Trunk or Suitcase for Boarding School

[Stuffragette]

Which should I get? I imagine it would have to be two suitcases. My dad is v disorganised

Doesn’t it advise on the school website? My school had a particular type of trunk it liked because they stacked well in the storage place.

No, no helpful info whatsoever. I’m feeling a little flummoxed by it all. I have visions of him shoving all his stuff into bags and running out of space

You're sending your dad to boarding school? Blimey, I wish I could have done that to mine.

Box edge, tough suitcase that stacks well I think.

Our school insisted on trunks. The shape means you get more in. Do you not have a uniform list and extra info for boarders. Email housemaster?

Depends which school you are going to. Wheeled suitcases are helpfully if it's a long walk from the car to dorm.

I think trunks very much out now. Hard to store, heavy to get up stairs. Multiple softer bags

Trunks still v much in at my old school, just looked at the website. And they have to get them up steps on a hillside! Our trunks had wheels.

He's an adult.... let him figure it out for himself

I don't know how you would get all your stuff in with suitcases. My trunk probably stored six suitcases worth...??? Cost a lot more also!

We had the trunk lined with two blankets. Each blanket contained half the contents and you took that up the stairs. The trunk stayed in the corridor. When empty, the trunk went to loft storage in school. As they are flat they can be piled on top of one another. Suitcases were only allowed for international students who flew in. They don’t stack.

We had sack barrows to wheel the trunks from the car to the corridor and young men to help out. No problem at all. Buy your own trunk and barrow. I’m not sure where you get the young men from!

Mine started with the regulation trunk. By the time he finished it all went in and out in black bin bags. Much easier to shove in the car and it's not like he ever packed it neatly in the trunk. Was always just shoved in. Most people seemed to use bin bags (Eton). I appreciate this is not the impression you want to make on first day in the House though!

Girls have so much more stuff than boys though!!! I didn’t supply mine with bin bags.

We had trunks at my school.

At the start and end of every term we had to 'do trunks' which was forming a human chain from the ground floor to the basement and passing the trunks along to (or from) storage.

Trunk was then useful in my first term at university as an extra table!

At my daughter's boarding school it was trunks and they had somewhere special to store them. At my son's
, it is soft bags to store in bedroom. No trunks allowed. Call the school and check

Suitcases!

Laundry bags are good

You need to ask the school. Friend works in one. They like small squashable bags as storage is limited. They say only bring 3 or 4 sets of clothes.
Others will have rooms to stack the kind of wheely suitcase people go on holiday with. I’d email and ask.

We do a suitcase, a very large hold-all (that fits inside suitcase once empty) and assorted bags eg ikea, suitcarrier etc. Fills the boot of our people carrier and some! Never seen trunks

I think you'll need to contact the school and see what they recommend.

We've had dc at 4 boarding schools and 2 of them asked for trunks and 2 asked for soft suitcases

4 changes of clothes? That’s less than a week!

My school had lots of students from overseas and they had huge trunks shipped. School was their home for years. The trunks would often stay and their stuff packed into it in summer hols whilst rooms were cleaned and reallocated and then unpacked and sorted on return. If a student didn’t return it was ready for shipping. New clothes and belongings were brought in as necessary. Hundreds of suitcases would have been chaos!

Suitcases are fine. No need to buy a trunk.

Not knowing anything about boarding schools but having stumbled across this thread, this sounds like something out of the 1930s!
Now it's been pointed out, I can well see the storage practicalities, but am amazed that trunks even still exist. Where on Earth do you buy them from? If anyone would be kind enough to post a link or picture I would be pleased to see what they're like!

www.tuckonline.com/products/school-kit/

I’m an assistant Housemistress in a boarding school. We would love to bring back the trunk, but at the moment there is no storage other than in girls’ rooms, so soft bags are the way to go. Some girls have their parents take away some of the cases/boxes and bring back early at the end of term.
You really need to ask. Email the Housemistress, she’ll be on alert by now!