International Boarders - Ludgrove School

[est09]

We are looking to send our eldest (age 6) to Ludgrove for year 4-8 (so when he turns 8.) Currently we do not reside in the UK, but we are UK citizens, and have a house in London. We have a relative with whom he’d stay with if we weren’t able to travel over for exeats (which would be our aim). Has anyone got any advice/experience with:

• Boarding at a young age
• International boarding
• Ludgrove School

Also, if anyone has any other recommendations of full boarding schools within around a 2 hour car journey (maximum) from a London Airport, please let me know.

Things we’d like to know about Ludgrove from other parents before we ask the school themselves:

• How often can boys contact their parents?
• Are they allowed devices?
• How many boys on average are in a dorm?
• Policies on children on social media/protection from the media?

In an ideal world, we would like to go from Ludgrove to Eton/Harrow. Our other sons would join him when they reach his age.

Thank you.

I'd recommend reading 'a very private school.'

8yrs old is far too young for boarding school, especially internationally. The emotional trauma and attachment issues shouldn't be underestimated.

Ludgrove by all accounts is a FANTASTIC school. The Barbers seem to be doing a wonderful job - every boy we know that has attended has absolutely loved it. Good luck! I am interested to see the responses to your questions.

Please don’t send him to board at such a young age. I’ve seen children destroyed by this. No problem if they are older (both of mine boarded when they were in their teens, and we lived overseas for some of the time), if they want to go, but not such a young child.

Ludgrove is a wonderful school. Have a look at their instagram account for a flavour. Really impressive and the children seem very happy

Are there no good schools where you live, currently?

I also think 8 is too young. Think about Year 7 or 9 entry at a minimum.

The obvious schools for you to consider are Ludgrove, Cothill and Summerfields. Ludgrove is the only one that has full boarders only, but their full boarding is actually fortnightly, I believe the others still work on three week cycles. All three are steeped in full boarding from eight upwards, and all send leavers to Eton/Harrow and Radley in numbers. We were a happy Cothill family, family and friends at both Ludgrove and Summerfields were equally positive about their choices.
Given that you are overseas at present you might want to kick the tyres on your planning ref Y4 in particular- it is a lot to cope with for an overseas boarder at that age, and I don't think a later start held anyone back- indeed our Y4 group at Cothill started with only 12 boys, more came every term as they reached ages when their parents thought the timing right, the biggest influxes in Ys 5&6. Do you have decent options where you currently live?

@est09 , you may not want to hear this but boarding in year 4 is so very rare nowadays with a decline in numbers each year. In 2 years time the numbers will be tiny even at ludgrove.

OP have you researched the long term impacts of boarding at such a young age? A brief google will give you many papers on boarding school syndrome. There have been extensive threads on mumsnet too.
Please reconsider boarding from such a young age.

Please don't do this to your 6 year old! Your son will repeat the trauma throughout his adult life. Why do you not want to be a parent ?

To answer your question, other schools which spring to mind are Sunningdale, Summerfields and Cothill House.

Eight is really young to start boarding these days. The handful of children who do start at that age are usually choristers, army, Chinese children with no English and the occasional child from complex family circumstances (disabled sibling, sick/deceased parent etc).

Most children who go on to the schools you mention start boarding at 10 or 11 (if at all) and most do not full board until they start senior schools. This is because there is a lot of evidence to show that full boarding is damaging to very young children. If a school is telling you they need to start at eight to be sure of a place at Eton, Harrow, Radley at 13, they are being dishonest.

I would look at international schools near where you are to ensure your son’s English is up to scratch. Encourage him to play a range of sports and a musical instrument. Cubs/scouts/short residentials are useful preparation for boarding, but do not consider sending him to England before he is at least ten.

You will have no problems getting a place anywhere in Y6 (10). Y7 (11) is a bit more competitive but boarding preps are a buyers market.

Hey!

We are also looking for a boarding school. We are searching high and low.

We like
Pilgrims, Papplewick, Sunnydale and Cottesmore. Cottesmore is close to Gatwick Airport. For the right child boarding is fine from 8 with good pastoral care. It's not like how it used to be in olden days. Many schools offer flexi boarding to like Kate Middletons school for George.
Fettes in Edinburgh looks good to.

Sunndale could be a good fit for you. We really like.

I think it depends on a country. For example, if you lived in Singapore, you could probanly find a good school and prep him there. Unless, sooner is better if you look at the top schools.

Let me remind you that ISEB is Oct-Nov in Year 6. That means if your DS starts from Year 6, there's only a few months to prep him for ISEB.

In my defence, I'm just talking about how to maxize possiblities to get into top schools. Pastoral care is another story.

In my experience, my DS has been boarding since Year 4, he loves it and ended up in a good offer.

Good luck!

@TartanMammy @ThePussy @ChaliceinWonderland @wandererofthekingdom

Both myself, my siblings and my partner boarded from 8 and loved it, if he was to not enjoy it or have a problem, we’d bring him home and enrol him in a local school within a heartbeat.

@ArtemisiaTheArtist @FairlyFarleigh @KruelladeVille23

Where we live (within a 40 minute car journey) there are 3 elementary schools, and a middle-high school, all of which educate in Spanish. We moved here 3 years ago from living in Bali, and with my husband in the military, another move is likely.

Our children (6 and 4) are currently at a British International School, an hour away, but it’s not great, there is hardly any pastoral effort and it’s just not the right fit for us as a family.

With us constantly moving around, we hope to enrol in boarding school to gain some security and stick to a British curriculum. However if it wasn’t to work out, I’d bring DS home and try and get a place at a local elementary.

It’s expected that we’ll move in 3-5 years, hopefully to either Portugal or Cyprus, where I know the international schools are much better.

I don't doubt you are planning for the best interests of your son, @est09 . As a military family, we also had to move frequently and so sent our sons to full boarding from Y4 to provide some stability. Eight years later I believe they are happy, well-adjusted boys and we have a close and loving relationship. They adored their prep school, identify closely with it and stay in touch with classmates, going back to visit when they can. But if at the end of any school holiday they had been offered an opportunity to stay at home, they would have taken it, because home isn't school and home was always special. Boarding at a young age isn't to be enterprised lightly but there are ways to make it easier, and crucially to support a child to understand how much they are loved by their parents, and give them ways to manage the demands of boarding life. You have to do your due diligence around pastoral care, safeguarding etc, and you should choose a school where boarding is the centre of gravity not the exception. You have to be proactive in keeping lines of communication open and make sure your DC will talk about their life at school to keep you in the primary care relationship. I'm pretty sure a good parent who uses boarding school is still a good parent and if I were doing it again I would make the same choice. You know first hand what a good boarding experience feels like so you know what to look for and are able to feel optimistic. Your challenge is to think through what would make for a negative experience and be constantly vigilant against that potential, because it is dangerous to be complacent that every child will love their boarding prep the way the best-suited children enjoy the best boarding experience. If your child is struggling you need to take their unhappiness seriously, and they have to know you will listen to and believe them.
From what I know of Ludgrove, you are starting in a good place and from your posts I can see you are taking your parenting responsibilities seriously.

I don't doubt you 'loved' your school. But this doesn't ignore the swathes of evidence that shows boarding from a young age can be damaging and traumatic for many, many children . It's not something I'd want to risk for my children - years of potential attachment issues and mental health concerns.

I get all the arguments around continuity of education for highly mobile families. We were in a very similar position. My point though is that you do not need to start the process at eight. You can wait a couple of years until your child is more mature and start him at 10 or ideally 11. To send him at 8 and then take him out if it does not work would be really damaging. You say there is not much pastoral care at his current school - but he will be getting massively more care and attention from his family if you keep him at home than he will get in any institution - however good. And as an eight year old, overseas, full boarder he would be one of a tiny minority of children.

You can still achieve your Eton/Harrow objective starting at Y6 or Y7 at the right prep, if your child is well suited (ie clever, confident and good at something other than academics). If he is not, there is nothing the prep will be able to do to change that whenever you start - but they will advise on a more suitable school. It is really difficult to decide which secondary school will suit a child when he is 6 - and concentrating on two (quite different) possibilities at this stage makes no real sense. Just because those schools are famous brands does not mean they are the right fit for your child.

@vjceqgub It’s a very good point you make. Y5 is when it all happens in terms of prep for senior school entry. It’s when ISEB prep gets done, it’s when senior school visits happen and your prep school advises you where to aim, and most importantly of all, it’s when the prep school head will gather the intel he needs to write his references. Which matter a lot, and have to be in very early in Y6. If you are starting at a new boarding school in September of Y6 you have enough to think about and deal with, let alone making a good impression on the head and knocking your academics out of the park from day one.

OP - our DS started boarding in Y4 at eight and it was absolutely the right thing - he has loved it. Right thing for the right child at the right time. A very small handful of children left because they didn’t take to it, which was fair enough (often the youngest child in the family). But the days of being sent to school and not seeing your parents for three months are long over. Very few boarding prep schools these days go for more than two or maybe three weeks before there’s an exeat and everyone goes home or gets taken out.

I would say though, you need to line up some relatives/friends/godparents to show up for matches and concerts and things when you can’t be there.

I’m a keen full boarding advocate for the right child that the right time.
that said I can’t think of any friends who have had their own children full boarding at aged 8. Yes lusgrove and a handful of others offer it but the weekends for an 8 year old will be just a handful and they’ll all be overseas children, whose over zealous parents are chasing the quintessential and anachronistic concept of full boarding from 8.
traditional British families do not do this anymore. Some opt in from age 10/11 but these days most go for weekly up till age 11/13 and crack on with full boarding 11/13-18.
I do not think children from a normal, settled loving family benefit from full boarding before they’ve got to double figures at the very least.
an 8 year old full boarding in the uk will be lonely at weekends with a handful of other Asians for company on a Saturday night.
Ludgrove is a great school and friends boys’ have had a great time.

Ludgrove have exeats every other weekend. So it’s fortnightly boarding rather than proper full boarding…..

Wow, @leftandright, talk about sweeping statements! You advocate very forcefully on other threads about the importance of only sending kids to full-board at schools that are full-boarding only. Whilst the numbers doing this under 10 are a small subset of the prep school sector, the boarding preps who specialise in this market are certainly not just filled with sad Chinese children, whose over zealous parents have sent them in search of something that no longer exists. Our sons' Y4 cohort at Cothill was 12 boys, all full boarders. Amongst those there was one Thai boy, the rest were all 'traditional British families', most of whom lived some way away. That group formed the nucleus of their classes up to Y8. More came each term including some more international families. But because everyone was in at weekends and they had matches and lots to do it wasn't a lonely or isolated experience. Not a single boy left from their year group except for one who moved to a specialist tennis school in Spain at in Y7.

I would not send an eight year old to full-board in a school with lots of day and weekly boarders. But that's not what the OP is contemplating, and using an excellent school like Ludgrove is a good preventative against the kind of experience you describe.

@FairlyFarleigh Would you mind saying when your DS was in Y4 at Cothill? My impression is that there has been massive change in the full boarding prep market over the last 10 years, accelerated since the Russian invasion of Ukraine and VAT on private school fees.
Fewer British families are choosing it at 8 for social reasons. This applies even when they are very wealthy or where fees are paid or massively subsidised by the employer. They recognise that it is very early and since all their friends children are delaying there is a herd effect. (cf Prince George).
Some of the British families who might have chosen it can no longer afford the fees for a full 10 years so are choosing to economise by staying at day school longer. This decision is made easier by the above.
There are no more Russians.
Nigerians seem to be delaying until 10 or 11.
It is such a small market that you only need say a 10% shift to make the schools unviable.
So they are faced with either increasing the number of Chinese students (which can put off some other families (cf the thread on Harrow) or increasing their day and flexi options.

The fact that Cothill has decided to go co-ed, and promote flexi boarding in addition to full boarding suggests to me that they realise that the old model needs adjusting if they are to survive.

Forgive my not being exact about the year, @KruelladeVille23 but its a small school and I'd rather not out myself. My DS are at senior school now, so fair to say some of the financial and political challenges you outline were not such an issue then. I could see the absence of Russian and Nigerian families hitting Summerfields harder than Cothill, but like Ludgrove their brand is so strong I'm sure they will fill any gaps.

I am a little saddened by Cothill's recent moves away from all-boys full-boarding, because they will alter the character of the school. But I can see they make sense in a changing market by removing some of the barriers that kept families from choosing this school. For economic survival I would be more worried about preps that aren't pitching their leaver destinations so high. Unless Eton, Winchester et al make a real push for attracting pupils from the state sector, enough families wanting those senior schools will continue to support the blue chip preps.
Cothill starts very small in Y4 and numbers really start to grow in summer of Y5 in time for ISEB. So we had 12 in Y4 and about four times that many in Y8. I believe the move to allow day and weekly boarding for the youngest is a way to bring in earlier that cohort of children who would be coming anyway once parents are willing for them to board full-time. I believe Ludgrove's move to a fortnightly cycle was aimed at the same issue, indeed we have very good friends who diverted their youngest there from his planned day school when that became an option.

i stand by my words.
yes I think full boarding is great for the right child. Not all children will benefit and I don’t think you know for sure until the child is about 11 (ish) whether they will benefit from full boarding at senior school.
and the right time … well no I do not believe that 8 years old is the right time for any child to full board - and I take full boarding to be 14-28 days away from their parents per “school cycle” ie between exeats.
I do not think an 8 year old will develop emotionally as well if full boarding than if still in the main nucleus of a stable, loving family home. They certainly aren’t going to be availing themselves of after school co curriculars at that age that go so far at senior school level to enhancing personal development.
Full boarding is dying out all over in this country although it remains a very successful model for the senior schools that make it its USP … and those schools are chockablock full (as supply also dwindles ) but at prep level - it’s dying out quickly and for good reason.
all the full boarding preps mentioned in this thread are brilliant schools full of happy children but that doesn’t mean I think an 8 year old full boarding is the right time for that child in all but very particular circumstances (where the family nucleus is less stable than a school environment).
it (8/9 yr olds) will be obsolete in a few years I believe and just a handful of uber traditional preps that feed uber traditional senior schools will still retain a modicum of Uber traditional uk families. But at far far fewer numbers than a few years back.
society’s changing and schools change to reflect our changing cultural values.

Full boarding is not dying out. Working parents drs, pilots, military who need to be away for work will fill those places. Children need a stable education. You couldn't be more wrong.