Boarding school or not?

[THK]

Would love input.
Oldest DD 10 cant wait to go for the idea of living an Enid Blyton book dormitory existance.
She's academically very bright and mature so I dont worry she couldnt handle it but Im now doubting if its the right thing to do.
Current school ( in Hong Kong) very good academically pushy so it suits her. Shes happy there. Results very good so as a parent Im not worried it doesnt cut the mustard - expect she will more than likely end up at a UK Uni if she stays.

Im just feeling the UK is a grim place at the moment. Here we dont have the drink or drugs problem and personal safety is never a worry. Its a very respectful existance.
Would it be better for her to break out of the bubble we currently live in and start to experience western culture , she has only ever lived in Asia but we do get to the UK a couple of times per year. Would Boarding school just be another bubble in a colder climate OR should she just continue to grow up in a very "safe" environment and wait until she is old enough for Uni.
Thoughts anyone???

[MrIC]

I went to a UK boarding school aged 11 and loved it ....eventually. The first couple of years I had a hard time fitting in as I'd grown up overseas while mostly of my classmates were local to the area (yet bizarrely still boarded!) I used to get teased for being posh (!!) even though I had the most working class background of the lot!

Anyway, yeah it was a really good experience after that. It was a small, rural boarding school with large grounds. Sure some of the 6th formers smoked a bit of dope or got drunk at weekends, but we were exposed to far far less than if I'd gone to a day school in a city.

It was a small place and I made good friends who I'm still in touch with and see when I can (I'm living overseas again, so it's not easy). The school offered music, drama, art, sport, journalism... all kinds of things. It was great! It was non-competitive in the sense that there was no inter-house competition, which I appreciated, but we were always pushed by the teachers... well most of them.

Don't send her to an all girl's school though, seriously - she's got to live with men, like it or not, so she'd better start learning how to get on with them. Plus is wont help: my sister is/was just a bright as me. She went to an all girls school and got BBU at A level; I went to coed school and got AAAB. Plus practically the first thing she did after leaving the all girl's school was drop out of Uni and move in with her boyfriend!! So as you can see, parental attempts to remove the distractions of the opposite sex often backfire! still she's doing fine now...

[MrIC]

sorry just noticed you mentioned Cheltenham.... god if you want her to avoid drink and drugs don't send her there!!

My cousin went... she didn't enjoy it and pretty quickly moved to a smaller, more rural one - the one I ended up in fact. We had quite a few refugees from CLC I seem to remember.

One more point to make. Some of my classmates were from very wealthy families (I was the poor scholarship boy)... but I never noticed. Living in the countryside there wasn't anything to spend your money on, so cliques based around wealth never occurred. Sure some boys had flashy stereos (and presumably the girls too - for obviously reasons I never found out!) but that was it. I was only once my classmates started turning 18 and having big parties and their country mansions that we started to notice. Whereas when I got to University it was a totally different story, with people only really socializing with other students of a similar economic background.

[anonymosity]

I think if you can visit these places together you'll get the best idea if she likes the look of them. I went with my parents to see a few when I was 15 and one which had looked best on paper, had me running for the exit doors (not literally, I sauntered, politely...).

[Astrophe]

I worked at a very respectable girls pre school in the UK and there is no way I would send any child of mine to board at such a young age after that experience. Of course, there were a few favoured girls who were liked by staff and generally happy, but the majority of girls were not happy, even if they managed life there ok, and I'd say a quarter of them were deeply, deeply unhappy, and at that age they were unable to really express to their parents just how difficult their lives were. The girls themselves were generally kind to each other, many staff were bullies.

Even with an older child I would consider the personaility of the child very carefully, and make sure they knew they could opt out at any point with no arguement from you.

[Astrophe]

sorry, prep school, not pre school.

[Tolalola]

I grew up overseas and went to a school that I did really well at.

When I was 10, the school finished and I went to Cheltenham. I've heard it's changed somewhat since I was there, but at the time it was pretty brutal and very very institutional.

I was dying to go to boarding school before I got there, but I found it very tough and really had a pretty miserable time. Academically, it completely derailed me.

Looking back on it, I had extremely, erm...odd ideas about the UK and British people from going to school there. It was a total bubble with really very little connection to what it was actually like to live in the UK. I was desperate to leave the country after A levels, and did my first degree in the US.

It was only when I went back to the UK later to do my Masters, then Doctorate and then on to work, that I found out the the picture I'd had of it from school was completely bizarre and that the UK could actually be an excellent place.

Phew..banging on a bit, sorry, but feel free to PM me if you want any more info.