that a Swiss single parent commuting and travelling while working for an international company, when faced with these expectations from Swiss day schools, might start googling boarding schools for 3 year olds.

Children generally don’t start school in Switzerland until 6 or 7 with kindergarten two years before that. Once at school they are encouraged to walk to and from school independently often coming home for lunch, letting themselves in and making a sandwich if parents were out (going off a relatives experience of sending her children to swiss schools - was in a village though - may be different in big cities)

Even in the forces now it’s really not common (DH and I both ex forces).
I currently know of 2 families that do it, and they’re divorced and live opposite ends of the country, so it added a complicated layer. I think it’s pretty wrong to send a child before 13. They really need their parents.

When I was in sixth form I looked after a 4 year old boy. His school was on my way to school. I'd come to his house before he woke up as his mum left so early. I dropped him off to breakfast club, and picked him up at 6pm from after-school club. I then put him to bed and I'd do my homework. Fridays I'd take him on the train to his grandmothers straight from after school club. He would go weeks without seeing his mum.

People have children for many different reasons. There is no law that says you have to do any part of the raising yourself.

A private school near us used to advertise boarding from 0-18 years!

Later, I saw an article in a local magazine about boarding at the school. None of the children shown were babies and they must have all been over five, at least.

I think if I was very ill Ie in hospital and couldn’t care for Ds then it would be preferable to a foster care placement.

I mean personally I have dh who would look after Ds for say a year I was ill. But I don’t have any other family who could care for him, so if I was a single parent there wouldn’t be much choice.

I think a private boarding school for 9 months whilst single parent has say cancer, would be far better care if you could afford where you get to see and review and they are fully entertained v random foster care

That may be so, @Caspianberg - but it really wouldn’t be school. It would be an old fashioned children’s home. Though one would hope with immeasurably better care and supervision.

In that scenario I would prefer my child to board rather than go to a children's home