Ah, Saturday night. An opportunity to catch up on your favourite boxset; invite friends round for a game of pool; go for a pint at the pub. Sound familiar? Well, it’s also how Saturday nights work here, at a seven-day-a-week boarding school.
“Boarding school provides a great combination of support whilst encouraging independent organisation and planning. It really is the best of all worlds.”
When I first made the move to boarding, I was rather cynical. What on earth would children do at school on Saturday nights and Sunday afternoons? Six years on, I am a convert to full boarding for three reasons:
As a full boarding school, there are activities on offer almost round the clock. After lessons or sport, pupils can create art in the paint studios, or create music in one of the School’s orchestras; stretch their minds in academic surgeries, or stretch their legs at the gym; try out new skills in elective clubs, or further old skills in academic societies.
Being at boarding school means that children are living with their friends and can socialise within minutes of School commitments ending. Indeed, much of the socialising happens at weekends. They won’t be best friends with everyone, of course, but friendships developed here will last for life. And along the way they will learn to live alongside people different from them, developing tolerance and understanding of others.
Being at School 24/7 means that our young people have to find ways of occupying themselves outside of the times activities are organised and to balance downtime with being busy. Boarding school provides a great combination of support whilst encouraging independent organisation and planning. It really is the best of all worlds.
''They won’t be best friends with everyone, of course, but friendships developed here will last for life''
Housemaster, Head of Trivium and Teacher of Politics
