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Boarding school

Connect with fellow parents of boarding school students on our supportive forum. Share experiences, tips, and insights.

Practicalities of UK boarding / family in Asia

8 replies

pitterpatterrain · 22/11/2024 12:19

DD has an offer now for a UK boarding school, close to grandparents yet starting to wobble about the practicalities - we live in Asia right now although will probably be back in 3-4 years

if you are in this expat situation did your DC fly unaccompanied after a while, how often did you visit the UK?

anything else around managing time zones and staying in touch?

How to encourage siblings to stay in touch?

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Coffeebreakneeds · 22/11/2024 12:35

Not in the same position ourselves. However, our boarding school has an international school so lots of children from overseas. They tend to travel home over Christmas and Summer although there is also a summer school if they want it. Half terms those who can, fly home, or family come to them and they go on holiday together, or they stay with a host family. All seems to work well. Some of my DC's friends travel alone, age 14+ if that helps. I would just make sure the school has plenty of overseas students. Ours are either in the international school (same site) and board in those houses or some board in the senior school. There is a range of nationalities in my DC boarding house which is brilliant and they love it. They learn so much from each other. Good luck.

leftandaright · 22/11/2024 17:42

Make sure you’ve chosen a school with no weekly boarding options if you want her to stay at school at weekends. If she’s going to grandparents every weekend then a school that offers flexi/weekly boarding is fine.
my dc at Oundle where approx 25% of boarders are overseas. They all fly home at half term ans for holidays. Masses of them go on the school coach to Heathrow for their flights all over the world. Yes, unaccompanied. It’s fine.
comms are fine with social media and whatsapp video calls. Not much different to uk boarders tbh.
but the most important factor is the weekends. If you expect your child to stay in on any weekends then don’t choose a school that allows any kind of weekly boarding.

pitterpatterrain · 23/11/2024 06:32

Thanks both, reassuring - DD is really keen to go and it’s mainly me and DH now having a wobble about her going (!)

From what I understand there is no weekly boarding and only the exeats / holidays but it’s hard to know the reality tbh, we are new to this and don’t know anyone who has DC there

Her offer is for CLC so if anyone has a sense on that would be good to know

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LaPalmaLlama · 23/11/2024 08:50

CLC has a lot of internationals (50%) so while it’s not as strict as somewhere like Marlborough over weekends a good number do stay in. I have friends in Singapore who have girls there and it works well. Is she going to start in Year 7 or Year 9?

pitterpatterrain · 23/11/2024 08:58

Thanks for that, it’s good to know

Year 7 is what we’re looking at as DD1 would like the stability as DC move and shift all the time in international school

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MeanderingGently · 23/11/2024 10:13

I have a fair amount of experience of CLC. As pp has said, there are many Asian girls there and in some houses the % is as high as 80%. Your DD will feel at home in that sense.

There are day girls at CLC but all those who board mostly stay in every weekend so your DD will be surrounded by lots of friends. They also have plenty of activities and trips out to keep the girls occupied, it's very well organised in that sense. There will also be free time when she can chill out or chose to do things, such as afternoon crafts with staff members. In the week the school timetable is carefully structured.

Most overseas girls go home at major holidays (Christmas, Easter, summer) although some stay with host families. There are also half terms and "exeat" weekends - some girls stay with relatives or host families, sometimes parents come over to the UK and they have a weekend in a local hotel to have time together. The whole town is geared up to this, as there are several local schools in the area so sorting this out is easy.

As your DD is not currently UK based, you will be expected to provide a guardian. It can be a relative or UK friend family, or it can be via an official guardian company which you pay for. They arrange for stays with host families, they check on girls and give updates, and they liaise with CLC's transport department for arranging travel to and from school. Younger girls can travel alone, they are collected from their boarding house by coach or private car arranged by CLC and taken to the airport or whatever, they are accompanied all the way and can fly as an "unaccompanied minor" if you wish. To do this you would make it known when booking flights, there will be some extra paperwork to fill in which the school will print off for your daughter to carry with her. She will be accompanied to the airport and placed on the 'plane, at which point the air hostess will take over and make sure she's handed over correctly the other end. It all works fine.

A very good guardian company which deals with many of the CLC girls is Pippa's Guardians (no, I don't work for them or anything) but there are others in the area, they will help you with everything (eg. Quest Guardians, Oxford Guardians). If you are using a relative as a guardian (such as grandparents) make sure they are aware there may be occasions when they are called upon if your DD is ill. Most illness is dealt with int he boarding house or in the medical centre, but sometimes guardians are called upon too.

One other thing to remember is to not send your DD with too much "stuff". Families tend to send far too many clothes, books, cuddly toys and everything under the sun, it's unnecessary. Just uniform, lots of underwear, toiletries, a few non-school clothes, a decent coat, an umbrella and some wet weather shoes as well as school shoes as a basis. Few few bits and pieces to decorate their dorm area, some photos, just keep it all simple. Some girls arrive with several LARGE suitcases of stuff and it just becomes a bind, they never use everything. However, do make sure EVERYTHING is named, and provide plenty of towels...like socks, towels seem to disappear very easily, no idea why!

I hope that's helpful.

pitterpatterrain · 23/11/2024 12:52

Thanks and noted on the towels 😅

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Rennypie03 · 24/11/2024 16:12

@MeanderingGently thank you. Thank you. That's such a useful post 😆

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