Boarding school - will I regret it?

[BuffysMum]

dd1 wants to go to boarding school (will cost us around £3k per year max), of course is is competitive entry so she may not get in.

BUT if she does I send her what are the down sides that I haven't thought of. BTW she is very academically able and the school she will attend other wise has been bottom/near bottom of the league tables for years despite huge amount of investment after it failed.

Talk with your xh, talk with your dd, talk to the school and see if dd still likes the thought of it once explained fully - then make a decision. Good luckx

Zippi, think son of god

2 things

1. you couldn't pay me to allow a child of mine to board

2. if you apply and she gets offered a place you will not be able to say no .. I really would advise you to decide beforehand .. can you imagine her knowing she got in and you not allowing her to go .. you would be on incredibly shaky ground there .. why allow her to apply .. just to see if she got in?

Twiglett - what if you were in the position that my parents were in?

I was desperate to continue with my music, they wanted me to continue too. However it was a constant battle to get to music lessons, fit in music practice, homework, and things like Brownies and playing with friends. In the end we decided (well I had heard about Music Scholarships and wanted to ask them, and they'd been looking into them and wanted to broach the subject with me LOL) that the only way for me to be able to continue my music and be a 'normal' teenager was to get a music scholarship somewhere.

The local girls school did music scholarships - but didn't offer the Organ as one of the 'optioins' (not much good given Organ was my main instrument). I ended up 350 miles away from them but almost overnight became happier - I had time to do everything I wanted to do - and as a result when I was at home with them in the holidays was a much happier person - and still to this day have a great relationship with my mum (average one with my dad - but that was the case even before I began my music....)- even though from 12-18 I was away at boarding school - and for the last 2yrs there I hardly went home in the summer holidays instead staying with friends in Edinburgh for the Festival .

If I'd stayed at home and gone to a local school something would had to have 'given' - and I dread to think what it would have been as music is still a huge part of my life now.....

sorry would never contemplate a child of mine not living with us ..

of course much easier to say as have not been confronted with that kind of situation as eldest is only 6 .. but I cannot, now, envisage it

Twig - my dad sais the same - talking to him even now (now Daddy's little girl is all grown up and expecting her 3rd DC ) he still says he can't quite believe he agreed to me going to boarding school. Although he's glad he did as it worked out well for all concerned, he was always absolutely adamant that "no child of his would ever go to private school" (never mind boarding LOL).

I think that's the thing I feel stuck between a rock and a hard place.

There will always be a place at the local school (unless it finally shuts through lack of attendance!), so i send her to the local school, she hates it - then what do I do - she is forced to stay at local school for 5 years without any choice of going anywhere else. All the better schools have waiting lists/are oversubcribed.

Surely better to try boarding school if she doesn't like it she can leave and try the local one, i don't have the choice to do it the other way around.

Perhaps my parents wil die, we'll inherit and we can move house but I'm not holding out for that happening by September....

fannyannie - we have loads of specialist musicians at dc's school. Most of them board. They are super dooper musicians who just would not et the teaching at home.

I know you do Beety - I actually applied to that school but didn't get in.

Buffysmum - if its any help my Mum hated the idea of me 'going away to school', something she didn't tell me until well after I had left school. She took the incredible decision of allowing me (at 11) to decide if I wanted to go.
I have nothing but admiration for her for giving me that choice (and the chance of an amazing education), it has always given me a huge sense of how much she loved and valued me even then.

The proviso was always clear that I could leave at any time if I didn't like it but I thrived there.

Am now slightly paranoid that the fishy one was a contemporary that I haven't sussed out. Think she's way younger than me though

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thanks ladies - I didn't realise it was such a can of worms. Those who hated it obviously really suffered and seem to think their lives would have been wonderful if they'd been at day school but what I don't get if they had such loving parents who they wantd to be with then why did the parents make them stay at boarding school.........I suppose my friends were and still are my family and i can't imagine having a warm loving relationship with my dc as they get older as it's something I've never experienced (hope I do though)

I shall apply and see what happenns......

I think it is unbelievably cruel Everyone I know who has been has issues of one kind or another with their parents.You would miss a huge chunk of her growing up

but bloss, don't you work in an australian boarding house? I imagine they are worlds apart?

Frogs, yes, G School, it was appalling. There was frequent emotional abuse by staff of vulnerable girls, also lots of rasim and predjudice against less affluent girls (also from staff). Generally the girls themselves were lovely and supportive of each other, but it was every girl for herself when it came to the crunch, and if the Head of House made a cruel joke about another girl, then what could they do but laugh along? They were all less than 14 years old, some were only 5

We (other gappies and I) reported some specific cases of emotional abuse to the Head, and she didn't want to hear about it. Fortunately a year or so after we left SS investigated certain members of staff, and the 2 worst were dismissed.

Lots of the girls were not picked on by the staff, and really loved it. My worry would be that during the term or so it might take you to realise your child was being abused, untold damage could already be done.

Yes, I know this is not everyones experience, there are many loving matrons etc, and some children adore boarding. Personally i wouldn't risk it, plus I think its right that children live with their parents (except in very exceptional circumstances), and are not raised by other people, however kind and fun they may be.

Astrophe it does make me think thank goodness I can go and see her twice a week if need be so hopefully if she's unhappy I will know very very quickly. What it does make me realise is that where ever she ends up she may have to endure bullying for being different and all the decent schools have waiting lists she could end up stuck in that situation for too long. Sometimes I hate life and what we have to go thru .

I really can't imagine letting my dd board before secondary education nor can I imagine my others boarding they are very different personalities and I just couldn't see them enjoying it all.

Astrophe, I was at G and everything you say rings true. I don't know when you were there but the long-standing Head when I was there terrified me. I remember wetting myself once while waiting to be seen by her about something I had no involvement in. I went when I was 9 and the girl in the bed next to me was so unhappy she didn't speak to any of us for well over a term, yet I don't remember any staff trying to help her in any way. She cried herself to sleep every night for months. They started taking really young children in about my last year -I remember a 5 year old.

Funnily enough I enjoyed my first two years (aged 9 - 10) but then was unhappy. I then went on to WA which I did not like at all and have very little good to say about. (I wonder when you were there, Frogs?)

Suffice to say none of my children will ever board. For me, the main reason is that I stopped including my parents in my life and led a parallel life about which they knew nothing. Even now I would never consult them or ask for advice about anything, although I am happy to see them and enjoy spending time with them. So yes, boarding school made me independent but it's not the kind of independence I'd want for my children.

sari - you poor thing
I was a gap matron in 1999. I've totaly forgotton the Head's name...she had two big dogs in her office.

The staff who were dismissed were heads of H house (miss s) and w house (kath ??)

wow I surprise myself that i've forgotton names...blocked them out!

when were you there?

buffysmum - i'm sure you are a lovely mum and will keep a very close eye on your dd if she goes. please do, andtake anything she says very seriously.

Oh gosh - you poor things! I can't imagine what it must have been like for you gals who had a really tough time.

Astrophe, I'm really shocked that your experiences are so recent -- I had hoped that kind of sarky nastiness and bullying had died out.

I do know plenty of people who genuinely enjoyed boarding, and I don't think they're deluding themselves in hindsight. It does tend to be a particular type of individual, though: naturally outgoing, gregarious, good all-rounders, bright but not superintelligent, not excessively thoughtful or given to analysing, not particularly sensitive.

I think it also helps to come from a background where boarding is the expected norm, and to be in a school where most other people come from the same kinds of family. Boarding is much less likely to suit people who are quite introspective, quiet, easily hurt, and have a high need for personal space and time out, or are in some other way inclined to be the odd one out.

It does seem to be the case on this and other similar threads that the people who have been to bs are usually the ones who are most vehemently against it and the people who send their dcs to bs are the ones who are most pro.

Surely there's a lesson there...?

However excellent the school the fact remains that by sending your child to live full time in the care of another 'institution' you are distancing yourself from that child. Like it or not.

yes shimmy, I agree. An institution is an institution is an institution.

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I'd love to know how many of the "how could you countenance sending your child away" posters are anti childcare for working mums.

I am not trying to start a fight, it genuinely interests me, as I think many of the "should I go back to work" threads are quite muted now, for fear of causing offence or making judgements whereas this has been quite honest.

No. But you may find the uniform a bit itchy.

LOL bloss.

We looked at boarding school in NZ. It would cost less than private primary day school in the UK, even if DD were an overseas student, for her to board in NZ. It vaguely crossed my mind in a 'three years in NZ would confirm her NZ citizenship' cold and calculating way but I would hate her to be so far away.

When we thought we would move to Australia, we spent some time looking at Geelong Grammar as our friends' children went to Glamorgan before they moved to Perth. But I wasn't sure how I felt about the year away from everything in Y9 at Timbertop. Completely idyllic or a nightmare?