Charterhouse, Ardingly, Headington or Haileybury?

[Stonejade]

Dear Mums, we are an overseas family. My daugther has got year 10 offers (full boarder) from the above four schools. We have no idea which one to choose as no knowledge about UK boarding schools. Priorites for me are : Pastoral care, kids' happiness, teacher-student ratio, boarding school facility. Would really appreciate your feedback epecially from current families from the above schools. Thank you so much in advance.

Hello @Stonejade , my son is in the 6th form at Charterhouse .We are very impressed with the school and I honestly can't fault it .The pastoral care is outstanding, the children's happiness is their priority. Boarding houses are warm and comfortable, the teaching is top notch. They have clearly worked very hard to welcome girls into the school. It's a gem in my opinion.

My son attended a boys boarding school pre 6th form ,we know what poor pastoral care looks like. It is wonderful now to be in a school where your child's happiness, well-being and academics are their main priority. I don't know the other schools on your list. Good luck with your decision.

Check level of full boarding at Ardingly. They offer weekly and casual boarding as well as day pupils so may not be busy on a Saturday night.

Thank you both very much. May I know whether Charterhouse also has a lot of weekly and casual boarding, or majority kids are full boarders?

Headington has only very small numbers of full boarders.

Rye is supposed to be merging with Headington this year and I can say that there is only a few full time boarders at Rye too.

Mine flexiboards and I would think there are a few weekly boarders too.

Facilities look good at Headington though. Biggest disappointment to me at Headington is the size of school, class sizes are bigger, pastoral care doesn't sound as good as Rye.

If your dd is staying in at weekends, choose a school where everyone in the boarding house stays at weekends is paramount .
as a rule of thumb, if a child can go home for the weekend, they will and others follow suit.
speaking from experience there is nothing worse than being a full boarder at a school that allows weekly boarding in your boarding house. You become reliant on friends to take you back with them so you’re not billy no mates with the other overseas kids on a Saturday night and Sunday (which totally drags when few are around with you).

I don’t know the schools on your list but finding a bonafide weekend boarding school should be high on your priority list.
schools will fob you off saying children choose to stay in but that’s poppycock! At sixth form there are parties at the weekends and if children can go to these they don’t choose to stay at school over heading out with friends.

Of the schools you've listed only two are majority boarding: Charterhouse (>90%) and Haileybury (~2/3rds). Both allow boarders to go home on Saturday night and are close to London so probably empty out between Saturday evening and Sunday evening.

There are still a few boarding schools that still only allow boarders home for the occasional Saturday night aside from exeat weekends.

Is your DD the kind of child that would be happier with quieter weekends with the mostly international contingent that will stay in?

You say you have no knowledge of UK boarding schools. How did you come to apply for those schools? Were they recommended by a consultant? Tbh, I think you're mad if you're making a decision this important and expensive for your child without visiting in person.

I replied to an earlier post in the other section about choosing between four different schools!!

I guess I can speak slightly more intelligently about school selection from a girl's perspective.

Despite some schools having over 90% boarding rates, post covid, schools are becoming very flexible about exeat arrangements. If your school is close to London, then many students (based on my observation and other intel) do go home on open weekends. Since you appear to have chosen (or maybe suggested) four schools around the M25 then I would imagine you will lose a lots of students at weekends. However again I would suggest one looks at your daughter's personality and attributes and match it against the school. Co-ed vs. Single Sex. Size of the school. Try to get indepth knowledge of how the school operates in terms of academic expectations vs non academic activities and the culture within the school.

Specifically I have a friend who has kids at Headington. The boarders are primarily international. Pastoral care is decent. School not too pushy. The school is close to town which is a benefit when you get to Lower Sixth and Upper Sixth and have more freedom. Oxford has lot of exciting things happening in town.

Oundle, Uppingham and rugby are all nice proper boarding schools with busy weekends but are further north.
Oundle and rugby would have the better connections to international airports.

If at all humanly possible you need to visit these schools with your daughter. There is no advice from well-meaning strangers on the internet that can replace going in person especially given your daughter’s age. When we visited schools we had done ALL the research online, but instantly got a very different vibe in person from the school we had expected to love, and completely changed our minds to our second choice school which just “felt” like a better fit for our child.

@Stonejademay i know where did u go finally?