Looking for a full boarding school for sixth form

[notsurewhattowrite]

Hi
I know virtually nothing about boarding schools so asking for advice. Husband had been offered a job in the Middle East and so we are potentially looking for a boarding school for my dd who will start sixth form in 2025. Would be good to be in reach of Heathrow or Gatwick.
She's pretty academic, wants to study STEM, but not particularly sporty or into drama. Need full boarding and good pastoral care. Co-Ed or all-girls both considered. I've had a look around and seems we are already quite late in looking so I'm panicking a bit!
Help!

@SpiderRemedy I apologise. Crossed wires. I took it to mean 90% of boarders were “full”. What was meant was 10% of pupils are day and everyone else is a full boarder.
Yes Oundle is like that infact . 200+ day but they have their own two separate houses. The 12 boarding houses are total full boarding with all 3 meals in house together etc no option to ever skip a weekend save for the original exeats. It’s a huge draw for internationals precisely because they cannot skip off for Saturday night so need a commitment to proper boarding.
these schools definitely exist (but demand is falling so getting fewer and fewer) and will usually be explicit on their website that it is a full boarding school.
Whereas the wishy washy ones will skirt around it saying they offer full boarding and x% of boarder “choose” to stay at the weekend - which of course is always massively over inflated. It changes the whole dynamic of a school. Oundle is a full 7 day a week school with things happening every single day of the week. House plays may be scheduled on a Saturday or Sunday without bother because you know every member of the house will be there. Any school offering a choice in weekend boarding will never be able to schedule anything with any certainty on a weekend.

Yeah, one of the problems for international parents is that what UK based parents typically want and what international parents want has started to diverge. For DC with UK based parents, boarding patterns have become increasingly local and many parents actively want their DC home most weekends. That's obviously not a great system if you live abroad.

So yes, obvious clear choices: Oundle, Marlborough, Sherborne Girls, Christs Hospital.

Definitely nowhere with a minority of boarders and definitely nowhere that doesn't have Saturday school.

My caveat would be that I do have a few friends with boarder DC who actively like the fact the school/house is quiet at weekends as they are introverted and find they need a bit of downtime from being with people all the time. They enjoy just mooching around.

Try St. Andrew’s College in Cambridge. It sounds like it could fit well.

You've got (south west area) in no particular order. Close to Bristol airport.

Marlborough
St Mary's Calne
Dauntsey's
Millfield
Sherbourne
St Helen and Katherine
Westonbirt

Definitely consider Sherborne Girls. They seem a mainly happy bunch, there’s a lot to do and the biggest complaint locally is that they’re not allowed home at the weekend. The ones that want weekly boarding for their DDs go for Leweston instead. Sherborne isn’t the most exciting town though.

If she is academic I second Roedean, properly British but also girls come from all over the world.

I would not concern yourself with access to airports when choosing a school. I'm assuming you will have a guardian appointed to assist with the travel.

I also would not worry too much about the proportion of girls who go home at weekends - your DD will likely be invited, or you could make an arrangement with the parents. Or you can employ a guardian.

If your daughter is serious about STEM - focus on this - there are companies which act as guardians and facilitate STEM opportunities for post 16...

This may seem rude but I think you are well off the mark.
guardians do not need to help with travel at all. Schools do this (or at least Oundle does). They send buses to Heathrow with representatives who help get children (in this case a sixth former to be fair!) through check in. When younger, many parents fly over to bring their child back. Whatever is possible for each family really. It works out.

I also suggest choosing a school that empties at the weekend on the vain hope your daughter gets invited out an absolutely horrific situation.

far, far better - choose a full boarding school where your child has excellent pastoral care 7 days a week and professional and safe passage on to the plane when foreign travel is required.

yes there will need to be someone of adult age who can step in during an emergency but the OP has already said her adult big sister is at uni in the uk so is a natural adult to be on hand if needed. Nothing beats family.

although it seems at first glance that it is the obvious practical problems (eg airport connection and location of school) that are the most important issues, I can assure you these are the easiest to overcome. It is the unseen or “soft” issues that play a far bigger role in a child’s happiness at school. The culture of the school and the boarding environment are of paramount importance to the OP’s dd - not how many miles down the motorway to catch a plane …

Yes, I would probably say more than half. They have brilliant activities if you stay the weekend & sixth formers can go out at lunchtime; upper sixth have there own building like little flats, the other boarders have their own room with a basin and loads of common rooms/kitchen.. it’s great really.

I recommend Hockerill Anglo-European College - state boarding, close to Stansted airport.

And I am actually curious which school still operates a system where you can only go home during half term and the 2 exeats. (thank you @SpiderRemedy
Christs Hospital and Marlborough - probably others too.

OP, I know you are in the early stages of considering this, but while for a few people boarding school is great, in my experience that is a very small number. The few people I know who enjoyed it are really sporty (which is something boarding schools do well and they were able to do more sport than they would have in a day school.)

I know so many people who went to boarding school and absolutely hated it and it caused them significant emotional issues for many years after they left. My DH was one of them and he never even told his parents because he was worried about upsetting them. To this day he pretends to them that it was all fine. It wasn’t.

It doesn’t sound like you have a job abroad, so could you not consider staying here for 2 years until she starts university?

This isn’t the place to hash out your husband’s problems from 30 years ago. The OP did not ask for what you think boarding did for your husband. She stated their family circumstances and that they have decided sixth form boarding for their ‘ very nearly adult’ child is their best option. If you can’t help with her request, I suggest you book your own psychoanalyst to talk through what happened to your husband 30 years ago. - and leave the OP to navigate her own search for education right now in 2024.
there are thousands upon thousands of children enjoying and thriving in a boarding school education system in the present (which quite literally bears no resemblance to that of the 80’s and even 90’s - I should know, I personally experienced it) and this is why we have a forum entirely dedicated to people who have already chosen boarding as the education system best suited to their needs.
no one here has asked or welcomes naysayers, especially when rooted in decades old and thus utterly irrelevant experience, to pronounce judgement on families their have never met and whose circumstances they are totally and utterly ignorant of .
Jog on.

I imagine my husband is the same age as yours, or quite possibly older, and he loved his school. OP is probably a better judge than you of whether it’s right for her DD or not. I know large parts of MN are very strongly wedded to the idea that boarding is child abuse (while being oddly comfortable with infants being shoved in daycare 10 hours a day) but that’s actually not reality.

@leftandaright and @Marjoriefrobisher I thought my post made very clear that I do know people some people who enjoyed boarding school? As I mentioned, for sporty kids it’s brilliant. Rowers and horse riders in particular. No day school can offer the same level of involvement.

I went to a competitive London day school and work in a profession where there are a lot of ex boarders. I have dealt with a lot of “army kids”. So I really do know a LOT of people who attended boarding school, including relatively recent leavers. For the right child, it can be great. For the vast majority I know, it was a very lonely experience.

And I’m certainly not re-hashing my DH’s issues - absurd! I was just describing his situation to illustrate a potential problem - someone who didn’t share with his parents that he hated it. I know Eton is a very particular school, but it’s not uncommon for sensitive and kind children at any school not to be up front about feeling unhappy at boarding school for fear of hurting their parents’ feelings. There’s a whole issue around expectation and what is even plausible in terms of changing school, especially if the parents are abroad (I’ve seen this in diplomats’ kids too.)

I’m not sure why you have a problem with me setting this out? It’s the sort of thing I’d want to be aware of when making such a decision, if I knew very little about the boarding system and was in the early stage of considering if it was right for my child. I had hoped it would be helpful to the OP, who could listen or not. I’m struggling to understand why you care what I post?!

Just to add, I hadn’t realised this was on the boarding school board, it just came up on the active feed. So, OP, I’m really not just randomly finding messages to complain about boarding school on! Wishing you all the best.

Just to add, at Hurtwood quite a few stay at the weekends. There are quite a few overseas students and people from
further afield in the UK. Also because of the performing arts there are often weekend rehearsals so even if your DD was. It involved, there would still be people around

have you considered Hockerill in Bishops Stortford?

Some of the schools recommended don’t really fit your requirements for academic or real boarding.
I would strike LWC, Bradfield, Hurtwood, Pangbourne, Bryanston, Shiplake, Woldingham off for not being academic enough.
Wellington empties at the weekend (as does Bradfield)
If you want all girls, there are lots of expats at CLC, but I know a couple who’ve pulled their girls out as they weren’t happy. St Swithun’s in Winchester? St Cat’s Bramley? Wycombe? Check numbers in on a Saturday night.
Co ed - Brighton College? Marlborough? Canford? Charterhouse? Winchester now takes girls in 6th form. I know lots of expat families at these schools.

re Peter Symonds. It’s a great state 6th form. Very much sink or swim though. There will likely be excellent teaching (in STEM and languages particularly), but large classes and very little planned activity for students at the weekend, as the few boarders that there are (about 80/4000) mostly go home at weekends. Your daughter would have to be very confident to go alone, knowing no one.

I’m not sure what the rules are about overseas fees for uni these days (must check!), so you might be setting yourself up for huge costs if she comes with you. One of mine did some schooling in the UAE. The schools are ‘fine’. It felt rather like paying independent school fees for a shiny brand new state school to me. Very high turn over of young staff.

I’m a serial expat, so used to having to react to the change of countries / schools / jobs. I’d either rent a place in Winchester, send her to Peter Symonds College, stay with her and go to the UAE in the holidays / half term, or go to one of the co Ed schools I’ve named above which have good numbers in at the weekend. I’d actually stay away from places too near the airports, as they tend to be the ones from which there’s an exodus into London at the weekend.

Sixth form is over in a flash. 22 months with plenty of holidays, which makes the renting and staying with her more feasible. You won’t want to be in AD end of May to beginning of October if you can help it! Depends if company requires you to accompany your spouse, or if they only pay school fees rather than additional accommodation costs should you choose to stay here for a bit. Bear in mind the tax limitations for visits to the UK as a non-resident too.

Sorry for the ramble! Lots to think about.

abbey college cambridge

Thanks it may well not be right for her and then we'll rethink. If I had to stay in the UK I would but I'm already staying home for a year while she finishes her GCSE's. I also think it would be a good stepping stone to university and a great opportunity for her (if it works out). I have a few in mind now to look at so thank you to everyone who's replied, it's been very helpful.

Just to say I second Christ's Hospital. Excellent pastoral care, good all round school and they take a large percentage of kids on bursaries so there is a social mix. Beautiful place and direct links to London and Gatwick. My kids went there.

I'm not sure why so many people are recommending full boarding (i.e. not allowed out on weekends) when you stated that your daughter would want to be able to get away to see her old friends and sister etc at weekends. The fact that your daughter is currently at a school without a sixth form as you stated suggests to me she is in a state school - I think full boarding would be a huge cultural shift that she may not take well too if she has been used to her independence.

you should consider Sevenoaks School - academic., top of the tree for IB, and a great boarding provision. big international & expat community (we have just come here after a number of years in the middle east).

I think OP has a lot to get her head around.

1. Does her dd want a full non-stop boarding experience
2. Is she high ability enough to get into some of the more academic schools mentioned which are hugely competitive
3. Is she wanting co-ed or single sex
4. Does she want specific A levels or IB
5. School needs to be close enough to her family for time out
6. If it is better to stay in the UK than UAE for Uni purposes
7. Are extra curricular activities important and supported
8. STEM provision in particular

Hope that helps you with a list OP. I think it's been quite a varied thread and I'm not surprised you are overwhelmed if this is your first experience of private schooling; there is a lot to consider.