to think boarding schools are no longer ok...

[BaklavaRocks]

Inspired by another thread, and some old YouTube documentaries I've recently watched, I can't help but feel boarding schools for under 13's (i.e. boarding prep schools) have had their time.

Maybe they used to be an acceptable option, but with all the research we now have available, showing the damage done by separation of young children from their parents, do you think boarding for v young kids (8/9/10/11) will eventually be banned except in v exceptional circumstances?

And if our politicians including past PMs like Johnson and Cameron were not a product of boarding schools, do you think they'd have more compassion and be less cut off from emotion and feelings? and better able to relate to us common folk?

Ohh I watched this documentary and there was also another one about Sunningdale, which I think was actually meant to be a promotional film, but you felt so awful for those poor homesick kids 😞 that they took it down and now I can't find it.

In the documentary you linked, I just wanted to scream at that mother to take her little girl home!!!!! It was a really tough watch 😭

At my school, it's entirely your choice!

Yeah thanks. I think u r right. It's more nuanced than I sometimes see it as being ...

Absolutely.
Thw way most posters here talk about boarding school for an 8year old is exactly what I think of full time childcare for a child under school age.
Both are awful and I would expect both the have life long emotional consequences (no matter how much the parent deems they ‘love it’)
Kids need to be looked after by someone who loves them. Someone who is there day in day out for years who has unconditional love for them.

It's just unfathomable to me, not being with your parents when sick. We had to pick our son up from a residential last week due to a nasty stomach bug (which is why this train of thought came to my mind) he was so distraught to be unwell away from home (despite so insatiably excited for the trip which he loved to that point) and so utterly relieved to be home with us, which to me seems completely natural.

In the documentary you linked, I just wanted to scream at that mother to take her little girl home

Me too :) ...

Ahhhh Hope he's ok now 🤒

Yes but it isn't the ex state school pupils running the country is it?

@BaklavaRocks yes thank you, such an odd time of year for a residential, spread through the camp like wildfire, poor teachers!!

I went and it was terrible for me. My parents worked abroad and the company paid do they thought they were getting a good education for us but didn't really think about the emotional cost. They wanted to send me at 8 but i begged to not go so they made me agree to going the year later, still don't understand why i had to go that young as there were international scools where we were. The first year was awful, i actually had a physcotic episode and was sent home early one term, but no one ever explained it to me properly. My brother also went but we were never at the same school at the same time. I remember feeling so alone and abandoned. The worst thing is I never really had the confidence to take advantage of the opportunity, i just struggled through. I hardly spoke for the first 2 years, today i would have been diagnosed with selective mutism, even though I had been quite chatty at home. I actually feel great shame about the whole thing.

I think I disappointed my parents as i just wanted a family and to feel safe so career wise I haven't really suceeded in a the way they hoped. I just coped with life, and only really gained any confidence when I got married and had my own family. I have really struggled with my oldest going to uni, it's reminded me in reverse of how I felt then. I appear happy and normal on the outside today, but still lack confidence.

I think this comment shows your naivety around parenting and different parenting styles. I was not being ‘cuddled’ by my parents aged 11, in fact I don’t remember ever being hugged by my mum as a child. I wasn’t tucked into bed at night and by the time I was 11 and secondary age if I was ill and off school I was left at home alone as both parents worked and couldn’t/ didn’t want to take time off. I didn’t go to boarding school but don’t assume every child has affectionate, warm, lovey covey parents at home who would be caring for them in this way if they weren’t at boarding school. There are many children who don’t have warm, attentive or emotionally interested parents, some will attend day schools and some boarding schools, I imagine many of those at boarding schools probably fare better that those living with emotionally absent parents.

I don't understand people wanting to take away other parents' choice.

I mean, what has it got to do with anyone else?

I went to boarding school at 11. Loved it. Still close to the girls in my first year dorm decades later.

Didn't send our kids because we have the luxury of better working hours etc and I'd miss them. I know my parents missed me, but they were coping with issues that I only realised years later, they made a call at the time and put a positive spin on it, I am forever grateful they did.

The only scarring I got was probably from a part-time childminder when I was aged about 6 years old - she was truely awful. Everyone else very nurturing.

I just meant, having your children away from home makes more sense if you're still able to be in close contact with them.

My school isn't a prestigious Eton/Harrow type. None of our kids have been "sent away" because it's the done thing to do. Most do them are with us because of specific sporting programmes.

@BaklavaRocks

State boarding starts at 11 (sometimes 12 in Scotland as their cut off is different) as its standard secondary school, you attend school with the normal day students and there's a hostel for the boarders, there's a bit about it on the calmac ferry documentary on iPlayer. There's a few state boarding schools in England too but you pay sliding scale fees if you are not remote

Boarded from the age of 8. Absolutely dreadful. Used to cry myself to sleep sometimes and nobody comes to comfort you. Ran after my mums car once crying and begging her not to leave me, she just drove off. My own son is 8 now and the thought of not being there to cuddle him when he's sad or poorly is unimaginable.

I totally agree with you about nurseries. 😕

My dad sent my brother to boarding school - only because he went, no other reason.
My mum sat in my brother’s bedroom every day and sobbed, unable to get a grip on herself.
My brother graduated with honours, went to a prestigious university and was extremely successful, and was the most cruel person I’ve ever known.

Oh gosh this is heartbreaking poor 8 year old you xxx

Oh that’s so chilling. 😢

This was really sad to read. My dad went to boarding school and this is exactly how he is so your post is really insightful for me. Sorry you went through that.

My Dad was offered an amazing job in the ME in the 70s - would have set him and Mum up for life if he'd worked there for 5 years (and we don't come from privilege so it was an incredible opportunity.) It took him 5 minutes to turn the job down after they found out we would have had to go to boarding school in the UK.

He was 12. It wasn't hundreds of miles away so he did see family a few times a term at weekends (wasn't bothered - interfered with sport!)

I think it's very interesting that Prince George has not gone to boarding school so far and that he has stayed in Lambrook presumably until he is 13. The Prince of Wales is certainly breaking the mould there..(Lambrook has flexi boarding so he may do that but not the full Eton experience that his father had).

@pizzapizzadaddio
SAHM is not something that existed in Central and Eastern Europe - women worked equally to men.

Maternity leave has gotten (much) longer recently but for half a century at least it was just a few months - most now adults in Central and Eastern Europe would have been in childcare as much younger babies (2-3 months).

If this had detrimental effects all of the population of the continent would be affected, which surely they are not.

A really interesting book on that topic - the author went to boarding school from the age of 8 and is not a fan.

https://www.waterstones.com/book/sad-little-men/richard-beard/9781529114805