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Original poster

New. At boarding prep school

626 replies

Willsoonbesummer · 30/01/2016 12:43

My 8 year old has just started full boarding at prep school.The feed back has been so negative so far from the school.He is not organised enough etc.Now we feel we have made a mistake and not sure what to do.Any advise from mums who have been through this type of school would be very much appreaciated.

OP posts:
peteneras · 05/02/2016 00:10

I suppose everyone has his/her own personal view when is boarding school a good idea or even not a good idea, PrimalLass. I do not pretend that all boarding schools are the same and equally good. At the risk of repeating myself, I’m only speaking for myself. I’m sure you’ll agree with me some 15-year-olds can be more mature in their thinking and outlook than some 50-year-olds. Similarly, some 8-year-olds can be more mature in their outlook and thinking than some 13 or 14-year-olds which is the age I think the general consensus is that it’s the right age to board.

The OP obviously decided her 8-year-old son is mature enough to board even in another country and who am I to tell her that she is doing the wrong thing? I’ve never met the two of them.

I totally agree that boarding is best for kids with disruptive, violent, unstable and mobile families e.g. the Armed Forces and some section of the entertainment world no matter at what age, quite akin to kids being taken away by Social Services from disruptive and violent families.

Some of the main reasons for advocating boarding school are as follows:

• It provides for a stable environment for kids from the aforesaid families

• Extensive educational and sporting facilities

• No opportunities for kids to fall into bad company, e.g. gangs etc.

• Not impossible, but substance abuses are less likely

• Kids are more focussed on their academic work

• Friendships are formed that usually last for life

• Regular visits by prominent people/leaders to talk about their specialist fields

• Opportunities for wider (world) travel

• Help and counselling always within reach

• Kids learn self-discipline and acquire self-confidence

• Professional guidance for university application including help in writing Personal Statements

This is not to say some or all of the above cannot be obtained outside of boarding school but it is unlikely they can all come together under one roof or at the same postcode.

NickiFury · 05/02/2016 00:36

I honestly can't be bothered to argue anymore but I think it's massively offensive how you've lumped forces families in your list with violent, unstable, abusive families and followed it on with comparing their children's attendance at boarding school by those kinds of families as akin to removal by SS. Did you actually mean to do that?

Themodernuriahheep · 05/02/2016 00:43

Nicki, I laughed, I can't imagine P did ! ( I have lots of forces in the family).

Ditto oil, diplomats, people who are in countries where safety is of concern.

Themodernuriahheep · 05/02/2016 00:48

Though, actually P , and I hate to continue this argument, none of the reasons you give above save the stability for children, like me, who had been to 6 schools by the age of 8 , is out of the ordinary for a good day school, private or state. Happy to give egs on a PM, though not on here and I know quite a lot about the schools that you and Happy know too, and agree they are excellent of their kind.

peteneras · 05/02/2016 03:35

I know it’s late, Nicki, and you’re tired, confused and disorientated but please read my post carefully instead of getting hysterical again. I was just answering PrimalLass’ question:

”When is boarding school a good idea then peteneras? For what reasons?”

Well, boarding school is a good idea for all those families as I’ve described including mobile families like the forces and of certain celebrities who might be required to travel widely and frequently to perform concerts, shows, etc. nationally and internationally.

Her associated question was when do they go and my answer to that was when it was necessary for them to go (in the first instance) as in the case of violent, disruptive families when the child is taken away by SS. This of course, has nothing whatsoever to do with forces’ families who decide for themselves when to go or indeed even not to go at all.

Sorry uriahheep if my post offended which was never meant to. It was no doubt, deliberately twisted mischievously.

NickiFury · 05/02/2016 07:59

Please stop accusing me of emotions I simply am not feeling Pete. There is clearly no hysteria. Again you are manipulating the discussion.

You may not have meant that - which is why I asked if you meant it as I wanted to clarify because it was so poorly expressed and written and certainly gave that meaning as another poster thought too. Perhaps you should proof read a bit more carefully?

PosieReturningParker · 05/02/2016 08:08

Ahhhhh nice tone Pen, did you learn it at boarding school?

It's weird what you attribute to boarding schools, by the way.

GruntledOne · 05/02/2016 08:09

I afraid anyone who assumes no child can love school must have had some awful experiences of it themself

Nonsense. The fact that you don't love something doesn't equate to meaning it is awful. But the child who seriously loves everything about school, particularly boarding school, has to be vanishingly rare - what child "loves" every lesson and every teacher, plus everything about PE, plus sleeping communally and having defined times for bed/bath, plus all the other inevitable restrictions on doing what you want to do when you want to do it, and the restrictions on privacy?

MidniteScribbler · 05/02/2016 08:14

I am not anti-boarding but if my eight year old was hours of flying time away over the ocean and was on the phone to me everyday crying their eyes out, then the only thing I'd want to do is bring them home.

GruntledOne · 05/02/2016 08:19

I totally agree that boarding is best for kids with disruptive, violent, unstable and mobile families e.g. the Armed Forces and some section of the entertainment world no matter at what age, quite akin to kids being taken away by Social Services from disruptive and violent families.

Peteneras, I have to say that I read that the same way as Nicki did, i.e. that people in the armed forces are people who have disruptive, violent, unstable and mobile families and need their children to be protected by boarding school instead of social services. Given your problems with Geography, English, and logic, I wonder increasingly about whether you are really equipped to judge whether your child is receiving an adequate education.

PrimalLass · 05/02/2016 08:21

Ok, so my opinion stands then of 'why have kids if you are not around to look after them'.

LogicalTest · 05/02/2016 08:35

GruntledOne, the assertion made was that NO child could love school. That is the nonsense and sounds to me to one from someone bitter about their own education. I teach and I have four children and I'm afraid the ones who love school(even lessons they don't enjoy in terms of content are still enjoyable socially-school education is about far more than academia) far, far outweigh the ones who don't.

roundaboutthetown · 05/02/2016 08:56

peteneras - it might have been advisable to specify the "mobile families" bit was an and/or, not a pure "and"... Otherwise it does read very much as though mobile families are violent, disruptive and unstable and should have their children taken off them by social services if they aren't willing to send them to boarding school!

M2676 · 05/02/2016 08:58

For heavens sake, either you offer advice or SHUT UP!!The poor woman needs advice not people judging her!! People are jumping each others throat n not being constructive at all. I think the lady who post this thread is regretting it....ffs GROW UP!!

roundaboutthetown · 05/02/2016 09:01

The thread has moved on from giving the OP advice, since the OP left the thread... I will never understand why some posters seem incapable of understanding why threads on here are like conversations, not Agony Aunt columns.

PrimalLass · 05/02/2016 09:11

My advice at the start of the thread was to take her son home.

NickiFury · 05/02/2016 09:13

The OP is no longer posting. The conversation has continued. As in RL discussion doesn't just shut down after a question has been responded too.

MissGintyMarlow · 05/02/2016 09:37

The notion that your child will not take drugs, fall into bad company, do more academic work etc at boarding school is imo/e a gross misapprehension. Though possibly true at boarding prep school - after all, all the children I know at prep day schools are huge druggies and gang members.

zoemaguire · 05/02/2016 11:59

The most notorious druggies I knew at uni were from public school. They had both the money and the devil-may-care entitled attitude. The idea that drugs are more prevalent in state schools certainly is not borne out where I live (again, see easy access to money), though admittedly the (many) public schools round here are mostly day schools.

roundaboutthetown · 05/02/2016 12:02

I don't really see why a boarding school would make substance abuse less likely - it's a bit like claiming prisons are drug free. Grin

roundaboutthetown · 05/02/2016 12:06

As for bad company, if the bad company is in the school, your child is a bit of a captive audience.

LogicalTest · 05/02/2016 12:45

Not all boarding schools are private and awash with money. As I've said, we use boarding schools as we are a service family (a non-violent and non-abusive one j hasten to add Wink) but we dod not want to surround the kids with huge wealth-a personal choice not a criticism-and so they attend a state boarding school. Pastoral care is fantastic, school rated outstanding. None of them have come home with drugs....yet!!

peteneras · 05/02/2016 12:57

”I totally agree that boarding is best for kids with disruptive, violent, unstable [environments] and mobile families e.g. the Armed Forces and some section of the entertainment world . . .”

”. . . no matter at what age, quite akin to kids being taken away by Social Services from disruptive and violent families.”

It’s quite obvious you have issues with your abstract thought process and comprehension, GruntledOne, that I thought by breaking down into sections what I wrote might help?

OK, I’m guilty of a typo by having dropped a word [environments] in my original posting but surely I’m entitled to a typo here and there in view of the fact that I was engaged with half a dozen or so posters in a marathon session of live forum debate? But if your education is so excellent as you would have us believe, you would have been able to suss out what I meant by disruptive and violent families having their kids taken away by SS no matter at what age as clearly written at the end of the paragraph. Nothing to do with Forces’ families here.

Oh, yes, Geography - as you need constant spoon-feeding in spite of the link I provided showing Middlesbrough is in Yorkshire, here it is again spelling it out for you . . .

Middlesbrough was part of the North Riding of Yorkshire until 1889, when it became a county borough. In 1968, the borough was merged with a number of others to form the County Borough of Teesside, which was absorbed in 1974 by the county of Cleveland. In 1996, Cleveland was abolished, and Middlesbrough Borough Council became a unitary authority within North Yorkshire.

And I have absolutely no need to worry whether my child is receiving an adequate education or not as I’m pretty convinced the adequacy of my DC’s education is more than the aggregate of all your DC’s.

NickiFury · 05/02/2016 13:02

"I’m pretty convinced the adequacy of my DC’s education is more than the aggregate of all your DC’s."

On what grounds are you convinced of this?

What a ridiculous thing to say Grin

peteneras · 05/02/2016 13:05

On the grounds of what my DC have already achieved, Nicki.