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“This place is great,” a colleague used to tell me, “but it is only half a school.” He had been a boarder at an independent school in Sussex. His school is most famous for its Tudor uniform, and he had stories of exploring underground tunnels by night – but more importantly of friendships and role models that shaped him.
This ‘In Brief…‘ article first featured in the March 2015 Edition of UKEdMagazine – You can order your printed version of the UKEdMagazine by Clicking here, or freely read the Online Version by Clicking here.
I didn’t quite see his point of view, but I sometimes thought about that phrase: Semi-skimmed? Only half a school? Fast forward several years and I became Head of one of England’s forty or so state boarding schools. Lancaster Royal Grammar School has about 170 boarders aged 11 to 18, in a school of 1000 pupils. Two-thirds of our boarders come from within an hour’s radius. Another third are from all corners of the UK, and across the world, although you must hold an EU passport to attend a state boarding school. Boarding is also a haven for a small number of local pupils whose family situation is difficult. And gradually, I understand what he meant. The other half is in the friendships and the shared experience that many of our boarders come to see as a defining privilege of their teenage years.
@christopherpyle Lancaster – Head
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I also work at a state boarding school an sometimes think that our day students do miss out on a lot of what goes on in school in terms of the activities available in the evenings, support during evening prep and weekend trips, as well as the close friendships that the boarders develop.