The best thing about working in a boarding school is also the worse

[OhBeAFineGuyKissMe]

By working long days, evenings and weekends you really do get to know the kids, there are some that you spend a lot of time with and get to really care about them. It can get overwhelming at times but also incredibly rewarding.

Also, when you do get a 2 day weekend it feels so luxurious!

No experience of boarding schools but would like to know where/how staff live. Be curious...what is the accommodation like at your school?

There is a mix of onsiters and offsite. Onsite is a range on offer from large family houses to shared flats, depending on circumstances. Some live in the boarding houses but most don't.

Dd3 has the same- she says she suddenly became a parent to 24 children at once! She adores it but says they become her whole brain- and she was stunned at the family situations/pastoral need at a very academic, upper middle class school. She said thinking through she’s only got about 6 with no additional pastoral need of any kind!

I don’t work in boarding but my new colleague at my prep was equally shocked at the level of pastoral needs at our school - huge! Don’t ever let academics and wealth fool you, the need is just as high.

I regret not giving boarding school work (house parent type jobs) a try when I was starting my career, I remember seeing one be advertised but didn’t apply, I think I was picturing some old fashioned very negative stereotypes. But I spent several years spending my summers working on camps in America and England and loved it and likewise, felt like I gained a family in a short space of time and those children became my priority and people I cared about.

Nowadays, same problem, wouldn’t want the weekend role or to live on site. Should have been an earlier choice.