Christ's Hospital Horsham

[pinkhebe]

I've just found out that my son has won a place here, we're very excited and I wondered if anyone elses child goes, I'm already panicing a bit about the boarding bit, so as positive as you can please!

I mean, I knew RS and I think many of us remain profoundly touched; I can't hear Nimrod without thinking about him.

I remember Champo fondly telling us about standing in door frames when an eathquake hit while she was travelling. I miss the chocolate crispie from Hertford that they never got right at Horsham.

I was also a Wests' Gift scholar, had a good time on balance, but it wasn't the place for our dd who is more quiet geek than team player.

Christ's Hospital is less and less a charity school. The percentage of fee-payers is now 24% and it's described as an independent boarding school. Boarding is contentious. No modern theory of child development supports it. Three masters were kicked out for sex abuse when I was there and more in more recent times. These hermetically sealed institutions in out-of-the-way places are always more of a magnet for possible abusers. Why would you want your child broaught up by strangers? Do you not feel capable of the job yourself?

I went to CH. We were a ragtag bunch but nobody abused me, the grounds were wonderful and the children refreshingly ordinary. Not kids of alcoholics paeticularly, but many children of clergy, children who had lost 1 parent, single parents, that sort of thing. I have chosen not to have my children board, but if I had to board them for some reason, I would choose CH. I gather that the safeguarding is far far better than in our day.

Wow! Interesting thread. For what it's worth, one of my kids left there last year. My impression was of slightly less bullying than in the local state schools (which others of my children went to), but that there were a few issues, as at any school. Good discipline, and good systems for motivating kids to work hard academically. Lovely, polite, interesting kids (and no children of alcoholics from our experience, although I accept there may be a handful). Lots of amazing opportunities for the 'joiners'; some kids choose to opt out of the extras. Food not great. The uniform is great from a parent's point of view, because you don't have to pay for it. IT/Computing was not a strength at the school, but most subjects very well taught.
My DS was a day pupil, which suited us, but the vast majority of boarders seem very happy there. Few leave in 6th form, for example, which I'm sure they would do if it wasn't a happy place.

But I repeat my original point. Why have kids if you are going to send them away to be brought up by complete strangers? Are you lazy? Incompetent? Scared of your kids? This is the only country in developed western Europe where parents send their kids away unless it's absolutely necessary (peripatetic dad in armed forces for instance). And does it do us any good as a country? Look at the people running the country - Bozza, Rees-Mogg, Cameron, Osborne - all products of the English boarding school. Psychological and emotional cripples. Love and individual nurturing are so important at an early age. By definition there can be no love at a boarding school. Support, yes, of a kind. But not unconditional love.