Exeat Weekends - Kings Canterbury, Lancing and Dulwich college

[Rennypie03]

Hello, we are international parents and I am wondering if any of these schools have compulsory exact weekends? I know half term everyone goes home but I am looking for a school that my boys will not have to leave at specific weekends. Any feedback will be appreciated

I haven’t heard of a school that doesn’t have compulsory exeat weekends. If you can’t make it over, you need to assign a guardian who your children can go to.

I agree - exeats are compulsory. International parents appoint an in-country guardian who will always have a room free for the international student for the exeat weekend. Once you've got a guardian, you can always try and arrange ad-hoc things like if you've got family in the area who can take the child for the weekend but aren't reliable enough to be a guardian (or who are visiting). Also as the kids make friends sometimes they go home with their friends for the weekend but you can't rely on that every time.

I don't know about independent schools, but there are some state boarding schools where exeats are not compulsory.

Duke of York Royal Military School I think does not have exeats at all. Wymondham College does have exeats but you can pay for them to be accommodated in one of the boarding houses over the weekend.

I am not sure if any independent schools allow similar arrangements.

As far as I know, Bromsgrove School doesn't have them. They also have a team of 'guardian angels' who are staff members. They look after the boarding houses during the holidays for those boarders who don't go home. It started during lockdown, when some students couldn't go home.

Exeats are compulsory weekends away from school in the traditional Public/Indie schools, such as those you have mentioned. You need to have a guardian in the UK for them to go to for these weekends. There are various websites you can use to find a guardian with all of the legal checks (DBS etc) or you can use extended family in the country perhaps?

Other boarding schools may be different.

Sorry, just remembered that Kingsley in Bideford, North Devon does not have exeat weekends and I think international students can also stay at school for the half terms for an extra fee.

It is not a top flight school, but there are options if this is essential.

Perfect and thank you!! Bromsgrove is on my list too :-)

Wow I didn't realise some schools you could stay at school for the exeat! Ignore my ill-informed comment above OP, the right school is out there for you.

From the little I know from family members who use boarding schools because they work abroad, most of the best boarding schools have compulsory Exeat weekends every 3-4 weeks. They are usually in the middle of a half term. Then you also have some bank holiday weekends in U.K.

International parents just find and pay a good local guardian/find someone they know.
Lots of U.K. boarding schools now have weekly boarders who go home most weekends. That is something to bear in mind.

Personally I would not be narrowing my choices down just based on this 1 set criteria.
Dulwich College is more of a day school, for example. I would be asking for percentage of boarders and international boarders.

I just looked it up - Dulwich College has only 140 boarders out of a total of 1500 pupils. I would be focussing on schools with at least 35-40 per cent boarding. I would not want them to be a small minority.

Christ's Hospital in Sussex has exeat weekends but one of the boarding houses (on rotation) remains open so that interrnational boarders can stay at school. Makes life a lot easier all round.

thank you ladies. much appreciated

Can only speak for King's but yes they have one EXEAT each half term in the winter term, one in the spring term but none in the summer term. The whole school shuts and all children go home/to guardians.

Don't know if it is on your radar at all, but Millfield only has one compulsory exeat per year, in the Autumn term.

There are two schools in Bath with no exeats - Kingswood and Prior Park. Of the two, Kingswood is the more academic. I'm not sure if their results are comparable to Dulwich. I haven't checked. Their entry tests are certainly not as rigorous as Dulwich's. So they're probably taking a wider range of abilities. I believe Kingswood was Sunday Times best school in the South West or something like that. (I feel like I read that somewhere.) Dulwich's boarders are all international and nearly 100% Chinese but they do have exeats every term.

@MyCruiseControl thank you. Kingswood we're cold and indifferent towards me. It felt like they were doing me a Favour and I was bugging them whenever I reached out. So I just let it be....