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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

in thinking that if it's generally accepted that the family is usually the best place to raise children....

433 replies

gabygirl · 16/12/2008 10:08

...... (except in cases where there is serious abuse and neglect) when it comes to the care system, why so many people seem to abandon this principle when it comes to the issue of boarding school?

I haven't been able to stop thinking about this issue all morning. Last night I sat up until midnight watching that documentary on channel 4 about the boys who were abused at Caldicott. It stirred up so many sad feelings in me and made me cry. I felt so sorry for those men.

I went to boarding school myself at the age of 11 and although I wasn't sexually abused, I was so starved of intimacy and affection in my relationships for the next 5 years that it really affected my sexuality when I finally became sexually active at 15.

Did anyone else see it? The other thing that was sad about the film was the men's desperation to protect their parents against the knowledge that they'd exposed them to abuse, and in one case turned a blind eye to it even after they knew it had happened.

OP posts:
babylovessanta · 16/12/2008 14:14

Agree with OP.

scaryteacher · 16/12/2008 14:15

It might be interesting, but it's biased and a load of bollocks. I wonder if he'd recognise my dh as an early boarder...doubt it.

As for: Middle-class parents would have a powerful incentive to send their children to schools with poor results, then to try to ensure that those schools acquired good resources and effective teachers. They would have no interest in sending their children to private schools.

No....they wouldn't. Who is going to risk their kids GCSE results if the school can't be turned round in time? They'd employ tutors and home ed.

If boarding schools are so bad, why are there state run ones?

TheButterflyEffect · 16/12/2008 14:20

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needmorecoffee · 16/12/2008 14:22

Is it just me who thinks being happy is more important than 'GCSE results'? You can take GCSE's at anytime or even skip them alltogether.
When dd reaches 11 there is nowhere for her to go to school. There's no school for severely physically impaired children and the local schools I wouldn't send a dog too. I'll probably HE cos no way would I send a child who can't shout for help to a boarding school, even one like Treloars. Too many kids in residential SN schools get abused.

combustiblelemon · 16/12/2008 14:24

I would never use a boarding school. DH has told me about his experiences at one. Nights of lying awake listening to the muffled screams of boys being raped by older boys. Abuse and bullying can happen anywhere, but if it does happen at a boarding school, there is no escape- there's no safe place or let-up for weeks on end.

TheButterflyEffect · 16/12/2008 14:25

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babylovessanta · 16/12/2008 14:26

There is no way I would send my DC to baording school full stop. I would not trust other people with my children on all sorts of levels.

babylovessanta · 16/12/2008 14:27

combust - that is so sad.

sleepyeyes · 16/12/2008 14:28

DH is a forces child and went to boarding school for a year as where they were stationed didn't have a school.

He didn't really enjoy it but that was more to do with never having lived in Scotland then suddenly left here to board it was all a bit sudden.
His parents aren't terribly affectionate either but they claim that's more to do with DH being boarderline autistic. Parents are either affectionate or they aren't regardless of how you school and its possible even if you didn't go to boarding school that you would have problems with affection/sexuality as they would still be the same unaffectionate parents at home.

I on the other hand would have loved to have gone to boarding school but there was no way my mum would ever have allowed that, I was rarely allowed to play in the back garden unsupervised at the age of 10 never mind go to boarding school.

If a child of ours wanted to go to boarding school then I'd let them go, if they don't enjoy it then they could always come home.
Plus times have changed it is very common now to weekly board nowadays.

KatieDD · 16/12/2008 14:28

One of the mst fucked up little bunnies i ever met went to a £12k a year boarding school and her sister stayed home with the parents.
I can't even imagine what happened to allow that situation to arise but she tried to convince everyone it was great fun !

combustiblelemon · 16/12/2008 14:29

My DH was lucky to get away with regular beatings. His father chose the school 'to toughen him up'.

babylovessanta · 16/12/2008 14:31

When stories like these are public knowledge - I don't understand how anyone could think boarding is ok?

scaryteacher · 16/12/2008 14:35

If I was in your shoes NMC with your daughter, then other things would be more important than GCSEs.

For me, in our situation they are important, as he needs them to go on to A levels/IB and uni if he decides to go. He will already be at a disadvantage as both parents have degrees (have to for our jobs - the Govt says so), and he is privately educated (only Flemish speaking state schools where we are), so he needs good GCSEs to be in with a chance. He also needs them to be able to get a job when he is older. Despite my degree, I had to show I had my O level English language and Maths to teach.

sleepyeyes · 16/12/2008 14:37

KatieDD thats really sad.
DH feels guilty as after the summer holidays he refussed to go back but his brother got sent back for another term (I think they may have already paid for the term in advance) and his brother has always been quite resentful not towards his parents but DH. As DH was the older brother and I think his brother may have felt let down when he had to go back alone.
DH is just a bit if he didn't want to go back he should have refused like me.

DH just point blank refused to get in car, warned them if they managed to het him to the airport a major toddler tantrum at check-in so he would be refused to board and promised he would run away.

combustiblelemon · 16/12/2008 14:41

I think there are probably dozens of wonderful schools, but I'm just unwilling to take the risk of finding one of the awful ones. It's probably more about the children than the school itself actually. Think of the worst bullies of your school days, then imagine them with 24 hour access to you and yourself with nowhere to run to. Boarding creates a lot more opportunities for bullying.

noonki · 16/12/2008 14:42

As a parent, I struggle to find a single situation in which I would send my children to a boarding school.

I would change my professional to be with my children.

if I were really ill, I would get in homehelp to help us all (if I could afford bs I could afford this)

but nothing on this earth would let me be separated from them whilst they were still children.

My dad went to one as did some of my cousins. They all have distant relationships with their families. I want to be as close as possible to my kids for a long as possible.

scaryteacher · 16/12/2008 14:44

How many of you posting the anti-boarding stories have actually physically been in a modern boarding school or met the staff? They are closely regulated and inspected, and the kids are the first to shout if anything is wrong. You just need a whiff of something being wrong as a teacher or a housemistress, and you are out.

One of the most fucked up little bunnies I ever met was a pupil at the school I taught in (state comp) and she had been fucked up in every sense of the word by both her parents, and I felt sick every time I looked at her, as I could not imagine anyone doing those things to a child.

TheButterflyEffect · 16/12/2008 14:48

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KatieDD · 16/12/2008 14:54

I think if DH and I were killed our children would have to go to boarding school because there would be nobody who could take care of them on a day to day basis, so if anybody knows a good one I should put in my will could they share it please.

Original poster
gabygirl · 16/12/2008 14:55

"When stories like these are public knowledge - I don't understand how anyone could think boarding is ok?"

I could tell you a few....

The junior boys housemaster who used to make the boys walk naked into the bathroom from the dormitory and then watch them closely while they washed (to make sure they were doing it properly....) who then got the boys to wash him when he broke his arm and was in plaster....

The housemaster in my house who was found with photos of a year 8 girl in her underwear in his home, but who wasn't dismissed.......

Of the history teacher who was shagging my 15 year old friend in his house on the school grounds

Of the retired colonel who ran the CCF who got another friend of mine wedged up against a desk and rubbed his crotch on her...

Of another friend who got drunk and was raped by a boy in my year at a school party on the premises - nothing was done....

Of the school doctor nicknamed 'Fingers O'Flynn' because he used to stick his hands down your knickers every time you went to see him - no matter what for'

Of the housemistress we used to knock up on purpose late in the evening because we knew she'd always be drunk

Of the violent lesbian transexual teenage neice of a minor middle-eastern royal who assaulted several girls in the school before being quietly moved on

Of the 14 year old Iraqi girl who was in my dormitory who wet her bed every night - her English was really bad and she was very lonely.......

I could go on, and on..... my teenage years were full of these sorts of happenings......

OP posts:
Poppycake · 16/12/2008 14:56

Isn't it like so many things - it all depends - on the child, on the parent, on the school. I worked as a house mother for a while, and the weekly boarding seemed to work really well for the older girls. A lot of the younger ones either were forces children or had parents with jobs that made certain demands. I loved being in loco parentis for some really fantastic kids. I don't think I'd have liked it at all for myself, but then perhaps my not being much of a "joiner inner" is to do with spending so much time on my own in my room!

I absolutely take the point re bullying and worse, but then you have to watch for that in whatever school you send them to. Lots of people come out very happy and fulfilled - and sure they want their children to have the same experience. I'm not one, but I do understand what they're getting at.

chickenfortea · 16/12/2008 15:00

hear hear scaryteacher,
I wouldn't board my child in any school just as I would not buy any house, or any car. I would research it 110% before I committed my children to them.
There are messed up and let down children in all walks of life.
Boarding is not synonymous with abuse or neglect.

babylovessanta · 16/12/2008 15:02

"I absolutely take the point re bullying and worse, but then you have to watch for that in whatever school you send them to. "

Yes you do but if your child comes home to you every night - you have more chance of finding out if something is going wrong.

scaryteacher · 16/12/2008 15:03

Katie - Canford in Dorset - it's where dh went in the 70s (and no bad happenings either), and I know some kids who are there now and very happy. It's one of the schools I'm considering for ds.

As you say Poppy, it depends on many things. Bullying happens in the state sector as well, as do many of the things described by Gaby. I remember being groped by the welsh woodwork teacher at my comp when I was 11; and various very unpleasant goings on between students at another comp I taught at. It isn't just in the private sector. In fact, I saw less needle and bullying when I taught at a boarding school.

babylovessanta · 16/12/2008 15:04

Sorry, but there is no way that any parent can be sure that there child is not going to be abused at boarding school. Unless you are able to watch their every move, people can be manupilative. No way i would risk it.