Small local independent or state boarding?

[Howdoesthatevenwork]

Every school in our area, as in every school in 20 miles, is below average or well below average. P8 ranging from -1.47 to -0.26. GCSE English and maths 5+ ranges from 4% to 35%. English and maths 4+ ranges from 17% to 64%.

There are 2 things going through our heads at the minute.

1. We are debating whether spending money would be worthwhile and;
2. If we spend the money, how do we spend it.

We have an independent school which is tiny. They have around 100 in the whole school, including 6th form, which works out at about 15 per year. So it does guarantee small class sizes. A place is also (almost) guaranteed. They only do IGCSE at GCSE level but the GCSE options are limited and depend on what the cohort chooses. Im not sure whether I like this? The school day is 08:30-17:30. 16:30-17:30 is compulsory extra curricular which doesn’t include homework so that would have to be done after school. The extra curricular is surprisingly limited. It has 88% A*-C grades. This is total entries, not only English and maths. I can’t find the English and maths only results. I would have expected higher for a private school? All do 9 IGCSEs but strangely they only offer double science, one MFL and no music or technologies. They only have history, geography, art, business, drama and PE to choose 3 from for the options. Offers DofE.

The alternative option is a state boarding school. It’s about 45 minutes away from us in the car. Theoretically it’s commutable daily and there are busses that run to it. It would be an hours journey. We could apply for a day place but it is very oversubscribed and if we opt for boarding we would be (almost) guaranteed a place. This would also mean the full life of the school, such as extra curricular, of which there is a huge variety of options, can be taken advantage of which would be tricky if we applied for a day place. There are around 1300 in the school, including 6th form, and a PAN of 210. Class sizes would be the typical 30. The school day is 08:45-15:30 with extra curricular running until 16:30. All do 9 GCSEs and they are very EBacc focussed although there is some wiggle room. They offer triple science, 3 MFLs, music, art and drama, a range of technologies as well as a selection of other subjects including some vocational ones. Offers DofE, John Muir, arts award and STEM award.
They have a P8 of 0.33, English and maths 5+ 61% and at 4+ 83%.

I feel like if we are going to spend money then the state boarding school is possibly the way to go. I was just wondering whether others would come to the same or different conclusion based on the above and why?

do you have the option to move house closer to a school you like?

what kind of school would suit your child? is he/she academically minded? is he/she independent enough to cope with boarding?

Do you live in Northumberland?

We had a terrible experience at a state boarding school but with very different requirements to you. What part of the country?

'It has 88% A*-C grades. This is total entries, not only English and maths. I can’t find the English and maths only results. I would have expected higher for a private school?'

Not if they accept anyone, which by the sound of it they do. And because they're independent, they don't have P8 scores published - so it's very difficult to compare with state schools.

I think it's easy to panic at negative progress 8 scores but, as a general rule, students from more disadvantaged backgrounds make less progress than their peers. A comprehensive school with a wide intake, perhaps situated near an area with deprivation, will struggle to generate a positive P8 score. I personally wouldn't be concerned about a school whose students came out with 0.3 of a GCSE grade below average IF I loved the feel of the school and felt my child could still thrive there. Have you looked round any of the schools or just looked at P8?

I would not send my child to a boarding school so I’d discount that and either move or go fur the local independent.

Personally I would have concerns about the viability of such a small independent school, particularly given Labour’s plans to add VAT to school fees which is expected to lead to a reduction in pupil numbers. At the very least I would be scrutinising their accounts and asking the head or the bursar how they are planning for this.
I would focus on the state boarding option if I thought it would suit my child, otherwise I’d move nearer a more suitable school.

State boarding has been great for us. Ignore the haters you will still see your child every weekend. Key thing is does your child want to board, it needs to be their decision.

Independent schools can’t work miracles. If they are non selective, anyone can go, which will often include a lot of children who struggle as these children will not pass exams for selective independent schools. There are some children who just won’t achieve a 5 in English/maths at GCSE, whatever the school does. So I wouldn’t be too worried by the 88% figure.

the lack of extra curricular really doesn’t surprise me, in a small school with a small number of teachers they won’t be able to offer as much as big schools with lots of teachers. If every teacher runs one club, at the independent that might be 20 clubs a week, at a huge state school it could be hundreds! Plus some clubs won’t be viable with so few children (a rugby team needs 15 pupils of the same sex and age for example). Same with MFL, they probably only have 1/2 teachers so limited languages offering.

if your child is happy to board it sounds like the state boarding school is the best option, but that’s a big decision at 11. Do they have to do Monday-Friday or is there a flexi boarding offering? Say 1/2 nights per week?

I've taught in boarding schools, including as a houseparent.

I'd never recommend boarding. Ever.

I'd go for the state school as a Day student. Move closer if you can. Day pupils don't miss out on the good stuff but they do escape the toxic side. They're welcome to stay for extra curricular evening activities.

I would echo what a couple of others have said: viability of a small private school, especially if labour get in and enforce their private school tax (apologies, I am not too sure what they are calling it but they are going to hike fees up) and concerns over boarding at such a young age.

Personally I wouldn’t pay for private unless it was all-singing all-dancing amazing results, oxbridge offerer, multiple languages, sports and music. If it’s only offering what, or in your case less, than a local or other school can offer, I wouldn’t touch it.

Boarding can work, but your child needs to WANT to board. It won’t work otherwise. I feel like boarding is someone that is more suited to 6th formers, or the earliest 14 year olds.

You also mention that you could apply for a day place at the state boarding school - why don’t you do that? You might not get a place, but it is worth a try? Can you apply for a boarding place later on, in say Y10, if you don’t get a day place and have to go local? Alternatively mix and match? Independent for Y7-Y9 then the state boarding for Y10+ to get the GCSE variety you are clearly after?

Can you pick the best of the local schools? A negative P8 and low results isn’t the end of the world. That is how ALL children in that year achieved. It is not a guarantee of the results your child will achieve. Dig deeper. How did the high, middle, low achievers do?

I’ve said this a few days ago on another post, but I feel it is also relevant to you - local school with targeted private tuition. It sounds as if you can afford tuition if/when it will be needed so perhaps consider? You will be saving, what? 2 hours a day if you don’t choose the private school and don’t send your child on a long journey. That’s 2 hours that could be used for targeted private tuition.

Apologies, a almost direct copy and paste from the other day, with a few little tweaks for you, but:

Having DC who are tired and exhausted because of travelling to a better school can be counter productive to the overall aim. I would also say, in regards to the private school, this would be the case for long school days. I sent DC1 and DC2 to the better school. I wish I had chosen the closer secondary school and put the £400 a term per child we spent on bus fees into tuition at GCSE level. (Imagine a tuition fund of £6k per child - we wasted that on transport, I look back and think - why?!) Imagine what you could do in regards to targeted tuition if you saved only half of the private school or boarding fees.
I thought the further way school with better results would be worth it. In reality we spent a lot of money on transport, DC1 and DC2 were travelling for 2 hours a day, they were exhausted and didn’t do as well as they could have done. I think they did worse than if they had gone to the less well performing local school 30 minutes walk away. They would have been better more local, to be able to do after school activities, to have local friends and for us to put the money into tuition if they needed it.

In contrast DS3 (big age gap - happy little accident) has gone to local school, it’s still performing worse than the one the other 2 went to but DC3 is happier, not exhausted and doing better. DC3 school has poor results like your schools (25% 5+ English and maths, -0.7 progress). And yes, we are saving the £400 a term we would have spent on transport in case it is needed at GCSE level.

Its horses for courses and you need to do the best for your family circumstances and your DD, but I just wanted to highlight this for you so you can consider whether this is a route you want to go down.

A private school with so few students sounds like it could have financial woes very quickly. I would stay clear of that.

That private school sounds very precarious financially, and I'd worry with that few kids, there could be cliques and mean kids, but that's not such an issue in a big school with more kids. I'd never even consider boarding school, unless some exceptional circumstance, why bother having kids to send them away. I'd just go state school but spend money on private tutoring and extra curricular activities.

Have you asked your child how their feel about boarding?
Can you move?
Hire tutors to bring them up to scratch?

Some good points made, especially towards the private school. In a way I was secretly hoping that others would say what they have said about it because you are all echoing my concerns which I deliberately left out of the OP to see if it was just me or whether other people would say similar things. I don’t think I like the private school. It’s very small, has less opportunities, I worry about whether it is financially stable and I think it is very expensive for what it is.

I am leaning towards the state boarding school. DC has seen the school, albeit when we had the intention of applying for a day place, and does like it. I think we would have to see the school and the boarding house to make a firm decision.

We do have the option of applying for a day place at the school. If we do this then we cannot apply for a boarding place which means we would probably not get a place. We would be allowed to apply for a boarding place if we don’t get a place, so we could apply in march, unless we appeal, in which case we won’t be able to apply for a place until after appeal. At each stage the likelihood of a place gets less and less due to other parents having similar ideas and applying for boarding when they do not get a day place.

Boarding options are Sunday night/Monday-Friday or full boarding. They do not do flexi as far as I am aware. Although I will ask.

We are definitely in a position where we could afford tutoring (we can afford fees so from our POV, money for tutoring is not an issue) we could also afford the daily school bus which would be a dedicated school bus, not a public transport bus. I am not against tutoring, but I do think hours of tutoring could be avoided if we choose a decent school.

Really, we just want to avoid the really awful schools which have very negative progress, extremely poor results and I don’t think they are very good. There is maybe one schools I would consider, has a P8 of -0.26 and the highest of the headline figures, but it selects on religion and always oversubscribed so we are a long way down the list.

Someone mentioned about digging deeper into the results, I shall do do that.

@notquitesoyoung and @All2Well am I allowed to ask why you had such negative experiences/ would not recommend boarding?

And likewise, @26374hsg am I allowed to ask why you had a good experience / why you would recommend?

As well as the financial viability of the independent school, the limited range of GCSE option choices would put me off.

State boarding feels like it could offer a broader and more stable education. This obviously depends on how you feel about boarding school, weekly boarding etc.

Or could you move house?

This has suddenly occurred to me but are you applying this year, as in, you child will be starting secondary in September 2024?

I just want to clear this up because the deadline is getting very very close. I don’t know about you, but we are on half term this week and I can’t see how you will have time to arrange a visit, view the school and boarding house and make the right decision as to whether to apply for a day place or a boarding place by 31st October. That would be my big concern at the moment in time if I was in your position.

Regardless of your financial situation and the results of other schools, you MUST have an application in by the deadline otherwise I can guarantee, based on what you have said, you have absolutely no chance of a day place at the state boarding school or the other half decent school you mention and you will end up with one of the schools you are trying so hard to avoid.

If you are applying this year I would honestly just apply for the day place, take the time over the next few months to really think about boarding and if you don’t get a place then, if boarding is the right thing for your child, apply for boarding ASAP in march.

I would be using my last few days before the deadline wisely, especially as you have your sights set on what seems to be unachievable, both for the day place and for the other school you have mentioned. You need to make sure your child has a place somewhere next year. As you have discounted the private school you need look into all the schools which have even a slight chance of making the list, pick the least worst option and make sure that is on your list.

If it’s next year, then I’ll stop panicking that you’ve left it so late but please please please please make sure you have some sort of application in by 31st.

My dd state boarded for 6th form, she chose it. I wouldn't recommend it earlier unless your dc is really on board. It wasn't as nurturing as a full boarding school either as it's set up for those living remotely. Do check out if it suits your dc pastorally rather than just exams

Have you considered the local day school and tutors if dc struggles?
If you’re looking at £15k (?) a year for state boarding or local mini private that’s a huge amount of money that could be used in other ways.

I have had bad personal experience with a very small independent school. Class sizes can be too small to support properly functioning friendships, quality of teaching is wildly variable and financial position definitely precarious. And sport hopeless.

More information on the SBS would help. Is it single-sex or co-ed; which would your child prefer? More importantly, what is the ratio of boarders to day pupils; if you are a day pupil in a school that is predominantly boarding then you can feel an outsider.

My negative experiences were based on the emotional difficulties students often had as a result of boarding and the coldness and inability to adequately care for students' emotional needs that I witnessed in my colleagues who were also houseparents.

Because they were separated from their families, students often couldn't express their emotions in a healthy way and felt forced to grow up quickly and develop a stiff upper lip. However, difficult emotions are a part of life and so students would turn to other ways of releasing their feelings. Self harm was absolutely rife on a scale that I have never witnessed in a day school as were eating disorders, mainly bulimia. Friendships (and romantic relationships) could be much more intense between boarders given how much access they had to each other and we would often identify that these were very toxic and often controlling. For example, certain girls would self harm together or form "diet groups" which were basically like in person pro-ana groups. Sexual relationships started much earlier and at a much more intense level as students were often seeking the emotional support and attachment, which boarding school naturally fractures with parents, in other pre-teens and teenagers who themselves weren't emotionally equipped. Out of all the schools I worked in over a 20 year period, the boarding schools were the most disturbing and it still upsets me to know the emotional struggles students went through in the boarding environment and the lasting impact they will have experienced.

I'm now a University Lecturer and have had a few boarders as my personal tutees, including one who was a state boarder at Dallam and had all the issues with self harm and anorexia when she joined due to feeling abandoned by her mother when she was put into a boarding school. Generally, the boarders have a very easy transition in first year to university life and are very good at supporting the very homesick students, almost taking on a parentifed role. Then at some point in second year once they've bonded with housemates who didn't board and realised how much they missed out on in terms of being with family and having real parental support in their formative years, they often have some sort of mental health crisis. Sometimes returning to self harm or an eating disorder or falling into a very deep depression. They will beg us not to tell parents and will have real shame around their emotions and the impact it's having on their studies (as most of them also have perfectionistic traits and hold themselves to impossible standards). A few struggle to form romantic attachments at all during their three or four years at university as they completely switch off their ability to be vulnerable. One of my students (the state boarder) said to me..."yeah, you don't really enjoy boarding school. You survive it. I was popular and did well academically but it's not right that it's left to a group of 12 year olds to support each other when all you really want is your Mum. Is it any surprise we all ended up with a shit ton of mental health problems and anxiety?"

No doubt people will come along and say they absolutely thrived and ten generations of their families had a wonderful time etc but I can only speak from my own personal experience, which unfortunately has been very negative.

And I'd really beg you to reconsider if the idea to board is not coming from the child themself. No matter what you say or do, they will see that as a rejection of them or abandonment at some point in the future and it's that which tends to have the longest and deepest impact upon them. If it is their idea to board, also make sure you have a solid back up plan in the event that they are unhappy and want to come home.

Have sent you a private message, OP.

I wouldn’t consider the independent based on your description. I would not consider weekly boarding for my own child but I don’t know yours.

Genuinely, if at all possible I would move house.

This is for 2024 entry.

It is probably too late as this stage to move. Unless people are suggesting if we get a day place then we move?

SBS is co-ed. The boarders make up a small proportion of the school. Roughy 10%.

I feel there have been some very good points raised about time scales and questions we need to iron out before making this decision. We still have a week to have a really good think about it and we will be. DC is aware that this is an option and says they won’t mind boarding but I do take on board the points about it needs to be driven by DC and that it may be sensible to apply for a day place an apply for boarding later after we have had months to think about it rather than weeks.

My concern with this is that we miss out on a place altogether and end up with the rubbish schools. As mentioned, there is only one other that I would even entertain and we have almost no chance of a place. I do take on board the points about going through them and working out the least worst because we do need a 3rd choice for the list.

@All2Well thank you for explaining in greater detail your reasons. It is certainly food for thought.