How do you justify seding your child to boarding school?

[sunshine75]

I've read some pretty horrific things lately about boarding schools and the damage they can cause. See this article from the Guardian.

www.theguardian.com/society/2014/jul/20/damage-boarding-school-sexual-abuse-children

However, I have no personal experience of one and have no close friends who went to one. Therefore, I don't want to be hasty in forming a negative opinion about them.

So, if you chose to send your child to a boarding school then I'm curious as to why you chose to? For example, why did you chose boarding over a really good day school? Is there anyone who chose a boarding school for a much younger child and was this a really hard thing to do?

"I'm surprised there aren't more middle of the road boarders posting.

Not those that loathed it, or absolutely loved it as soon as they went. But thought ok it's necessary, and it gets better as you get older."

Well, I've been offline for a week..... What you have posted is pretty mnuch exactly my feelings about boarding. My boarding got me an education that was unavailable thriough not boarding, and it was an education that was very well suited to me. It was better in the final year of 6th form, when I had a room of my own. My children do not board, because an education suitable to their needs is available in the excellent local comp - but we are lucky in where we live.

High five teachers. It was pretty normal to feel like that amongst my friends, with a few outside it at either end - a few who love it straight away or loathe and/or leave. Although very few left, maybe one in our year from memory.

Kenlee

Thank you for your lovely last post.
We are here now, looking at the school, talking to people and visiting when we can.
we aren't even considering it for 3 years but are doing our homework now.
it is quite hard in our case because even though dd is independent she will be H.ed more than likely until she starts at the school.
It is our dd who wants to attend one day and this particular school suits her down to the ground, its the only school.
People ask me why we are considering, they think it's a shame and other negative comments.
It could and probably will be the making of her, but people tend to not look at it like this.

Marsha, actually, thinking again about my post.

My parents PERCEIVED that an education suitable for me was not available except through boarding.

As it turned out, my brothers did attend the local comp (I was the only one of us to get the 100% scholarship required for my poor-as-church-mice parents to even consider private, but all of us were very able) and all 3 of us got very similar A-level results and almost identical Oxbridge degrees. So although I might not have had quite such a nice time at the local school - DB2 in particular was very badly bullied - I would in all probability have arrived at exactly the same point. But, as we all know from the posts on here that agonise between different schools, it wasn't possible to know that at the time I started secondaery.

teacherwithtwokids I did n't get the impression that you particularly enjoyed the social extracurricular side of boarding so saw it purely as a means to an academic end. That end might well have been achieved anywhere in your case but that should only be a part of what school is about. Would your DB2 have been a target for bullying at any school? Surely getting into Oxbridge or other high level course is less important than a happy school life? However academically successful he was, that might has been very hard for your parents

Summerends,

I benefitted from the 'extracurricular' side of my school - music, choir, D of E, canoeing - but I agree not the 'social' side. Being a year young, very poor, exceptionally bright and a little odd was perhaps never going to be a good starting point!

I don't think, tbh, that either my brothers or myself enjoyed the social side of our very different schools - our close friendships all date from Oxbridge days, when we met 'other people like us'. I suppose my point is that a happy 'social' side of schooling wasn't available to any of us, through boarding or otherwise, and, as I said long upthread, I was brought up in an era when that simply wasn't regarded as a particularly important part of schooling.

teacherwithtwo I think day school could and can be done with less socialising (although hopefully not bullying). Boarding school even in our era relies on social interactions since you are with your peers all the time. Extracurricular activities are also about social interactions. If those are not good or indifferent, boarding can't be much more than tolerable.

This is a very long thread now, but there were as I remember more 'middle of the road' experiences from ex boarders near the beginning.

Despite my own positive experience, this thread has moved me more towards the negative view. But I feel very much for parents like Capt who have been placed in such a difficult position by the system, and I think it's obvious that a happy and fulfilling boarding school, especially at secondary level, would be preferable to a socially hellish as well as educationally inadequate day school. I'm sure I would make the same decision in those circumstances and be right to do so. All the same it's not the position in which most parents considering boarding will find themselves.

Kalidasa *CaptChaos was forced to consider boarding by extreme circumstances but from what I understood appreciates the extra benefits that boarding can bring compared to a good day school.
Repeating what I said up thread I had siblings who boarded. They certainly don't have attachment or other longterm issues but I saw no reason to consider boarding for my DCs as I saw how much my DM hated the separation

We now have experience of present day boarding having taken the step to consider it. This experience is more valid to us than historical or third hand experience or debating the issues when our DCs were very young or when it is irrelevant as an option. I now think boarding is life enhancing for the right DCs in the right schools. I still think it is at an emotional cost to the parents because they are missing snippets of their DCs' day to day lives but that is a continuum from the emotional cost of being a working parent and not home educating.
Boarding is not an irreversible decision and the 'rightness' of it can be re-evaluated by parents sensitive to their DCs' emotional well being and to all the issues or personality types of those who thought it was n't positive for them.

Kalidasa *CaptChaos was forced to consider boarding by extreme circumstances but from what I understood appreciates the extra benefits that boarding can bring compared to a good day school.
Repeating what I said up thread I had siblings who boarded. They certainly don't have attachment or other longterm issues but I saw no reason to consider boarding for my DCs as I saw how much my DM hated the separation

We now have experience of present day boarding having taken the step to consider it. This experience is more valid to us than historical or third hand experience or debating the issues when our DCs were very young or when it is irrelevant as an option. I now think boarding is life enhancing for the right DCs in the right schools. I still think it is at an emotional cost to the parents because they are missing snippets of their DCs' day to day lives but that is a continuum from the emotional cost of being a working parent and not home educating.
Boarding is not an irreversible decision and the 'rightness' of it can be re-evaluated by parents sensitive to their DCs' emotional well being and to all the issues or personality types of those who thought it was n't positive for them.

"Educationally inadequate day school"
Kalidasa thats why we did it at primary age, we've on three occasions reconsidered our local day schools (all state we have no independent schools who are going to provide the sort of education Im willing to pay for) and believe them still to be "inadequate" for our DS. Interestingly on two occasions our decision has been influenced by teachers at the schools who've advised us against sending our DS to them.

Could I respectfully suggest that for most people in a position to consider boarding school it is not a choice between an inadequate state school and boarding? That's why I was interested in CaptChaos's opinion- she really was in a position where the only school able to provide her child with an education was a boarding school, and I would have liked to know whether she felt that the fact that the perfect school for her son was boarding was a bonus, or something that had to be reluctantly accepted as the only downside.

We all have a different view of course about what constitutes "inadequate". When we were told many years ago that my DS's primary school has "neither the time interest or money to help him" then that to my mind means it's inadequate. Others of course would disagree and say that he was receiving a basic education in a lovely environment close to home and that although the teaching poor that it doesn't matter.
Of course as I've said before being in a position to pay for education broadens your choices and options.

Happy, we were told something very similar about DS in his first school (plus 'with his needs [essentially, being very able, but at that pioint also very anxious], we are not sure that he will ever be able to go to a mainstream school' when I proposed deregistered him for HE.

Luckily, after a short period of HE, we moved to a different town where the local state primary and secondary have had no problem whatever providing excellently for his needs.

I appreciate that we were lucky in having a chance to move as a family rather than having to consider sending DS elsewhere alone.

As I keep saying teacher it's all about the individuals circumstances. Rural families like us and with an eye firmly fixed on 13+ entry to a super selective (day or boarding) have less options and having sent our DS to boarding school and discovered that for him it works very well I came to the conclusion that if it ain't broke don't fix it.

happy, I'd rather move than send my child boarding.
In fact, we moved back to the UK from abroad when my son with special needs could not cope any more in mainstream primary school. His school told us we could send him as a boarder, but I refused, I moved with him. DH followed a year later.

I cannot understand how anyone could place a primary school child in boarding. I really can't.

Agree, Timeto. We were (very) rural, and moved to a town.

As DS had just turned 6 when we were told he was unlikely to return to mainstream and that the school could do nothing for him, I could not even contemplate the 'sending huim away' option, especially since his 'ASD traits', so in evidence at that time, were so critically anxiety related.

'Oh, you are very able, pathologically anxious, selectively mute [school induced) and have pronounced ASD traits ... I know, let's send you away to board'....moving was by far the more obvious answer, however idyllic the rural location we were living in. I very much recognise Happy's description of her environment, in that it resembles ours at that time [we owned none of it, you understand, excfept for a small house, but the freedom to roam the surrounding countryside wwas very much there] and how ideal it looks, in theory, for the happiness of children...and how much it isn't what we have now. But, for us, that sacrifice was worth it and. critically, unlike my parents a generation ago, we had the money to finance a move.

I've already detailed above my perceived advantages of rural over town up thread Im not going to repeat myself.
IMO rural life provides a significantly better all round quality of life compared to town/city.
Time I'm not asking you to "understand" sending a primary aged children both mine went are it's not done them any harm in fact DS1 was happier at his boarding prep than he ever was at his high achieving outstanding (state) academy.

I just don't get it....why is it that your circumstances and your choice to do a certain thing. Means that another person with perhaps different circumstances should follow suit? When I last looked in the mirror I did not see a leeming.

I think Happy did the right thing for her children. I am sure you did the right thing for your child.

Let me reiterate to board is not to be taken lightly. Your child has to have the skill to cope with boarding. They have to enjoy it before there is any perceivable gain. If your child is one who does not. Then again they should not board.

I find it abhorrent that parents will rent a house so that they can get their children into a local school. Then move back once their position is seured. I also think that if my child is smart will she be better at Grammar school or a selective private school. Yet that will mean travel or moving house. Thus uprooting the family cell from one area to another. Which may cause a ripple effect to the greater family unit. So there is the option of boarding. Where you get to choose the school and make sure your child is in a safe environment.

The beauty of boarding is you can board anywhere. So you are not limited to a certain area. You can find a school that is just right for your child. The likely hood of rejection will then be low. If however it did not work out you can always use the option of moving elesewhere.

Kenlee,

"Why is it that your circumstances and your choice to do a certain thing means that another person with perhaps different circumstances should follow suit?"

Exactly. That is exactly my point, and it works both ways. There are very, very few circumstances in which a child 'has to board'. A family can live very rurally, have exceptionally able children etc but can make entirely different choices - we chose to move, Happy chose for her children to board.

In every case, it is a choice, a balance between different factors. I have little problem with parents who say 'we have chosen to send our child to boarding school, because we have weighed up x and y and z, and although we could achieve the same ends by moving, we choose not to because we perceieve the downsides of boarding to be less than the downsides of moving'. Equally, I believe I am free to say 'I have chosen to move and to send our children to the local state school, because I perceive the downsides of boarding to be much greater than the downsides of moving'.

The pioint about short term renting to obtain a school place is not relevant - we owned our rural house, we own our town house. We did choose the location of the town house to allow access to particular schools - because with an excetionally able, very anxious, school-induced selective mute 6 year old as one of the main reasons behind the move, who wouldn't? The one-off costs of moving - fees, solicitors, removal van - are significantly less than boardng fees!

teacherwith2 your choice with your DS's previous anxieties and problems seems an obvious one, boarding would not be an option even if it was affordable. Having said that since most very good comprehensives within certain areas have a very tight catchment area it would depend on finding and affording a suitable house.
HG's DS2 is extremely able without the same problems so boarding was an option.

As I sure you are aware teacher I don't accept that I could have achieved the same thing in a day school.
If you have an exceptionally bright child, let's say his ability at math (which will also cross over into physics) is such that only 1 in about a 1000 share it, in an average comp lets say 1500 pupils he is likely to be the only one, he will hopefully be in the top set for math (if one exists in some schools there's is not top set for the first coupe of years) but he in a completely different league to his peers, most who perhaps will be in what the top 20% of the ability range? His ability to simply "do" math is just going to be completely different from all the other children and even the staff teaching him, the pace is going to be fast for the rest of the class but for him painfully slow, the teachers tries to differentiate (if you're lucky) but he's got 29 other children to teach as well. What happens? At best he becomes bored, switches off, swings on his chair, looks out of the window, at worst he becomes disruptive, the teacher gets fed up with him, the child starts to hate math, after all he's bored rigid and always being told off, he begins to perhaps think he's not very good at math, he's loosing marks because they insist on seeing workings out but he doesn't understand why anyone needs workings out, they are not needed because to him it's not necessary it's so obvious. After all they doesn't ask to see workings out for 5x5 at this level to him it's all the same, bored of "simple" questions he becomes careless and makes mistakes and looses more marks, and his math on the surface of things deteriorates, he hates the subject even more and becomes more disruptive. The outcome a potentially talented mathematician gives up the subject that he was fortunate enough to be born with an innate ability at.
Alternatively he goes to a super selective (boarding school) here he meets other math geniuses, they are all in a class together, they all learn at the same pace with a math genius teaching them, who understands what it's all about, what it actually means to be a math genius. There is no limit on how fast you can go and how far you can take something, slow class member are moved down because they can't cope. leaving a group who all spark of each other. Math stops being a bore, it becomes effortless because your challenged, the harder it gets the easier and more exciting it is because your using that innate ability you were lucky or maybe unluckily enough to be born with.
This obviously applies to other subjects but also other areas; the talented ballet dancer goes to the royal ballet school (boarding) the talented violist to the music school (boarding) to be given the opportunity to truly develop that talent. How ever good a state comprehensive day school is it can never provide this level on a consistent day to day basis or equally important other talented children/staff to watch, learn from, spark off, and as importantly to see that you are not the only one or the even best that some are better than you.

teacher the other point you don't seem to be grasping is that we don't want to live in a town. Id rather boil my head, I am a country person. I spent the day in a London yesterday, yes it's exciting, multicultural and a wonderful cultural experience, so much to see wherever you look, delicious restaurants, public transport, but this morning I'm back in Smalltownsville this is where I belong where I feel at home. Rural life runs through my blood. When we left London 13 years ago instead of endlessly driving to our horses and ponies they were at the end of my garden leaning over the fence eating my plants, I no longer fought through hideous traffic to take DS1 to school/swimming lessons/friends, I could park my car for free frequently, there was no noise as my friends said "gosh that blackbird is loud", the silence was deafening, I'm a believer in prospect refuge theory and the inner satisfaction that some views bring, I got up every morning looking at a beautiful view, my DS's had endless safe space and freedom, a quality and type of life that for us as a family is so important, let's face it school is only one relatively small part of family life. We've since moved again but rural life will always be for us the right thing. Choosing to stay here has got nothing to do with the cost of moving etc, it's about us as a family about what makes us happy.

Happy, I do 'get' that, for you, boarding is worth it. We have, in many ways, weighed the same things in a similar balance [we are significantly less well off than you, I suspect], but as different things have different weight for us, have come to different decisions. For us, moving gave us not only what we planned - a suitable education - but also as an incidental benefit those things often cited as benefits of boarding schools - supurb opportunities in the community for the extra-curricular activities in which my children excel without time being taken for travel.

All I am trying to add to this thread is a kind of 'middle line' - siomeone who attended boarding school, found it tolerable socially and educationally excellent, who doesn't see boarding as an 'avbsolute bad' or an 'absolute good', but something that has to be weighed in the balance against other factors.

Interestingly, I know a surprisingly large number of ex-pupils of your DS's school through my Oxbridge days. All were scholars (College), all exceptional in their fields, all have exceptionally bright children. None send their sons to their old school. As I saw a couple of them during his thread's lifetime, I asked why not. 'Because it's not worth it,' was the universal reply. Asked to speficy 'it', the first thing they mentioned was the boarding, the living away from home.

That's interesting teacher, because I know lots of men who did send their sons to my ds's boarding school - and I know plenty more who would have done if their sons had got in.
Re. your friends - was it just boarding that they objected to, or did they also have qualms about private schools?