Safeguarding

[BellaB52]

My boys, who are quite sporty, have a desire to go to a boarding school and I have been told to look into Millfield and Repton. It will be the first time that they will have been away from home so safeguarding is a big concern. Does anyone have any insights?

@BellaB52 You need to presume they will be safe. All schools have a safeguarding policy and they publish it. You might hear stories of years ago but it would be very unlucky to encounter this now.

Why schools so far apart? Millfield is huge and like a boarding comp. How academic are they?

Millfield has been seen as a sporty school for some time. Repton is a hockey specialist school and increasing its cricket provision. A lot of scholars at both these schools at National:elite level so if your children are sporty but not elite, then they will be B team at these schools.
far better to choose a school which offers the sports your boys are interested in and enquire as to the development they can access if they went to that school.
most of the big boarding schools have extensive sports provision. Start by deciding if you want weekly boarding or compulsory full boarding (where everyone stays 7 days a week for up to 3-4 weeks at a time with no option to go home after matches on Saturday. These are the only two types of boarding school : full or flexible.
All boarding schools offer full boarding but only schools that do not allow pupils home on Saturdays (except for set exeats) are actually full boarding. So do your homework and decide why is right for your family.
then make a shortlist of schools you’d like to look at. And go visit. Speak to pupils. Online research. Friends recommendations . Study their safeguarding policies. Each school will have a safeguarding lead you can speak to. Thousands of pupils in the uk board with no safeguarding issues but there are some lax schools out there and occasional horror stories in recent times. Ampleforth is one such school but they have made strides to over some this. It’s all about what feels right for you and your boys.
If you tell us if you’re after weekly or full, roughly where you are in the country and what sports your boys like, we can hopefully suggest some options for you.

Never presume safety. That's not how safeguarding works.

@CeruleanDive You would never do anything if you thought all teachers and sports coaches were a safeguarding risk. Parents are not ever in a position to check everything and everyone. It’s impossible and there has to be trust. That also goes for the local football club. So yes, you do have a presume a school or club is doing its utmost to keep dc safe. The church too.

I would look at sports offered and also check academics and entry requirements.

You just never “presume” safety. To say that is simply wrong.

I suppose if you go with the safeguarding mantra of 'it could happen here' or 'it is happening here' you need to check the school is taking safeguarding seriously, and at that age give your child the tools to spot thier own red flags and the confidence on how to raise them. Boarding school has a specific risk that they sleep on site and you can't see any change in behaviour, weight, etc that might flag an issue to you. But hopefully frequent visits and calls would help.

When it comes to online stuff which is a very big risk to children I'd expect the schools online filtering and monitoring to br way better than in you own homes

I think the safeguarding risk is always going to be higher at boarding schools as the children are in a more vulnerable position away from parents, more limited contact, likely less close to their parents if parents have chosen to send children away etc.

Thanks for all of your responses. I am really thinking about violent behaviour from other pupils at a boarding school and not being able to escape the bullies as they’ll be at school 24*7. I’ve heard a lot of scare stories that schools/ headmasters cover up pupil violence to avoid scrutiny, as was reported in a Times article a few years ago.

Honesty, I’m not sure boarding school is for you.

If you genuinely fear violence from other pupils just don’t send them. You do need to trust the school totally, trust that it’s safe and nurturing, be confident that you‘ll be told of the slightest issue.

I have a boarder, this genuinely never crossed my mind. Would you be worried, on edge, concerned throughout?

Both of those schools are very sporty, Millfield particularly (based on my experience). If you do proceed I would agree that it might be better to go for a strong local boarding school where you can visit and watch matches. Your sporty DC would be more likely in the A teams and might be happier unless they are at national level.

This does happen @BellaB52 and yes it is covered up by the school. My DS was witness to some very disturbing behavior ,some boys are untouchable. Certain families are very valuable to the school.It's a very unhealthy environment in my opinion. DS did leave to attend a London day school for 6th form .He loved his new school, there wasn't anything extra offered at boarding school. That is just a myth.

He didn't go to either of the schools you are asking about perhaps our school has particularly poor pastoral care.

Your choice of school will be dependent on what sports they want to play. Repton is strong for football, hockey, cricket but doesn't play rugby. They all have very strong safeguarding in place. Suggest you go and have a look round. The facilities are great, but the fees are also eye watering.

If your boys are there by choice vs necessity that’s a good starting point. Let them know that at any point they can return home. Teen on teen violence, I’d not bother with “safeguarding” or a second try. One event and pull the boys (or boy). If they’ve been involved in club sports they’ve most likely experienced some unpleasantries associated with locker room behavior or banter. I’d be having solid serious discussions with them BUT keep a healthy detachment from “loving” any aspect of any school, so you have zero second thoughts about pulling them and a plan B.

Our DDs boarded but only 1 hour from home. Modern boarding means you see them a lot! Every match if you want to. Parents at good schools have a lot of communication with their dc and the school. I’m not sure the op has thought this out. Plus you do have to assume a school is safe. You really have no way of checking personally. However if something is wrong and dc unhappy, then listen to them. Remove them if they are not happy.

Millfield is relatively close to us and we have friends there. It is a great school that we are seriously considering applying to as our reserve option. I have never heard anything bad about it in terms of safeguarding.

That said, we also have lots of friends at Blundell's who all rave about the school and rightly so, and look what happened there.

Also, as others have said, I am not sure if "quite sporty" will cut it at Millfield if your boys enjoy the kudos of being on the A team. It is a massive school full of sporty kids. I think a lot of "quite sporty" boys and girls end up on the C and D teams.

Wasn’t Blundells a murder? What happened to any pupils? That’s almost impossible to deal with. How would any safeguarding procedure have dealt with this? Safeguarding is looking for signs a child is being abused. Making sure DBS checks are made and rigorous records kept. Listening to dc and taking forward any concerns. Any parent really has to believe a school is doing this and being vigilant. A murdering spouse is difficult to spot.

It wasn't a murder because nobody died, but a boarding pupil attacked two other boarders with a hammer while they slept and then a member of house staff who intervened. There was no spouse involved.

By referencing DBS checks, it sounds like you are focusing on cases of abuse, which is probably correct and what the OP had in mind. I was thinking about safeguarding the safety of a child more widely, but ignore me.

Ah! Got the wrong school. Should have checked. Wasn’t a head killed by her husband?

@tachetastic Whst you say is valid but incredibly difficult to check in advance. The hammer incident might have been predictable - might not. It depends if school ignored what pupils said or traits they should have noticed. Lots of people use a broad scope for safeguarding which isn’t really what was intended. I do believe most schools fully understand bullying and that it must be stopped but dc cannot always be prevented from being awful. In school or anywhere else.

When you send kids to boarding school you are essentially paying someone else to parent and bring your children, you pay and hope they do their best. They don't because they can't, so you have to rely on your child telling either you or the school about any bullying. My youngest is at our local school and bullying happens, it's a 'posh' school but bullying happens everywhere, you've either got to trust them or don't send them. Personally I don't trust them so don't Send mine - not that I would anyway

… and yet you hang out on a forum expressly for supporting people in their boarding school journey. Must hold some kind of appeal and fascination for you to be on here - either that or you enjoy being mean to people?

@leftandaright ... bury your head in the sand forum? Or getting opinions from all sides? If you just want to hear from people in boarding schools of course you'll get a skewed bunch of opinions ... and I wasn't looking at the specific forum as I look at the recent posts so all sorts of things come up

That is what the boarding school forum is for @FloofPaws If you don’t like the idea, that’s fine, but keep your views away from this forum. It’s not helpful to anyone and obviously you have no experience to offer because you’ve never done it.

I have experience, you are absolutely right @FloofPaws . How can these institutions still exist in 2024.?I am hoping that adding VAT to fees will see the back of some of them. Sadly the toxic institution my DS attended will no doubt cope with the increase.

@Biillybiob Why stay there then? Plenty could write what you have about some state schools!

We didn't stay @TizerorFizz.
I disagree what I wrote could never be said about any state school in this country because the parents couldn't buy the school's silence.

@Biillybiob State schools can be manipulated too. There are many that don’t deal with bullying effectively.

I do know what you mean about money and donations and saw it first hand. Different scenario but this was more about dc being accepted in the first place. Bit them in the bum though as dc ran away and was missing for 2 days. Big cover up of background of the dc (2 previous exclusions from other schools/asked to leave) and the big donation was the sweetener. The dc did not exactly bully but liked to get others into trouble by embroidering everything and lying. Staff were obliged to believe what was said. So I do understand but I also know this is pretty unusual and dc in state schools could say exactly the same about other dc.