UK boarding school for EU citizen

[ilovedog]

hi, I'm a mother of 2 who are 13 &14. we've been living in different countries in Asia for the last 20 years. I look for a boarding school in uk for our son as he attended International schools and speaks only English. My husband is from Germany but our son doesn't speak German. In Germany there are only 3-4 boarding schools where students can study in English or take IB program and their tuition is so expensive....we can't afford that. I heard that there are some boarding schools in uk where students from EU countries would pay reasonable tuition fee. Do anyone know about those schools?
We are moving again soon and we don't want to move him again at Year 12 or 13.

I think Roger manwoods in sandwich Kent a state grammar school takes boarding children from abroad but the normal age of entry is 11 and it is selective. It may be difficult to get a place in other years but they will have a web site it is well regarded locally.

Try the boarding schools' association.

That should have been state boarding schools' association.

What sort of fee are you looking at?

Hockerill is a State Boarding School with a european bias.

Here is the link for the SBSA. It says that "Admission to State Boarding Schools in the UK is limited to children who are nationals of the UK and are eligible to hold a full UK passport, or those who are nationals of other European Union countries or those who have the right of residence in the UK. Please note that the holding of a BN(O) passport does not make the child eligible for a State Boarding School in the UK." If you are a UK national the tuition is free, you only pay for boarding. I don't know what the fees are for EU citizens.

Most schools take at Year 7 (start the year at age 11, have 12th birthday during the year, so 11/12) but some have another intake at Year 9 (so 13/14). However, they may have spaces at any time so you may be able to join at non-standard ages but I doubt that they would take children part-way through GCSEs (Years 10 & 11). Some SBS are selective, some aren't.

Are you talking about one child or both?

Thanks ladies for the info! I will check again. Tuition needs to be less than £10000 because boarding usually will cost as much. We want to end one child first.

Do you mean you don't want both of them in boarding school at the same time? If there is only 1 year between them won't that be almost impossible? Or will dc2 only go to boarding school for year 13?

If that's the plan then that will be very disruptive for dc2, who will have the move you're trying to avoid for dc1 and then a change to boarding school for the last year. I don't think many schools would be keen on accepting students at the beginning of year 13 either because the UK exam system means they would need to be at a school where they did the same subjects with the same exam board for them to be able to transfer easily. Joining at the beginning of year 12 (age 16) is usually fairly straight forward though.

Are you a UK citizen, or is your dc's only link to the UK through your dh's German citizenship? Would they be keen on going to a country they have only a very weak link to, especially if they can't go together?

I think your most likely to find somewhere for them to go for year 12 and 13, simply because that's when UK students often change schools.

Some schools you might want to consider:

• Some day 6th forms, especially ones with an IB class, accept non-local students and help them find host families to lodge with in term time. Henley College does this: www.henleycol.ac.uk/henleycollege/students/int/main.html You would need to pay rent to their host family and possibly also tuition, but it would probably work out cheaper than boarding school.

• Would your dc be eligible for scholarships? There are often scholarships for the beginning of year 12 based on GCSE (or equivalent) results.

• Have you thought about applications to an international boarding school? www.atlanticcollege.org/ is an international school with students from around the world. Applications are very competitive, but they choose on suitability for the school according to their criteria, and then offer scholarships to ensure that everyone they have chosen can afford to go. They expect you to pay quite a lot if you can, but if your earnings are below a certain amount then you enter a scale of scholarships with the highest scholarship being 100% fees.

My suggestions are all for 6th forms (year 12 and 13, age 16 - 19).

State boarding schools have free tuition, you pay only the boarding costs.

For other boarding, try the Good Schools Guide, which has plenty of advice on how to choose a school, as well as school specific information (including current cost - but bear in mind you may need to fund eg uniform and extrason top of the headline price).

When you know which schools you might be interested in, then it might be worth starting a thread to ask if anyone knows anything about the ones you have in mind.

Have a look at The Royal Alexandra and Albert school in Reigate, Surrey. Very easy to get to Gatwick airport. Child needs to have a guardian in the UK. There is also Gordon's school in Woking, Surrey.

I would also second RAAS. DD started there 3 years ago when I was living abroad and she is doing really well there. Quite a few overseas students there.

One of the things with boarding schools that is particularly pertinent when talking about teenage boys is that the fees are actually less than the headline fugure when you take off the cost you would otherwise incur in FEEDING them at home.

Both our boys went to a State Boarding School near Birmingham. It was great for them as they could eat as much as they could get their hands on (both very active sportsmen so obesity not remotely a problem). You could really tell the difference in housekeeping costs between holidays and term time.

Also, they spend all their spare time playing sport outside and grow up to be sensible young men used to living in close proximity to others.

We just delivered younger lad to Uni yesterday. I felt very sorry for one couple we saw whose daughter was clearly finding it very difficult to say goodbye (tears in the car park etc). Our lad just said..."see you at Christmas".

LOL, have to agree about teenage boys and food. Am looking forward to my food bills halving next week when DS1 will have gone to Uni!

I agree about the food bills! As ds is rarely at home when he is back I still can't work out how my food bill is huge. Mind you despite all the sport I think ds still manages to put on a few kilos at school, they seem to snack really late and most probably he fills his plate up at meal times.

mumofsoontobelawstudent hello! Good luck to your ds. Hope it all goes well.