Thanisjanes Yet, the kids meet ordinary people when they use state boarding provision. I'm as ordinary as you can get, state educated from the ground up, and boarded at a state sixth form. Had I not moved abroad to join dh, then ds would have boarded eventually at prep school. It would have helped me to do my job teaching at a local comp.
I don't think you have a clue just how ordinary most boarders are. My db boarded, Dad was in the RN. Mum was a low grade civil servant. I went to comp. I was the first in my family to get A levels, which gives you some idea of my parents educational back ground. Both had O levels, but that was as far as their parents could afford for them to go with education. They left school in the late 50s and went out to work. We were an ordinary family.
Not all private schools are Eton or Harrow....and it is unfair to tar them all with the same brush. One boy I taught at local private school, I had previously taught at a sink comp on PGCE. The private school, with smaller class sizes, setting, ethos, consequences and a Head who held the line on discipline, began to turn him around.
Fyi, ds has never been skiing, as he didn't want to go, and we couldn't afford it. When boarding he went on trips that helped his A levels. I would also add that I have met snottier parents and more entitled kids at the International school ds attended abroad as a day pupil, than I did in my time teaching in the private sector, and bring a prep school Mum.