Large boarding place or small boarding place?

[dynamicequilibrium]

I wonder if you'd prefer a school of about 800 boarding places or aschool with around 180 places or with around 80 places?
Thank you very much!

I've had dcs at schools with around 700 boarding places and 70 places.

The bigger school was a million times better but it completely depends on the school!

Thank you very much for replying my message.
In my case, the larger school is Christ's Hospital (800ish) and the schools with smaller baording place are Abingdon and Dulwich which have approximately 180 each.

Depends on the age of the boarders. If you are joining in 6th form the proportion of boarders to day may be far higher than younger years. So how many of 180 are your peers and how large is the year group in total? How many are overseas students? Is CH boarding throughout and is it day/full?

*weekly/flexi/full

I would go with a larger boarding. It all depends why your DC is boarding. We were overseas so it was important to me that the boarding house didn't empty at weekends. If there are mainly local students then boarding houses tend to empty at weekends, especially with home counties schools, as many of the students are from London and can easily get home for weekends.

I wouldn’t base my decision on that alone, it would be in conjunction with a dozen other considerations:
What the school offers that would suit my child
How far away it was
Percentage of full/weekly/flexi boarders/day
Ethos
Boarding house set up and staffing
Activities
Etc etc etc

FWIW, my eldest goes to an almost entirely full boarding school so over 700... no flexi, no weekly, just a few day (who don’t have the easiest time of it really I think, I wouldn’t send a child there as a day pupil). My youngest flex boards in a school where the majority are day children and there are only 100 boarders in total aged 8-18. But it suits her utterly and completely, just like the first school suits my eldest.

CH has 880 students in which 800 are boarders and mong the 800, 120 are international students.
DC has 1364 students in which 130 are boarders and 69 among the 130 pupils are international students.
Abingdon has around 860 students in which 130 are boarders and 80 are international students.
Thanks!

It depends on you really. If your coming here to sit in your room behind your desk all the time working hard to get top grades and that is your sole motivation then it probably doesn’t matter. On the other hand if you want to be fully emerged in school life the cameraderie associated with a large full boarding school the drama music etc etc then go for the big full boarding school.

Thank you very much for your response.

And CH is a fab school

Theres 300 at my daughters school, all boarders but its 6th form only. Wish we could have done it earlier, its been a great experience.

Thank you all for your response!