full boarding options for expat kids

[EMRmum]

Hi, looking for advice on boarding schools please. We are British expats living in the Middle East looking for a great boarding school for our daughter from year 9. She is an all-rounder - academic (CAT4 average 139), loves maths, in the netball team, does a lot of dance and plays piano. She's self-motivated and is pretty competitive (mainly against herself!). We've been to see Wycombe Abbey (and we and the kids loved it) and going to see Downe House in a few weeks. We obviously need backup options but we're struggling to find another suitable option other than these two.

Ideally we are looking for a good all-rounder school that is academically challenging but also lots of fun with good drama and dance offerings and somewhere that is easily accessed by both sets of grandparents (one in the north west and one in south east!) and also from Heathrow or Gatwick Airport. Since we are abroad, one on the most important things is that we need it to be full boarding rather than weekly boarding so that she won't be left at school with just a few other overseas kids every weekend. We want the weekends to be really fun with lots of friends and lots of activities going on. Happy to look at co-ed but struggling to find any other option that is academic and also still pretty full on a Saturday night.

Are there any other expat parents out there going through (or having been through) the same decision making process or any other parents at these kinds of schools who can suggest other good options for me please?

Thanks so much for your advice!

I have to assume you are not a parent of a full boarder. I’ll flip what you said and view it through the eyes of a full boarder.
During the week it’s great because your house is full and all your friends are around. You can be as busy or chill out as you please. Then at the weekend 45 of these people head home and around 15 are left. That’s two maybe 3 per year group. They are almost certainly non uk nationals. The place feels empty, like rats off a sinking ship on a Saturday night. You can’t play fun inter house sports as there aren’t the numbers to engage. There’s no “wow” house outings as it’s not economical for just 15 students. Very little meaningful activities take place because the schools is fairly deserted. So it’s the weekend, your friends are at home and probably going out and you’re stuck at school with nothing much to do and none of your friends to do nothing with!
This is why I urge parents of full boarding pupils to seek out schools that are strictly full boarding. No ifs or buts. The whole house live as one joined community 7 days a week and you ride the swells and the lows together.
no idea about southern schools but for the midlands that’s Oundle , Rugby and Uppingham. All of them are comparable in almost every way. There’s actually very little between them and all are fantastic schools.

Hi, what I was saying is that it surely depends on the temperament of your child. Clearly the fact that there are full boarders in the schools that allow students to go home at weekends suggests that it's not a completely miserable experience, or their parents would pull them out and send them to a full boarding school.

I'm not keen on absolutism and generalisations when it comes to schools, as it's so child dependent. Being a parent of a full boarder (if that's what you are) doesn't mean that you know what is best for every full boarder. As a child I loved reading and also valued my 'alone' time. Difficult to get that when you're in a house with 60 other teenagers 7 days a week.

CLC definitely does not empty out at weekends and is v popular with expat families. Good bus services to Heathrow and london. My DD is there and has been since year 7. Feel free to PM if you want more info.

@doglover90
” As a child I loved reading and also valued my 'alone' time. Difficult to get that when you're in a house with 60 other teenagers 7 days a week.”

Actually surprisingly easy in a boarding house that is set up to be a full time boarding community. These houses have built in quiet spaces where children can head to to get their chill time because they all need this at one point or another, even the most gregarious need their down time. These spaces exist 7 days a week. My dc’s house has dedicated cosy corners where children can head to at any time to get their own space.
What I advocate is choice at the weekend . Choice to be busy or choice to chill. If your child is one of only a handful of boarders left in at the weekend then that choice is removed. I’d also go as far as to say if a child preferred alone time then full boarding is unlikely to be best for that child in any case . Boarding houses are communities and communities thrive when everyone gets involved most of the time.
it is not easy to pull a child out once you realise a term in that the like you were sold about most weekly boarders staying in is a load of guff because by then you are starting to make gcse choices and frankly it could be damaging to pull them out for the summer term right before GCSE’s which is your earliest opportunity to change schools without losing a term’s fees.
As an ex full boarder myself (and also weekly boarder !) and parent to children who have both weekly boarded and full boarded, I like to think I have very good experience and a broad knowledge of what’s out there - and nothing can convince me that the best place for a full boarder is at a school that allows weekly boarding.

Christs Hospital in Sussex is a Co-Ed option, full boarding, academic, and a variety of full fees and scholarships so socially mixed.

Shrewsbury School. Mixed. Full boarding. Good balance of academic, sports, arts. Beautiful campus adjacent to lively town. Good for North West.

Its an amazing school with great links to Gatwick and its own station for trains in to Victoria but the OP has ignored it's previous recommendations on this thread.

Is the OP even reading this thread anymore?

Hi, sorry yes I am still reading but have been so busy over the last couple of weeks so no time to reply! Thanks for the further discussion. I agree that full boarding is super important. I definitely do not want my kids feeling like they've been left behind at the weekends when all their friends are going home.

Thanks also for the Shrewsbury review - I know the school well and it is indeed fab and perfect in many respects but our lives are based down south so we want to find somewhere along that London - M4 corridor area.

Has anyone had any experience of St Mary's Calne? It looks nice but I just don't know much about it...

Thank you again everyone for all your advice! x

Have PMd you

Haileybury? Very accessible from north and south. Good for all rounders - no flexi boarding option from Y9 and generally whole school in on Sat - majority board and don't go home on weekends - demographic mix good.

Really curious as to why you want to send your child off abroad for school and not have them home at the weekend? Trying not to be judgmental as I don’t know your situation but I’m honestly flabbergasted how this is all seen as normal? Do you guys ever ask if your children are ok with this? Ever wondered if they’re too scared to be honest with you?

If you’re genuinely curious as opposed to just having a dig, that’s probably a question for its own thread? The OP here has asked for help.

You are being very judgemental. This is a Boarding School forum. Expressly dedicated for positive discussion and advice about boarding schools and not for tourists with their judgey pants pulled up to their necks to pass down judgement on its users. It’s like vegans coming to a steak house and condemning its customers.
Asking the OP if her children are too scared to be honest with her is like me asking if your “girlies” are oppressed to have a smothering mother control their existence 24/7. Both concepts utterly offensive and not remotely grounded in reality!

It’s a bit far to fly to Dubai and back every weekend. And think of the carbon footprint.

Anywhere within an hour’s drive of London is not going to be full boarding: end of. The only genuinely full boarders will be those from China, HK & Thailand who have nowhere else to go. Oundle is only full boarding because it’s in the middle of nowhere and is difficult to get to/from. See also Sherborne.

And no it is not “quite nice” to be left in at the weekends when all your friends have cleared out. The food is usually much worse, the staff on duty don’t want to be there, the organised activities are minimal and/or cringe. Often the only thing to do (apart from looking at your smartphone) is homework or music practice or going to the weights room which is a pretty miserable existence.

As someone who actually works at a boarding school, I don't appreciate your generalisation about how the member of staff on duty doesn't want to be there. What you've said is actually an insult to the hard working boarding staff in schools who put things on at the weekend for the full boarders.

@doglover90 Where did I say that staff aren’t hard working? It is possible to be a) hard working and b) conscientious while also c) wishing you were at home/elsewhere with your own family.

@Ziegfeld I agree with @doglover90 - there are lots and lots of staff in boarding schools for whom it is a whole lifestyle - as such they genuinely DO want to be there with the boarders and genuinely DO enjoy putting on activities on weekends. Especially if they are houseparents or live-in, and their families are there getting to have fun with the boarders on the weekend too.

If your experience is that "often" boarding school weekends are made miserable with terrible food, nothing to do and resentful staff, it sounds like you or your kids had pretty shit time at a badly run school for which I'm sorry, that must have been awful. Better boarding schools are out there!!

Gosh, I just read this - for some reason I missed lots of messages on here! Well, it does sound very judgmental but I will give you the benefit of an answer as you might not know how wonderful boarding school life can be.

I was a boarder and absolutely loved it and felt that I had a really close relationship with my parents (and still do) because we didn't go through every day teenage angst and annoyances and, instead, holiday times were absolutely precious times together.

As for my kids, my eldest has been begging to go to boarding school for years but we've always said no because, selfishly, we don't want to lose her. The only reason for saying no (apart from the astronomical cost) is because we want to keep her at home with us. However, my daughter has heard so many stories about boarding school from me and my siblings and all her cousins, that she is really excited and wants to go too.

Now we've decided to put our own feelings aside to allow her to go and have these fantastic experiences that we just can't offer her where we live - the extra-curricular activities, the sports, the fun activities at the weekends, the extra time with friends and naturally learning independence and tolerance. I have three children and my time is limited so they can't do all the activities they want because logistically I can't get them all to different places each afternoon. But at boarding school the sky's the limit and they can try out so many different things and do whatever activities they are drawn to.

Far from "sending them away", we are sacrificing our time with them at home during term time in order to offer them amazing opportunities because we love them so much and want them to have brilliant experiences. My other two children weren't so keen on the idea so we never pushed it with them but as soon as they started looking at schools with the eldest, they all decided they wanted to go because it looked like so much fun! I will miss them terribly but I will make sure we have amazing times together in the holidays and I know they will feel every bit as loved and as close to us as they did when they were at home!

Thanks for this suggestion - that school had slipped my memory. I'll have a look at it now as I remember it from back when I was at school! Thank you!

Almost everyone full boards at Sedbergh. Weekly isn't an option. Drama is a big deal there, it's not all sports! Location not ideal for you though.

Dd is at Haileybury so biased - but we certainly don’t recognise the everyone clears out and weekends are miserable/ a certain demographic.

We live about an hour away and generally bribe her to come home once in a while but always accompanied by an entourage of friends until the holidays.

I would suggest you to visit Marlborough because honestly I don’t think it deserves its reputation (or at least no more than many boarding schools). I wasn’t sure we would like the school but we visited anyway and it completely usurped our expectations. If you want a school with little or no weekly boarding, strong academics but also excellent music, art etc, it’s definitely worth a look.

Our experience of the school is a little out of date now but we are not a smart or particularly monied family but my DD settled quickly and never felt out of place there. 5 years after leaving is still great friends with so many people from the school and says her time at the school was amazing. I would caution though that you need to be quite independent and confident to get the best out of the school.

definitely try for wycombe abbey as i currently go there and is a great balance between academics and extra curricular
but if not beneden or lady eleanor holles???