Best age for boarding; 11 or 13?

[WhereWeGoingNext]

I always though 13 was the right age with 11 being just that bit too young.

Looking around now at future options. I still have the above belief, but a lot of schools, especially state boarding schools, start at 11, not 13, therefore wondering what people thought was the best age? Is it best to go from 11 and be there the whole way through? If starting at 13, when the school starts at 11, how well do children integrate into existing boarding houses?

I appreciate something very similar has been asked recently, but particularly interested in
a) what age people think is the ‘best’ age for coping with boarding
b) entry at 13 into state boarding

[bridgetjonesmassivepants]

It was the use of the word 'coping' that prompted me to post. Also have direct experience of boarding school and was possibly unlucky but it was hellish.

[ZiaMcnab]

I went to a boarding school from 11 to 18, I was a day pupil in the first and last 2 years, but boarded between 13 and 16 (through choice) and had a brilliant time. I'll also say, at my school, there was a huge influx of new pupils at 13 (there were about 60 of us in my year 8 and we went up to well over 100 in year 9) to the extent that most of us know have to really concentrate to remember if someone was there in the first 2 years or not, so I don't think you need to worry about the social aspect of it. In terms of helping with exams, I'm not so sure; I certainly got a lot less work done while I was boarding - including through GCSE's - because there were so many easy ways to distract ourselves, as we were always together! That might be different at other schools, of course, and maybe teenagers are a bit less irresponsible about that kind of thing than we were in the 90s?!

[SurpriseSparDay]

@bridgetjonesmassivepants you may not have noticed this is the dedicated boarding school board - provided by MNHQ so that posters can discuss and ask advice about boarding without having to battle through anti-boarding rhetoric.

So this isn’t the place for your question.

[WhereWeGoingNext]

Family circumstances. Due to the nature of the job we can move very quickly and stay somewhere between 6months and 2years. Could be anywhere in the UK or oversees. We would like to give them stability during secondary school, especially for GCSEs and ALevels if they want to do them.

The DC will manage fine with moving school. They have been to plenty of schools, including ones where they didn’t even speak the same language as the rest of the kids on arrival. Their education has been varied, they have a lot of experience of different ways of being taught and of different countries and languages, have learned things they would never have learned with a more normal uk state education such as different history or geography which means they have a broader education in some ways, but have some areas which are a bit patchy. The whole point of boarding is stability during the exam years so they get to cover the content properly and have the opportunity to do as well as they can do. The question is which is the best time 11 of 13?

[bridgetjonesmassivepants]

Why does your child need to 'cope' with boarding? Why don't you just keep them at home with the family?

Your question makes it sound as though you think boarding is going to be traumatic at either age so why are you even considering it?

[NewToWoo]

I'd say 13. Some hormonal thing kicks in around then when they really want to break free from home and become independent. That would make boarding a much more appealing prospect. At 11 they may still get that desperate homesickness and feeling of abandonment which leads to boarding school syndrome. DS was ready to board by 13 - he didn't as his school didn't offer weekly boarding. But if they had, we'd have let him do it. He'd have loved it and stayed late most nights at school anyway.