To think boarding schools are an expensive version of neglect?

[WriterofDreams]

I don't get boarding schools at all. Especially for young children. I will never forget watching a documentary about 7 year olds being sent to boarding school and the fear and upset the poor girls went through being separated from their families. For what? The mums seemed to think the poor children's suffering was necessary in service of their futures. Surely it's more important for them to grow up in their families and enjoy their siblings? I don't have a huge amount of personal experience of boarding schools so I may be missing something important. I do know however know two adults who were sent to boarding school as young children and consider themselves seriously damaged by it.

Surely it's better for a young child to be raised by people who genuinely love them than by a house mother who may be kind and loving but who essentially is just doing a job? AIBU to see boarding school as a form of high class care system for the wealthy?

Xenia.................you say it all so better than me.

As for the military line..............I wonder how much coaxing the children have when talking about going to Boarding school, if it is THE ONLY ANSWER I suspect they are talked into it.

What would occur I wonder if the child said 'no''
would they [the parents] then do take them all over the world [now that would be an education in itself] or give up their military career.?

What would happen if after a year the child did not like it, would the parents want their little life disturbed or say ''tough'' your there now ride it out.

Boarding schools aren't solely run for forces kids.

At current school there are 6 forces brats (lovely children really ), out of 400 hundred children.

I do know that anyone can go boarding school..lol.

But the privious few pages were about the military and I was in the land of snooze while it was going on.

I am sure every boarding school tells the parents exactly what they want to hear. It is after all a business and they want your money..

but if the child said it did not like it and you did nothing that would concern me.

I would know if my child was unhappy because he is here everyday, I could not tell my neice was being bullied because I only saw here twice a month on average.

A childs normal behavior would change but if you only see them on and off how would you know what normal is?

Swallowedafly.... The State doesn't pay for Military children to go to boarding school. It contributes a set amount and then parents top it up depending on the school they choose. All parents have to pay a minimum of 10% of the fees per term.
Plus the wives don't travel with their husbands as if it is a holiday... In our case we have to host official guests in our own home, yes we socialise but as part of the job not necessarily through choice.
Xenia - I find it rude, insensitive and just plain wrong for you to say that "many people leave the Forces because they love their children more..... "

Forces is a minor issue. Most children at boarding school are not from forces families. There is a current issue about the state proposing to cut the subsidy (many parents already top it up to get to the school they want) but most chidlren who board aren't in the forces.

Also plenty of children particularly older boarders are perfectly happy there. I'm not suggesting they all suffer psychiatric harm although some do (as do some at day schools where they are bullied or in homes where they are abused - most abuse is at home actually not in boarding or day schools). However overall I think it is too risky to send them away. There is no escape in a sense. You are with your peers 24/7 and that's great if you're doing fine but plenty of children from time to time have a problem with their friends at school and they have the security of night time home chatting to siblings and family - it's a broader life in a sense with an escape.

The child quoted above who wants to leave is not unusual. Also plenty of children are of the personality to tell a parent what they want to hear - ie all is fine even when it isn't so don't necessarily believe what your child says. If you put it to them I would prefer if you left or didn't go then may be you'd get a different answer.

It is not rude to say that people leave the forces to be near their loved ones. Plenty of people do that. Men and women turn down promotion all the itme if it means moving away from family in civilian life too because they don't want a weekend relationship etc. We all make compromises all the time. Obviously quite a few people are pacifists anyway but that's a totally separate issue.

If you aren't with your parents they cannot watch over you. There is a distancing in many cases and I don't think that's so good, although you could argue as girls start to menstruate at 13 etc and children typically always worked from age 14 (and indeed my church has a marriage age minimum of 14) that we infantalise our children by not allowing them jobs and marriage and independence at age 14 and that would be more natural for then. They certainly have more freedom for extra marital sex, influence of other children at school who smoke (I will never forget all the chidlren going out to smoke allowed to do so by teachers at one boarding school I know) and take drugs etc. Peer pressure which is huge on teens is even more concentrated in boarding schools.

scary - no, I am not funded by my husband, I'm a single parent with only one income.

Mollie - that makes total sense to me. There are a lot of children who aren't suitable candidates for boarding school who go anyway though.

One point that is also not true for me, and for all my friends, is that the parents lose control or ability to guide teenagers. I was weekly but 16 wouldn't always go home at weekends.

Anyway we were all good. Exactly what one would want from a teenager; sociable, academic, studious, sporty, happy etc.

It's not even close to all drugs, bad behaviour and isolation.

(usual caveat not pre-teen)

So out of interest how does the funding/subsidy for forces boarders work? I know you must pay 10%, but what is the maximum per child per year you can claim?

It sounds like an excellent way to ensure your children have a top-notch education ar a bargain bucket price on your part, with the state funding the the lion's share to me. No wonder forces parents are so keen to point out how important the continuity of education/friendships etc is.

I'd remove subsidy entitlements and put forces schools with boarding facilites in place instead. If contiuuity is the really the main issue here, they'd be a huge success I'm sure - even if they churned out bog-standard lacklustre results.

As a tax payer and a full school fee payer for three children I feel a bit resentful that forces children may be in much better or more expensive schools than I can afford, at a cost that is far less than I probably pay - just so the wife can trot round the country or the world after her husband.

Don't get me wrong, I understand why you want to be with your husbands - just not why it should be the taxpayer's job to subsidise your child at an exclusive public school in order for you to do so. The state should provide no better for forces children that it provides for any children. If you want elitism pay for it yourselves!

(I do vote Tory in case you were wondering, but this smacks of hypocrisy and unfairness to me.)

How many are forces? Bet majority at top public schools are fee-paying elite.

Forces children are about 10% of all boarding children. I've not been able to find figures that break this down between prep and senior boarding. I haven't found reliable figures on how many board because of other peripatetic parental occupation (OGDs, foreign correspondents etc) or settled expats, or foreign children.

A recent AFF survey found a large proportion of families with under 18s (70%+) would leave the Forces if CEA were withdrawn because they would not put their children through the disruption of moving schools every 2 years. Even with some special provision for Forces children at the main admissions points for state schools, you are all too often faced with the only available schools being the undersubscribed. It's not a good position for those children to be in, either socially or educationally.

The phrase "top public schools" usually refers to secondary schools, not primary school age (which is where this thread started).

Oh lordy it is as Quattro posted, a whole load of people who haven't been to bs agreeing at length which each other. I see all the posters with experience of it have buggered orf....

I don't think agreeing it the word. I said it depends on the child but can be a risky option and can buy you a worse education than in a good day school like St Paul's or North London Collegiate etc

There are p[roposed changes announced in December last year for forces families
"Service personnel can claim up to £5,833 per child per term but must pay at least 10 per cent of the school fees. Around £180m a year is spent on CEA to support the children of around 5,500 personnel.

Under the changes announced today CEA rates have not been cut; however, changes to eligibility rules and the governance of claims for the allowance will reduce spend.

Claimants will retain the current levels of CEA support providing all eligibility criteria are met under the new rules.

The changes announced today should save more than £20m per year.

The most significant change to the current rules withdraws the eligibility for CEA from personnel who serve unaccompanied by their families in some locations, principally MOD London, and on seagoing assignments. "
www.mod.uk/DefenceInternet/DefenceNews/DefencePolicyAndBusiness/ChangesToContinuityOfEducationAllowanceAnnounced.htm

I do not have an issue with the funding for forces. It is a small group and I bet the decision is a very hard one. Not enviable really.

An article in the Telegraph a few years ago about a survey of parental attitdes to baording schools shows how outdated soe of the views reflected on this thread are. Boarding schools are simply not full of unloved and miserable children living in Dickensian conditions cut off from their parents.

"Almost half of parents (48 per cent) said they now see their children as often as once or twice a week during term time, while a similar proportion speak to them on the telephone each week. There are 70,794 pupils boarding in British schools, 60 per cent of whom are full-time boarders.

In addition, 70 per cent of pupils were said to have made the decision to attend boarding school with their parents and 45 per cent of parents who sent their children to the schools had not attended one themselves."

I agree with everything you say SwallowedAfly.

My husband had one such mother - put him in an English Boarding School at the age of 7 so that she could be with her husband in the U.S.

It goes without saying - it traumatised him.

Well that must have felt like, and perhaps it was, abandonment. But it doesn't follow that it is always terrible and that teenagers lose their way etc...

Are there no unhappy neglected children in day schools? Are there no families where both parents are out working and arriving home late where the child lets themselves into an empty house after school to sit for hours alone and eat a cold tea out of the fridge?

I know children who do that and frankly I think it is wrong. I would far rather a child in a boarding school with adult support and friends 24/7 - not tired, stressed parents arriving home for a couple of hours before bed to slump in front of TV or dash round doing housework and cooking dinner with barely time to talk to a child let alone help with homework and listen to them talk about their day.

Come on people, life in UK households is not exactly bliss at times - not even on MN.